[MAGNA]

I was lucky enough to work in an aged care facility for a few years and met some interesting people who were involved in WWII. One was a transport driver in Darwin during the period of Japanese attacks.

He said the most dangerous part was driving along the jetty to and from the ships. There were American transport troops there as well. That was the bit that was more dangerous than the bombing according to this bloke.

When I asked him why he laughed and said the jetty was just wide enough for two trucks. The problem was he and his mates would be driving down the left hand side of the jetty while the American drivers would travel down the right. You went around large containers unloaded on the wharf and then there would be a large truck coming straight at you. Must have been fun. He said there were a lot of near misses until everyone worked themselves out, then some new drivers would turn up and the whole mess would start again.

He said in the end everything went very smoothly and he and his mates made some great friends among the Americans.

Many of the containers which ended up not used or on the bottom of Darwin harbour were salvaged and sold off at the end of the war. There is a place called Newdegate which is a couple of hours drive from Albany (Wheatbelt town). A farm sold up there about twenty years ago and had belonged to an old fellow who passed away. Apparently his family weren't interested in his possessions so most went with the farm. The new owners found two very large containers in the shed.

When opened the containers had a lot of parts covered in grease and wrapped up. The parts in one proved to be a complete jeep (shades of radar O'reilly?) and the other contained most if not all the parts for three complete Harley Davidson WLA motor bikes - the ones with the hand gear lever.

I wonder if the relatives would have shown more interest had they known about this, as well as the straight eight Oldsmobile which a friend of mine bought later - it is still on the road - the bonnet (hood) gets to where you are going about 20 minutes before the rear bumper - it's one long car.