Clive Brewster Looks

Towards Suva

WITH the end of the World War 11, Group-Captain Clive Brewster, of Suva, contemplates early permanent retirement from the Services. He says he “has had it.” He came out of World War I with an. RAN commission and a decoration or two; and, when bother started again in 1939, he thought he might be useful. No one else thought so.

Despite his record, and his Lieut.- Colonelcy in the Fiji Defence Force, it took him months to wangle his way into the RAAF, where he arrived as a modest pilot-officer, or something. He went to Evans Head Gunnery School, in 1940, as adjutant—and, thenceforward, from one training establishment after another, and from rank to rank —with a spell on MacArthur’s Staff for variety.

And, of course, being Clive Brewster, he would end the war picturesquely. On August 15, he was flyfng with an old pal in a squadron of 18 Beaufort bombers, dropping pills on Jap positions in the Torricelli Mountains, behind Wewak, TNG, when a radio message was re ceived, advising that the war was over and cancelling all further operations. He had been having what he called “a Cooks Tour” of RAAF stations in New Guinea, Celebes and Borneo, but is now back at Victor Harbour (SA) School.of Adminis tration.

“I wonder if there’s cool, clean-tasting ‘Yagona’ still to be had at Muir’s saloon?

And is my ‘bile’ waiting by the bowl?” he writes.