Wau Socks Found

The Million-To- One Chance

How A Pair Of

George Clark

I WAS sitting recently in that lounge of the Hotel Cecil, at Lae, with three other men, and over a glass of beer; and the con versation came round to racehorses and long-shot winners. The refer ence to long odds took my memory back over many years.

Back in 1931, I was prospecting for gold on the Morobe field near Wau, and I decided to have a week end at the old Hotel Bulolo, in Wau, owned and managed by that fine woman, Mrs. F. S. Stewart. After dinner, I wandered along to the lounge, and was invited to sit into a game of poker, by a man named Jim Wright.

The game ended in the early hours of morning; and I then discovered that Jim was my room-mate. We had a number of drinks that week end, and we sort of took to each other and became fast friends.

Jim Wright was working a claim at that time on Edie Creek, at a place near Golden Ridges. He was an Englishman, well educated, charming manners—a very fine type of man. I always said that the more rum Jim drank the more polite he got. He was married, later, and set up a little trading-post as a side-line to his claim.

Over the years our friendship grew, and I had many happy even ings with Jim and his wife.

CAME 1939, Word War 11. In March or April 1940, I enlisted for active service at Salamaua, then our port of entry, and head quarters of the goldfield. About 35 other local chaps enlisted with me.

We were drafted into the 2/25th Battalion, and sent to Port Darwin for solid training. How many of my old cobbers of the 25th Battalion will forget Vesteys Barracks, the torrential rains, the terrible food, the heat and mosquitoes!

After five months’ hard training we returned to Brisbane (Redbank Camp), and thence to Sydney and embarkation on the Queen Mary.

AFTER the Syrian campaign—fast and fierce—our brigade moved to Tripoli for the winter. En route to that place, per trucks, we camped one night at Beirut, in a vineyard. I got very sick there with

dysentery—grapes , I suppose—and,

with others, I was sent back to Haifa, per ambulance, to an Aus tralian Hospital.

After four weeks’ treatment I was sent to an Australian Infantry

Training Battalion at a place name Dimra, near Gaza, Palestine. Ther were several of these camps in th country. However, this camp re ceived and took on strength al reinforcements from Australia, in eluding personnel from hospitals schools, detention camps, etc.

During this period (while I was a Dimra) the whole 7th Brigade (in' eluding my battalion) was recallec to Australia. I felt lonely. However 1 was cross-posted to the 2/!

Machine Gun Company, commandec by the great soldier and grant man, MacArthur Onslow.

Now, have I made it clear that 3 was sent hither and yon, about the Middle East, and that what hap pened was sheer coincidence?

Before I left Dimra, per truck, tc join the machine gunners, the orderly corporal came along the lines of tents and called, “A Rec Cross issue will be made at the orderly room at 3.30 p.m. There will be no parade”.

So, when the time came 1 wandered down to the orderly room, There were 500 men in that camp.

When my turn came, I filed past an officer and a sergeant, sitting at a table. I signed a book, and was handed a tin of Log Cabin tobacco, and a pair of knitted socks.

But in my tent, I pushed the socks into the old black kit-bag. Next day, I moved to my new regiment, and was given two days’ leave in Telaviv. I searched the kitbag for clean clothes, and I put on the new socks.

On the inside of those socks was pinned a little card which read: “Good luck, Soldier! From Mr. & Mrs. Jim Wright, Golden Ridges, Wau, New Guinea”.

AT that time, there were 90,000 Australian troops in the Middle East, 12,000 in England, 8,000 in Malaya and thousands in Port Darwin.

I found out, afterwards, that socks and other garments were knitted in Wau, sent to a pool in Rabaul, forwarded to Sydney, re-pooled among tens of thousands of socks, and finally sent overseas to Eng land, Malaya and Middle East.

I related the incident to our Staff Major and, when I saw him again a few days later, he told me that it was almost impossible to work out the odds against my getting those socks.

Mr. George G. Clark can add another coincidence to these he writes about here.

In November Tolala asked for the address of Clark (p. 28), but before November ‘TIM” had time to get into circula tion we had received this story from the man himself. His address is PO Box 67, Bulolo, New Guinea.