a post for the 25th

This is a post for both of my grandfathers. Bill/William Tucker, who was in New Guinea in WWII, I'm not sure where and I'm not sure doing what, something involving the airforce.

And (AB) Joe Barrington (MID), on the HMAS Shropshire, an "experienced operator...who could read around the curved edge of the radar screen". Barrington was a member of a radar team known as the 'Crazy 13', which included "some radar trainees selected from an interested group of high IQ graduates from Sydney University" - funny because Grandad left school at about 15, and lied about his age when signing up for the navy. He is a smart and canny one though, and I've no doubt he held his own against the ponces from the uni - probably taught them a thing or two, and no doubt won them over with a few cheeky jokes; he's a charmer. The war opened up Grandad's world; he went to America, to bars in New York, to England, and later even along the west coast of New Guinea.

Grandpa Bill never spoke about the war, to me as a kid anyway. He tended not to speak about the past. But Grandad did, and does; over Christmas lunch when I was back in Aussie last year he could recall his time and locations in PNG exactly. In 1943, for instance, he spent Christmas in the waters of Milne Bay. (Dancing girls - the Rockettes! - were flown out to entertain the ship, but he didn't really go into that part. Pictured above.)

Adventures, travel, mateship, training, skills, a role and a purpose: we so often hear about the negatives, but these were some of the other things I heard in stories from that time. They don't cancel out the other things, but they should also be remembered.