Colin Robertson left school at 14 and was working as an apprentice at a printing factory in Melbourne when he enlisted to join the Army.
“I enlisted at Royal Park in Melbourne in 1943 when I was 18. I enlisted because the war was on, the Japanese were at our front door and I already had four brothers that were in the army. My sister Phyllis was in the Air Force, she was in the WAAAFs (Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force). So I thought it was up to me anyway to have a go.”
After enlistment, Colin was sent to Warwick in Queensland to the training battalion.
“I was there for about five months. I became a signaller, and I spent two months at the signal training school.”
When Colin finished his training, he was still 18 years old and unable to go overseas, so he was sent to Sydney to “what they call the Young Soldiers Battalion”.
“While we were there, we were used for many things. The wharf labourers were on strike at the time, and we worked for several weeks on the wharves. After we had finished at the wharves, we were used as the forces in the film The Rats of Tobruk with Chips Rafferty in it and several other well-known actors at the time.”
After the breakout at the Cowra Prisoner of War Camp in August 1944, Colin was called upon to go to Cowra. “We were there for approximately three weeks to bolster the guards and take security of the area and to help round up the prisoners.”
While he was in Cowra, Colin turned 19 so was eligible for overseas service. He was then sent to the Canungra Jungle Training Centre to prepare to be deployed to the Pacific theatre.
“We did 28 days of hard work to learn how to fight in the jungles. Shortly after that, I was sent as a reinforcement to the 31/51 Infantry Battalion at a camp just outside Brisbane, waiting to go overseas.”
In October 1944, Colin was loaded onto troop transport to Bougainville, an island near Papua New Guinea.
“When we got on the boat, we had no idea where we were going. There was a rumour saying we were going to Bougainville. I had no idea where Bougainville was. I thought we were going to New Guinea.”
“We took over from the Americans who were there. There was all a lot of fighting up there. It was pretty heavy, I suppose, but we didn't lose hundreds or anything like that.”
Colin had grown up on a farm in Victoria where there weren’t many trees, so Bougainville was a new experience for him.
“Everything was new. It was entirely different to what I knew. It wasn't like a battlefield or anything like that. It was purely and simply jungle warfare.”
“There were a terrible lot of rivers to cross. There were no roads, so you proceeded up the coast by barge and did a lot of beach landings. We saw lots of snakes and outside of that lots of birds.”
As a signaller, Colin worked on all communications in the jungle.
“We'd run the wire out. There's always two of you. One of you would be putting it back up through the bush out of the way so it’s hidden to a certain extent. Then you passed any orders or anything like that came through from the battalion that would be from our CO back to the OC. We were the middleman.”
When the war was over, Colin continued his service overseas and was stationed to Rabaul.
“All us young fellas who didn't have enough points to come home were given other jobs protecting or rounding up the Japanese to take to Rabaul where the main compounds were to repatriate them back to Japan.”
When faced with the Japanese, Colin had some difficult feelings.
“The Japanese were just ordinary people that were put into an army, and they were in an army fighting for their country and we were in an army fighting for our country. And when I get thinking about it, it upsets me. I start getting all teary and upset.”
“This is why I won't talk about it. And I think that most of the friends that I've met over the years, they feel the same. But it does affect your mind to a certain extent.”
After seven months in Rabaul, Colin returned to Australia in 1946 and completed his apprenticeship.
“We thought we'd only be there for a couple of weeks. In actual fact, we were there for nearly 7 months when one day I was told that I was going home. They put us on the HMAS Manoora and we were taken to Sydney. From Sydney, I was taken back to Melbourne by train. Back to Royal Park Camp. That's where I was discharged.”
“After completing my apprenticeship, I joined the Army again for another six years, and I had six years at the Army printing works at Caulfield in Melbourne.”
