Submission for 2/29th Battalion AIF Association Ben Hackney Testamentary Trust Education Grant 2020
My name is Katie Lovett, I am currently in year 10 at Dromana College going into year 11 as of 2021. I like 1960s/70s/80s classic rock music, vintage fashion, acting. When I complete my schooling, I hope to be a primary school teacher, so that means I will be studying VCE to go to university.
Therefore the Ben Hackney Trust Education Grant not only would be a huge honor for me to be awarded but it would also greatly help me pursue my studies.
Prologue
I’m 16 years of age and experiencing along with others, currently 8 months of restrictions from the Covid19 world pandemic which has included 13 weeks of stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne Victoria. This has meant I haven’t been to school, haven’t visited family or friends. Every time I do go out I have to wear a mask, I’ve missed out on my year 10 formal, my 16th birthday party to name but a few of the inconveniences. This pandemic has given me a small insight into what it must have been like during World War 2 when my Mama and Gramps would have been wondering every minute of every day for four and half years if there was going to be a future for them; very hard at my age, to contemplate the stress they must have endured then, some 75 years ago, as we live in this privileged time now, even with a little Covid lockdown inconvenience?
In thinking about what I would write it has always been our family’s pride in how my great grandmother and great grandfather loved each other so deeply. My essay sets out to acknowledge not only the amazing contribution of my Great Grandfather Captain Charles Lovett but also that of my Great Grandmother Isabella May Lovett (nee Blackburn) during and after the war, a story of commitment and love.
Although quite young I have seen with my involvement with the 2/29TH Battalion Association and in researching Mama’s and Gramp’s story that the women of the Association form an integral component of why this Association has continued to be relevant and above all an embodiment of the 2/29ers values of mateship and importance of family.
SC P125 In 1940 the AIF Women’s Association had been formed to support the families of overseas servicemen. By October of that year the AIFWA was assisting the wives, mothers and sisters of more than 6000 POW’s captured in North Africa and the Middle East. AIFWA membership and welfare work expanded rapidly after the fall of Singapore, and there was soon an 8th Division AIF (Victorian Units) Soldiers Amenities Fund Auxiliary working to raise funds for POW’s in the Pacific. Each Battalion had its own Auxiliary and the 2/29th Battalion Welfare Auxiliary held events to raise money and donated to the Red Cross, Comfort Funds and held Christmas parties for Battalion children. Perhaps more importantly they kept the memory of their men alive, honouring the dead at the Shrine on ANZAC Day and placing In Memoriam notices on the Battle of Muar.
Being the strong, proud and determined women they were, they even demonstrated their love for their men by “objecting strongly to press calling the 8th Division the ‘Lost Division’ and its battalions ‘Lost Battalions.’”
I believe the 2/29th Battalion Association’s women’s love and determination lives on just as strongly today, embodied in those such as Beris and Janella Christie, Joy Derham, Dianne Cowling, Lorraine Crawford, Marg Hogan, Marion Stiles, Sue Lack, Katie Parnell and especially my grandma nanny Nola (deceased) to name but a few, who continue to honour the memory of the 2/29ers.
For ease in reading I have generally referred to my great grand mother Isobel May Lovett as May, the name she was known by and my great grandfather Captain Charles Geoffrey Lovett as Charles.
“I Go to Return”
(A story of Love, Honour, Sacrifice and Service)
In their words, Mama and Gramps’ Story from 1933-1946
When my mama (May) and gramps (Charles) were my age, 16, it was 1933. I’m just trying to imagine what life was like for them then as 16 year olds in Camperdown, country Victoria. The thing I do know it was vastly different to the Australia I live in today.
CGLM Charles was born in 1917 during WWI (1914-1918) and was 12 and a half years old during the Great Depression of 1929-31 so he obviously grew up knowing the hardships of life and that war was part of life. He also commenced work at 12 years of age which is inconceivable to me as I live in this privileged time in Australia’s history.
In 1934, Charles joined the C.M.F. (Citizen Military Forces) formed from Geelong and was called the 23rd/21st City of Geelong Regiment (Battalion). Companies were formed at Colac, Camperdown, Toorang and Warrnanbool. He was 16 at the time! What made him join the military at that young age? I can only assume that maybe he joined for adventure, it seems outrageous to me, as I want to live my life first. I would maybe think about something like that when I was 21 or so. Maybe he joined because he was in search of new memories, I would have loved to have talked to him about this? Or was it because of his understanding of the social thinking at that time that there would be more conflict in the world? Is it possible that he saw this as a way to advance his life from working on a milk farm as a labourer? He maybe wanted to learn new skills such as combat, survival, discipline, reliance on teamwork, learning how to operate guns, wearing a uniform? As I discovered he travelled to camps all around Victoria for training and he said he had a great time.
Engagement Photo of May and Charles 1938
In 1935 at seventeen years of age, Charles met May Blackburn at a dance in Derrinalum. Charles had an old dodge car and he used to drive the ‘Cuckoo’ Orchestra around the various places at night for the dances. May and Charles love story had commenced.
Between 1935-38, the C.M.F went to camp usually during the summer and Charles noted they had a great time at these camps. Perhaps more importantly he recalled that May and he were going great guns, a saying well used in those times meaning their relationship was successful and moving ahead quite quickly. He noted that he had been accepted into the Blackburn family and as he had managed to get together a few pounds he proposed to May and was accepted.
May and Charles were married at Camperdown on September 21st 1940. Charles’s uniform for their wedding was lent to him by his friend LT Ross McLeod from Noorat until his arrived from the government clothing factory which he had to pay for.
With war on the horizon and Charles heavily involved in Army training meant they were apart a fair bit during their early married life.
Photo of May and Charles Wedding Party 21st September 1940
CGLM War was declared in Europe on the 3rd-9th September 1939. Being in the C.M.F Charles was called up for duty immediately in ‘C’ Company and was sent to Queenscliff near Geelong as a platoon Sergeant to guard the lighthouse/search light and foreshore on the Bellarine Peninsula, he was 23 years of age. Following military camp at Mount Martha and officers training camp at Seymour and a Second Lieutenants commission, Charles joined the newly formed 2/29th Battalion A.I.F. doing final training at Bonegilla near Aubury.
NLB P57 /CGLM Prior to the 2/29th Battalion’s embarkation Charles was able somehow to get a message to May that he was on the advance party from Bonegilla that went to the ship at Port Melbourne wharf. On the 30 July 1941 May came down from Camperdown and they were able to meet briefly at the gate on the wharf. They said goodbye through the fence because they, the army personnel, were locked in. May commented that she didn’t know Charles was going to Malaya! She couldn’t quite realize that he was going away at all, it took a while to sink in and yet May never ever felt that he wouldn’t come back. May said we’ve still got the little boomerang which I sent to Charles in Malaya, it just had written on it I go to return. Charles added that little boomerang arrived in an airmail letter the day before the 2/29th Battalion went into Muar, I’ve kept it ever since I go to return.
CGLM The 2/29th Battalion sailed on the 31st July 1941 from Port Melbourne on a Dutch ship, the Mannix Van St Aldergon via Fremantle and Perth arriving in Singapore on 15th August 1941.
Charles recalled that “little did they know that holding May’s hands through the iron gates at the Port Melbourne Wharf would be the last time they would touch each other for 4 ½ years, thank god we didn’t realize it at that moment.”
CGLM November 1941 from Singapore, Charles’s ‘B’ Company was detached to Kluang in Malaya for aerodrome defense and shortly after intelligence had reported a Japanese convoy was headed their way and on the 29th December they were bombed by 21 Japanese planes on Hospital Hill Kluang, which Charles recalls was the first Australians in action in Malaya. About the 10th January 1942 they were moved to Yong Peng and the on the morning of the 17th January 1942 they were moved towards the town of Muar and at dusk reached Bakri and were fired on by the Japanese. ‘B’ Company were allotted the right forward company and ‘C’ Company the left forward company. Thus commencing the famous 2/29th Battle of Muar.
On the morning of the 22nd January 1942, Captain Charles received orders to break off the action and to try and make their own way back to Yong Peng with no maps, all exhausted and hungry, six days since food and he wounded. Somehow he and his small group made it through to Yong Peng and for Charles to hospital on Singapore Island to get his wound fixed. Charles rejoining his Battalion on the 12th February 1942 still with an open wound in his back and now in their final position on Singapore Island on the 13th February. At approximately 7pm on the 15th February 1942 Charles was advised of the surrender and the cease fire, recalling how unbelievably quiet it was noting all their disappointment and that they didn’t know what was in store for them, thus started their life or hell as Japanese Prisoners of War!
NLB P229 May first knew something was wrong when she read in the Camperdown paper one Monday morning early in 1942 that Colonel Robertson and Bill Carr had been killed in action. May knew that Charles would have been in action then, but she went off to her work at Eckt’s Drapery shop in Camperdown. In those days, when there were war casualties, the Church Minister always came round and told the family. Later that day May saw Reverend Ross Williams walking in the front of the shop she thought ‘Ah, no!’ May said her ‘heart went to the bottom of her boots.’ The Minister called out to May “it’s alright, he’s only wounded!’ and then he apologized that he’d come down to tell her, he said he could tell by the look and May’s face that she expected the worst.” Shortly afterwards a telegram from the Ministry of the Army informed May that Charles was missing believed prisoner of war.
Following that telegram May heard nothing for three years until the Red Cross advised that a Captain Lovett had been mentioned in a letter from another prisoner of war. There was nothing further.
NLB P231 May concluded ‘in the circumstances, the only thing to do was to hope for the best, knitting five jumpers for Charles while he was away’ and against the advice of those who suggested that her activity was futile. Families made every possible effort to communicate with their sons and husbands. May and others in her position got word, she thinks from the Red Cross, that they could write 25 words a month. Charles didn’t get many (any) of the many cards May sent. Charles’ mother and May used to sit and try and write something about her family and his family so he’d know everyone was well. May’s father and grandfather died while Charles was away, but they never mentioned that, Charles found out when he got back.
Wives, fiancées and parents were making their own contributions to the war effort. May served as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) at the local hospital in Camperdown. Her daily shifts were from six to ten o’clock. The VAD association also organized raffles and stalls as fund raisers. Many of the women also knitted and sent to the men socks and balaclavas, most of which never arrived at their intended destinations. May also ‘plane-spotted’ every Wednesday night, a job that required training in plane identification and wind directions. She later received an Australian Government decoration for her war service work.
CGLM After a short POW internment in Selerang/Singapore, Gramps left Singapore harbor in ‘A’ Force bound for the Burma line. Following an arduous trip in the galley of the ship they reached Victoria Point in Burma (Myanmar) and the start of their terrible experiences as Japanese Prisoners of War working on the Death Railway commencing at Tavoy (where Charles helped organize the 1942 Tavoy Exceptional Melbourne Cup), Ye, Thanbysyat and his many assignments to the 14, 50, 53, 75 and 105 kilometer POW camps.
CGLM P13 Xmas Day 1943 the emperor in his generous heart gave Charles’s camp two pigs which they turned into a feast, a very rare occurrence. They had not received any mail up to now but did receive one Red Cross parcel divided between six. It was from America and Charles noted it was very good and amongst its content was a tin of condensed milk which they donated to the sick men in their camp hospital.
NLB P234 Some families did not receive telegrams, but learned of their loved ones survival from lists in newspapers and even news that might even be shouted over a fence by a neighbour. However the news was conveyed, the realization that the loved one was safe was a moment for celebration. In many cases it was an opportunity for soldiers’ friends and extended family to share in the excitement. Others like May Lovett waited and waited she recalled ‘there were prisoners of war from Camperdown but she hadn’t got any word at all regarding Charles. In the small country town of Camperdown everybody knew everybody and even May’s mother said “Ah, you’ve got to realize he won’t be coming home!”
CGLM Charles somehow survived the war battles, being wounded in action, the nightmare of the infamous Burma Death Railway including bashings’, sickness from malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, pellagra, cholera, malnutrition, Berri Berri and tropical pamphosis (scabies) to complete the railway and then be transported in cramped railway boxes to Bangkok on the 29th June 1945 which just happened to be his 27th birthday.
From Bangkok, they were marched to Nakon Naoke about 100 kilometers out of Bangkok where on the 17th August 1945 they were advised the war had ended.
Picture of Captain Charles Lovett in Thailand September 1945 before he departed back to Australia.
Captain Charles immediately volunteered with other officers to take charge of the camp of about 500 ORs (ordinary ranks) until he was eventually flown in early October 1945 from Bangkok to Singapore on DC3 Douglas and then shipped back to Australia on the Circassia ship arriving back in Melbourne on the 27th October 1945 and discharged from the army on the 12th December 1945 having spent 38 days in the service in Australia and 1,559 days (nearly 4 and a half years) service outside Australia.
May got word six weeks after everybody else had got home to say that he was safe and well. Captain Charles Lovett was responsible for compiling the list of names to come home and ‘he forgot to put his own name on it!’
In that October 1945 May remembers her feelings that ‘It was unbelievable, she couldn’t describe how she felt’, she brought out the champagne. Prior to May getting word that her Charles had survived the war, the licensed grocery in Camperdown had brought a bottle of champagne up to her, everybody knew Charles was missing and he said ‘This is to be opened when Charles comes back.’ So May her grandmother and mother, in those days the older people didn’t drink much, all opened the champagne and it had gone vinegary and May’s Gran said ‘well, if that’s champagne, I don’t think much of it!’
Stuart Gray and Charles came home on the Circassia, a D-Day landing ship. Charles recalls it was a rough old ship but it felt like luxury to them after their POW life. Charles felt they were only ‘odd bods’ (old Australian term used back then to describe a person who is strange or unusual) when they came home as they didn’t come back with the rest of the 2/29th Battalion because their war had ended up in Siam’ (Thailand).
NLB P241 The main welcome home for 2/29ers and others was 11 October 1945 at Spencer Street Station. For many the day they arrived home bought confusion and a sense of anticlimax. Charles speaks of those who had been in Burma (Myanmar) and then Thailand. They weren’t in that Spencer Street group and as they only arrived on the 27th October were never officially welcomed home! Indeed Charles remembers his arrival as ‘very traumatic. Colonel Lloyd’s and Charles’s gear went missing from the wharf in Melbourne, so they spent all day chasing it. Charles had souvenirs with his gear which included a Japanese (Officers) sword, still a treasured item retained respectfully in the Lovett family.
On the 27th October 1945 at 11am Charles’s ship docked at Port Melbourne and then they walked to Royal Park to meet their families. May and Charles walked past each other without recognizing one another.
Charles was only seven stone three (45.8kg) on his return and felt he was in reasonable health considering. May on the other hand remembers that ‘Charles looked dreadful, you wouldn’t have recognized him, he was skinny, had very dark rings under his eyes and his hair had been cut very short. May had only ever seen Charles with thick wavy hair and now it was almost shaved.
After four and half years apart, given the circumstance, it was probably only natural for them not to recognize each other, ‘strangers for a time’, however that they soon sorted it out.
Captain Charles Lovett (‘B’ Company ‘A’ Force) (VX39011) Service Record
May’s War Service Medal
Isabella May Lovett was awarded the Civilian Service Medal 1939-1945 established on 28th October 1994 by letters Patent to recognize the service of eligible civilians in Australia during WWII who served in arduous circumstances in support of the war effort as part of organizations with military-like arrangements and conditions of service such as the Australian Women’s Land Army (AWLA), VAD Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), the Civil Constructional Corps (CCC) and the Red Cross Emergency Service Companies.
NLB P243 Charles on their return to Camperdown found that his parents and his brother had left farming, something he had expected to resume after his war service.
Photo of May and Charles with their friends Marg and Les Atyeo at the Melbourne Cup 6th November 1945.
NLB P245/CGLM Some ex POW’s eased themselves back into work after their service and ordeal. Others threw themselves into work. In February 1946, Charles and May visited Charles brother in Maryborough in Central Victoria and they jointly started Maryborough Dairies Pty Ltd.
Charles got straight back into it, straight away. He and May decided that they wanted to try to forget about the whole thing, the war, and they agreed for them with the benefit of hind side, it was the best thing they ever did.
NLB P249 Charles having joined his brother as a partner in Maryborough Dairies, with May at his side all the way, through hard work, acquisition and business acumen their business flourished. May helped a lot in the dairy washing bottles and filling them with milk on hand machines whilst Charles did deliveries from 2am to household customers finishing about 9am, then he would start deliveries to shops. Life for both of them was ‘damn busy’. Eventually Charles and May purchased his brothers interest and they ran the Business successfully until retirement in 1996, 50 years on.
Throughout May and Charles’s lives they continued to contribute to the local community, two highly respected people in their community.
Charles expressed in his memoir the admiration and love he had for May noting that she has been a great citizen serving on numerous committees such as T.L. Stone Kindergarten, State school 404, Maryborough Gold & Bowls Club, Rotary Inner Wheel, Legacy and involved in Red Cross and the Maryborough hospital.
Charles further noted in his Memoir this love and his ‘great thanks and admiration to May his wife for her wonderful love and care of him, the great life she gave him and their children. To wait for him for 4 ½ years to come home from war was to him proof of their love. Then to have three wonderful children speaks for itself of the great times they’ve had together, believing it was due to May’s wonderful motherly instinct and care of family.
May and Charles are survived by three children, five grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
Photo at right of Captain Charles Lovett’s boomerang and dog tags, the Boomerang that May sent to Charles received just before the Battle of Muar in 1942, surviving four and half years of war and POW, indeed “I go to return.” NLB P228
Interviews
To understand May and Charles’ story more fully, I spoke with their children my Auntie Dianne, Uncle Geoffrey and my Grandfather Ron who made the following comments on their Mum and Dad’s special relationship no doubt strengthen through adversity.
Dianne’s most vivid memory is when May’s Nana died, Isobel, my great great Grandmother. Auntie Di’s mum, May, rushed to Camperdown when her mum was admitted to hospital, she died overnight. Di and her dad, Charles, drove down the next day. When they arrived at Nanas house her mum rushed out and clung to her dad for what seemed an eternity, no one else existed. Di noted that Thursday mornings were special to her Mum and Dad as it was the only time her Dad had off for the whole week and they liked to spend it quietly in each other’s company.
They clearly not only loved each other but also life, I think they had lost time to catch up on! Di recalled how every year they went to Melbourne for the Melbourne Cup Carnival, rain hail or shine they attended all the special race days. They did this for 40 years. They always stayed at the Victoria Hotel in Little Collins Street. This hotel is still there. Di’s mum and dad shared many things, golf, Rotary, Legacy, a love of horse racing. Her dad owned thoroughbred horses and was the President of the Maryborough Racing Club. Di also remembers how in their 50’s her mum and dad travelled overseas extensively with their favourite destination being the British Isles, and with her Mum having an encyclopaedic knowledge of the British monarchy they had great joy in visiting all the castles, villages, battlefields in Scotland, Britain, Ireland and Wales.
However Auntie Di’s most vivid and lasting memory is the love her mum and dad constantly showed for her, Geoffrey and Ron, it was part of their everyday life. Di explained how her mum and dad, May and Charles, were never shy to show affection for each other in front of us children which left us with a lasting positive comforting memory.
Geoffrey’s single abiding memory of his mum and dad is that his dad never left the house without kissing his mum goodbye, and never returned without kissing her. They always seemed happiest in each other’s company, although they had a wide circle of friends. Uncle Geoff explained how whenever they were out in public his mum always had her arm through his dads, which Geoff noted, is what couples did in the 40s 50s and 60s. People didn’t really hold hands.
Geoff noted that his dad worked incredibly hard for many years whilst he was getting the dairy business established, 7 days a week, often starting at 2.00am, no holidays for 14 years after returning from the war. Geoff was very clear how they were both on the journey together with his mum always supporting dad, often pitching in to help. Things such as washing milk bottles by hand, making butter and doing the accounts. Finally Geoff said that us three children were raised in a home filled with love and they couldn’t have wished for better role models to shape their lives.
Ron, my grandfather’s, two most vivid memories of his mum and dad were when Charles came in from work every day after delivering milk from 3am in the morning, greeting his mum May in the kitchen with a big hug and kiss and loving embrace, their love for each other was obvious and gave us children a profound meaning of love. Never did he hear a harsh word or quarrel between them in all his life.
Pop Ron also recalls as a young child waking up early some mornings and hearing screaming outside. Going into his mum’s bedroom she consoled him with the understanding that it was his dad, in the horse paddocks in the abandoned gold digging holes that were part of the dairy house property, having a malaria reoccurrence and not to worry about it as they were becoming less frequent for your dad. Pop Ron explained that these episodes as with Dads’ war experience were never discussed and believed that it was not only a Malaria reoccurrence he was dealing with but maybe also the terrors of what he had experienced in the war and as a POW?
My Family and Battalion Involvement
Great Grandfather Charles passed away when I was 8 months old and I was 4 years and 3 months old when my Great Grandmother May passed away. Sadly I wasn’t able to get to know them really well, but through family story telling I think I know that they were very special people who certainly touched many lives with their positivity towards life.
I was born on the 13th April 2004 and attended my first luncheon on the 24th April (11 days old) that year and ever one since. When we were old enough, my sister Missy and I have been selling the Battalion merchandise at the Reunion lunches. Our family also attends the Battle of Muar commemoration service at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance and other 2/29th association functions. In 2012 I also commenced marching in the Melbourne Anzac Day March behind the Battalion Banner. Except off course this year 2020 with them all cancelled due to the Covid19 pandemic lockdown in Victoria.
Photo of Charles, May, Dad, Mum and I at 1 month old in 2004.
My Mum and Dad are very committed to the battalion, my Dad was honored to be elected to the association committee starting in 2013 as Assistant Secretary, 2014 as Honorary Secretary and from 2015 to current as President.
I am forever thankful that I have a heritage that includes my Gramps who served his nation with distinction and sacrifice and Mama who served our great Country Australia as well with distinction.
Mama and Gramps example of survival, resilience, honour, mateship, service and love of family and quiet disposition gives me strength and inspiration to achieve my goals in life.
“I go to return” – the start of a next chapter
Katie Lovett, 12/11/2020
Acknowledgements
My mum Sharon and dad Simon Lovett for their guidance and support of me in all my endeavours and how proud I am of them for their commitment and service to the 2/29th Battalion Association.
I am proud to be part of the 2/29th Battalion Family and for the love and inspiration all the amazing women in the Association have shown to me during my 16 years involvement, so far, with the 2/29th Association.
To my grandfather Poppy Ron Lovett who has guided me through his vast library of Lovett and 2/29th Battalion books, memorability, records and Great Grandad Charles’s memoir to create this essay.
Bibliography:
Published Sources:
(NLB) No Lost Battalion- Edited by John Lack with Peter Hosford 2005
(BH) A History of the 2/29th Battalion- 8th Australian Division AIF- Edited by R.W. Christie, secretary of the Unit Association and Mr. Robert Christie 1983/85/91/2003
(SC) Surviving Captivity Surviving by RW Christie/Edited by John Lack 2010
Unpublished Sources:
(CGLM) Memoir The Life and Times of Charles Geoffrey Lovett 29/6/1917 – 23/12/2004 written by C.G.Lovett - Unpublished
Interviews:
Dianne Lovett (Daughter of May and Captain Charles Lovett) Geoffrey Lovett (Son of May and Captain Charles Lovett) Ron Lovett (Son of May and Captain Charles Lovett
Submission by Katie Lovett
For the 2/29th Battalion AIF Association Ben Hackney Testamentary Trust Education Grant 2020
12 November 2020