CASE STUDY
Arthur Kennedy
14th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery
MEMORIAL
BOX
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AU S T R A L I A U N D E R AT TAC K !
Sydney, NSW, December
1942. NX124727 Sergeant
Arthur Ronald Kennedy,
14th Australian Heavy
Anti-Aircraft Battery,
Bankstown, NSW.
(AWM P02598.001)
Arthur Kennedy
14th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery
My wartime experience in Darwin has
had an impact on my life but I couldn’t
say in what way. It makes you grow up.
Arthur Kennedy’s case study comprises
a story he wrote about his experience
in Darwin and an interview conducted
by Susan Pfanner in 1997.
Why I enlisted
I was born at Botany in NSW on 27 December
1916. Grew up in Sydney in the western
suburbs and went to school in Auburn and
Granville Tech.
I enlisted in the permanent artillery on
24 May 1938 at Georges Heights in Sydney,
and the main reason I joined the army was at
that stage we were in the depths of a fairly
decent depression and I was having trouble
getting employment and I joined up for a job.
In 1939 I was a member of the permanent
Military Forces of Australia and I was serving
in 2 Anti-Aircraft Cadre – P Anti-Aircraft
Battery – 1 Heavy Brigade – Royal Australian
Artillery, stationed at North Head Barracks
in Sydney.
Off to Darwin
Roy Hodgkinson, Lewis gun attached to 14th Australian
Anti-Aircraft Battery, Darwin (Gunner Tommy Hill and
Gunner Neil Cook), 1942. Watercolour with gouache
and coloured crayons. (AWM ART 22720)
On Friday 25 August 1939 I, along with all the
other members of 2 Anti-Aircraft Cadre, was
put on stand-by for movement to Darwin.
The cadre consisted of one warrant officer
class 2 and 43 non-commissioned officers and
gunners. We were kitted for tropical service,
and at 6 am the next day approximately half
of us embarked on the Empire Flying Boat
Cooee from Rose Bay and proceeded to
Darwin, arriving in Darwin on Sunday
afternoon 27 August. It was a two-day trip
in those days; the remainder of the cadre
embarked on a land plane from Mascot on
the Saturday morning and arrived in Darwin
the same evening, exactly one week before
war was declared.
We were stationed at Larrakeyah Barracks,
which were the artillery barracks in Darwin.
We were to man the anti-aircraft defences
of Darwin. We were the first anti-aircraft
personnel to arrive there and incidentally
the first troops in the Australian Army to
be flown to their station of mobilisation.
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Darwin, NT, 1940. Larrakeyah Barracks Guard being
inspected. (AWM P02540.007)
Elliot Point, Darwin, NT, January 1940. Arthur Kennedy
(centre) in walking out uniform. (AWM P02540.005)
Life in Darwin before the raids
Darwin was just like a tropical posting in
peacetime. They had certain hours of the day
where you had to be on parade and after that,
unless you were on a specific duty, you were
free to go into town or anywhere else you
wanted to. Some of us had pushbikes.
There was a picture show in town, restaurants,
basically like a small country town really. There
was a cafe that became very popular with the
soldiers from Larrakeyah barracks known as
Phill Jeans. It was a bit of a rough and ready
place. It didn’t have a concrete floor let alone a
wooden one. But they served very good meals
and didn’t charge a lot for them. It was the
best meal in town. Another place of interest
was on the edge of Chinatown, a shop run by
Chinese where you could get a really thirst
quenching non-alcoholic drink. They shaved
(on an old plane) ice into a schooner glass,
added some syrup, either orange or lemon,
and some cold water and believe me it was
great. It was a very popular place.
.
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Elliot Point, Darwin, NT, 1940. Having a drink (note the
cat on the right). (AWM P02540.003)
When we arrived in Darwin there were three
hotels: the Darwin, which had an old and new
section and the Victoria and the Don, which
was in Chinatown and was a rough and ready
sort of a place. There was a picture show,
The Star, that was partly open air. The set up
was that the Aborigines sat in the front stalls,
which was open to the skies. In the back stalls
sat half castes and poor whites, and the circle
was for everyone else. The Aborigines loved a
western and it was entertainment itself to go
on a night when one was on to see and hear
their reactions. Aborigines were employed at
Larrakeyah Barracks and were responsible for
the cleanliness of the barrack area as well as
assisting in general fatigues. They were issued
with blue shorts with a red stripe, blue shirt
and straw hat. The Aborigines were paid
fortnightly, the same as the army and were
great gamblers. The most popular natives were
from Bathurst Island. They were good workers
and not so prone to go walkabout.
Most of the service people lived in tents or
huts. It depended on just where they were.
The conditions were reasonable, the weather
being as hot as it was. During the "dry" as we
called it (winter down here) it was hot but it
cooled off a bit at night and during the "wet"
it was pretty humid but, generally speaking,
conditions weren’t too bad.
The guard tent, Elliot Point, Darwin, NT, 1940.
(AWM P02540.009)
Elliot Point, Darwin, NT, December 1940. Canteen built
by members of 14th AA Battery. (AWM P02540.004)
The food got a bit monotonous. It depended
on what unit you were with whether you had
good cooks or not. We were lucky, we were
only a small unit. We had a good cook and he
did try to vary the menus and to do as much
as he could with what was supplied. We were
able to set up fish nets because we were
right on the harbour and we were able to
supplement our rations with fresh fish.
There were no problems with the water. It
was supplied off the town water. The water
for Darwin came from a place called Manton
Gap, which unfortunately was carried by a
pipe that sat on top of the ground, and why
it was never ever bombed I don’t know.
Although there were baths in the town and at
Larrakeyah, not a great deal of swimming was
done as a complaint known as "Singapore
Ear" was caught occasionally and was very
painful. Australian Rules football was played
as the ground was too hard for Rugby, and
Saturday afternoon at the football was a
big thing. The military organised a hockey
competition. Civil as well as military teams
took part. I played for the team known as
the Garrison.
Another item of interest was the shortage of
women. Most single women wouldn’t look at
you unless you were either a bank clerk or had
a commission, which meant the average young
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fellow was rarely in women’s company.
You might happen to know someone up
there who was married and would invite
you home occasionally.
There were mosquitoes and sandflies.
I actually had a spell of dengue fever but that
was early in the war, the first Christmas I was
there. Between Christmas and New Year I
developed it and I spent the first New Year
in Darwin in the Kahlin hospital, but after
the first few weeks I got over that and never
had a recurrence.
The uniform in Darwin was generally working
dress: shirts, shorts, boots that had been cut
down and socks, with a type of hat or helmet
that was a compressed paper-type thing. To go
into town of course you dressed up in clean
shirts and shorts, long socks and shoes or
boots. If you wore boots you wore a small
puttee around them and a hat. Being part of
the permanent army we had a different issue
to what other soldiers got. We had such extras
as a pith helmet to wear but quite a lot of the
work in the area was done in a pair of shorts,
boots and socks. Once there was an air raid
alert in the middle of the night and there was
a real tropical downpour. Well, it would have
been a real waste of time wearing anything
so everybody turned up in steel helmets
and nothing else.
Soon after the outbreak of the Second World
War an officer was sent to command the
anti-aircraft cadre—he was Lieutenant. F. F
Mooy. He later became a Lieutenant Colonel
in charge of anti-aircraft defences in Darwin.
The anti-aircraft equipment in Darwin at that
time consisted of four three-inch 20 cwt mobile
guns. These were imported into Australia in
1927, and, on the batteries in Sydney being
issued with a more modern gun of the same
type manufactured at Maribynong in Victoria
in 1938, were sent to Darwin. These guns also
had two Vickers predictors and two height
and rangefinders which were imported at the
same time as the guns. There was also at Elliot
Point two three-inch 20 cwt guns on fixed
mountings in the dual role of anti-aircraft
anti-motor torpedo boat defence. No
instruments were held for these guns.
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Elliot Point, Darwin, NT, 1940. Anti-aircraft guns.
(AWM P02540.001)
The four mobile guns, whilst being operational
were in a bad state mechanically, so were
taken into workshops at Larrakeyah and,
assisted by workshop personnel, the gunners
stripped the guns down one at a time and
carried out all the necessary mechanical
work required.
About June 1940 members of the 2/2
Anti-Aircraft Battery 2/1 Regiment arrived in
Darwin, took over the four mobile guns and
established two gun batteries: one on the
oval and one at Parap. The permanent army
personnel took over the manning of the
guns at Elliot Point; by this time instruments
had arrived.
Elliot Point Darwin, NT, 1940. Arthur Kennedy maintaining
gun. (AWM P02540.002)
Just after the members of 2/2 Battery arrived in
Darwin the new 3.7-inch guns started to arrive
also. These were all to be deployed in a static
role. Sites had to be prepared and guns
installed. Mainly the gunners did this and the
one at the oval was the first to be installed.
The next battery was at Fanny Bay (these guns
were sited four to a battery instead of two).
In December 1940, 14th Heavy Anti-Aircraft
Battery arrived in Darwin and took over from
2/2 Battery, who returned to Sydney, joined
their Regiment and went to the Middle East.
During 1941 2AA Cadre was absorbed into
14th Heavy AA Battery, and the work installing
the 3.7-inch guns went ahead. A third battery
of guns was installed at McMillans. As well as
assisting with the installation of the guns, the
members of 14 AA Battery had also to be
trained, as most of them had little training.
Towards the end of 1941 a second anti-aircraft
battery was formed in Darwin, 2 Heavy AA
Battery. They were to install and man 3.7-inch
guns at Berrimah and Quarantine. Also in
December 1941, after Japan came into the
war, a third anti-aircraft battery, 22nd Heavy
Anti-Aircraft Battery, came up from Perth.
Personnel took the four old 3-inch mobile
guns down to Batchelor aerodrome, and
these guns were handed over to 22nd Battery
and we returned to Darwin.
Japan enters the war
After the outbreak of war with Japan all gun
crews went to 24 hours manning detail: the
guns were manned continuously. One half
were on the guns at all times, enough to fire
the guns instantly, whilst the remainder turned
up as soon as possible. 14th AA Battery, apart
from manning three 3.7-inch sites also had
personnel at the oil tanks manning Lewis guns
as a precaution against low level attack—we
did not have Bofors guns at this stage.
They tried to get everybody who was nonessential out of Darwin. They repatriated
women and children first and men who
weren’t working in essential services were
given the option of getting out and a lot of
them took it. We weren’t allowed out of
camp. There was nowhere to go and
everything was shut down.
During December 1941 and January 1942
we were all on a state of alert and numerous
false alarms were sounded. Also during
January reconnaissance planes visited us
but, flying very high, they were not engaged.
At Elliot Point we had one near miss in January
or early February. A plane was sighted over
Darwin from the direction of Talc Head. It was
flying low. We had no notification of the
movement of a plane and it was not flashing
signals. We laid the guns on the plane and
prepared to open fire, but for some reason
we held off. Just as well we did as it turned
out to be a planeload of Dutch refugees
escaping from the advancing Japanese.
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The first raid
On the morning of 19th February 1942 we
"stood to" for dawn manning. The guns were
manned continuously for one hour before and
after sunrise. The same thing took place at
dusk. This allowed our eyes to become used to
the changing light at these times. Also, it was
expected that a surprise attack would take
place at these times. During the dawn "stand
to", several planes were noticed approaching
from the north without recognition signals.
Nor did we have a movement from them.
We assumed they would be Lockheed Hudsons
returning from a patrol, but the gunners at
Fanny Bay decided otherwise and opened fire
with one round which very soon brought a
response from the planes. Luckily no damage
was done.
Darwin, NT, 12 November 1942. The height and range finder
used by the 14th AA Battery to accurately determine the
position of aircraft. (AWM 027796)
Darwin, NT, 12 November 1942. 14th AA Battery position at
Darwin oval with Government House in the background.
(AWM 027797)
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I might explain that no plane was allowed
in the air without giving prior notice to AA
Defence (HQ)—this information was passed
on to all gun sites. Just before 10am that day
I was sergeant in charge of the Parade handing
out work detail for the day when we heard
planes flying over rather high. No one really
took a lot of notice as we had been expecting
a large number of American planes as
reinforcements. The next thing, simultaneously,
the alarm sounded and we heard the sound of
explosions from the township. The guns were
quickly manned and our gun site picked the
planes attacking ships in the harbour as targets
as the heavy bombers were out of range.
Things were so confused and so many guns
were firing it was rather difficult to tell
whether one scored a hit or not. Several
attempts were made to strafe our site but
the firing of shrapnel "shells" at these planes
soon discouraged them.
I felt pretty funny about (the raid) because we
knew Singapore had just fallen. It had been a
pretty devastating sort of a raid. They sunk
quite a few ships in the harbour and they did a
lot of damage at the aerodrome. There was no
air defence whatsoever and we weren’t very
happy about it. In actual fact about an hour
after the first raid finished we were hit again
which didn’t make anybody feel very happy
and we were starting to feel that maybe we
could look towards a landing. As time went by,
you could see that there wasn’t going to be,
but in the early stages we were busy looking
around to see how easy we could get out of
the area if a landing did take place. What
actually happened was that most of the
headquarters of the area had moved south
to Adelaide River and what was known as
Narrowneck was where the garrison such as
coastal artillery and anti-aircraft were formed.
We were the front line really. The others were a
long way away from us. We felt very isolated.
After the raid we could see from our site,
several ships burning and sinking, but we could
not assist them as they were too far away and
we had no means of going to their assistance.
We had our own work to do, removing empty
shell cases, restocking the guns and one other
important job. On our gun site we had a
magazine which was white, presumably to
assist in keeping it cool. Several approaches
had been made to camouflage it, but it was
never granted. We did not ask this time, we
just did it using mainly muddy water, which
was rather effective.
Later in the morning a further wave of
bombers came over fairly high, dropped
their load and cleared off. Of course by now
everybody was rather jittery. We did not know
if this was a softening up prior to landing.
No further raids happened that day and
during the rest of the day reports filtered in
from other gun sites of the damage that
had been caused in the two raids.
However, it was about one month before
the next raid. In this time, with the fall of
Singapore, we were issued with one month’s
rations, in case of a landing and we were cut
off. Later this was increased to three months.
Can you imagine the effect on the younger
members of our gun site?
Life in Darwin from
February to August 1942
From then on high-level raids continued with
regularity and unfortunately we could not
open fire on them as they were above the
ceiling of a 3-inch gun. The 3.7s were able
to reach them.
An event of some importance to us permanent
soldiers occurred in June 1942. We were
allowed to join the AIF irrespective of the fact
that we were asked in 1939 after the outbreak
of war and most of us volunteered. Also about
this time it was decided to move the 3-inch
guns at Elliot Point to Bachelor aerodrome. Two
mobile carriages were bought in and the guns
lifted up and put onto the new mountings.
A funny thing happened while this was being
done. One gun had been moved, and the
second gun was in the air, and we were ready
to push the new mounting under it when we
received a report, on the AA network, of an
air raid warning. The report was "a number
of enemy planes are approaching from the
south, bombing as they come". It sounded
pretty bad! It turned that it was a Tiger
Moth approaching from the south in the
midst of a violent thunderstorm. Somebody
was over-enthusiastic in their reporting.
We moved to Batchelor and joined 22nd
Heavy AA Battery who already had two sites
each of two 3-inch guns in the area. We made
a third. Just after this move I was made acting
Battery Sergeant Major.
We spent several months in this area. The
bombers did not come this far south but were
expected, as Flying Fortresses operated from
this field, and also some new fighter airfields
had been opened in this area.
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Back to Sydney
Memories of Darwin
In August it was decided anyone who had
been in the Darwin area more than two years
should be replaced, the longest serving to go
first. As I was among this category, I was sent
south. We travelled by train to Larrimah, by
truck to Alice Springs, about three days on
the road, then by train to Sydney.
In actual fact I suppose one of the worst things
that happened to us was the gun we were on
didn’t have the range of the 3.7s and
consequently, after a while, bombers used to
come too high for our guns to engage them.
Later guns could, so we just had to sit there in
case anything came low enough we could
engage. It turned out that most of the time
after that, the planes came in on a set course
and right above us was where they released
their bombs, and I can tell you it is most
unnerving to hear bombs coming down. You
knew they weren’t going to hit you but that
didn’t make any difference.
I came to Sydney and as I hadn’t had any leave
for three years, we were given leave and then
I was posted to a battery. My particular unit was
stationed in the Bankstown area and the battery
that I was on was known as Black Charlie’s Hill
and overlooked Bankstown aerodrome.
A lot of service people were actually inclined to
deny you’d actually seen active service because
you hadn’t left the country. And of course the
strange thing was that we had seen active
service. A lot of people left the country and
went overseas all right, but didn’t see any action.
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My wartime experience in Darwin has had an
impact on my life but I couldn’t say in what
way. It makes you grow up.
Appendix 1
Excerpt from war diary of 14th AA Battery, February 1942
AWM 52 4/16/18
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K E N N E D Y
Appendix 2
Extract from article ABC Weekly 1941
Our Ack Ack Guns in Action
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Education Section
Australian War Memorial
GPO Box 345
Canberra ACT 2601
MEMORIAL
BOX
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AU S T R A L I A U N D E R AT TAC K !