Dhurringile Mansion

Today let us talk about the camps in Victoria

There were at least eight camps in the state during World War II which held between 4000 to 8000 people. Most were located in the Goulburn Valley because food was plentiful and there was a good supply of water.

Four of the camps were for enemy servicemen who had been captured from around the world and then transported to Australia. These camps were at Dhurringile Mansion, Camp 13 near Murchison, Camp 6 near Graytown and Camp 5 near Myrtleford.

The other four camps built near Tatura were for civilians considered a security risk because of their nationality.

The 65-room Dhurringile mansion was used as a POW camp for German officers. One of the most successful escapes from the camp happened in 1945 when 17 officers and three batmen tunnelled 14 feet down from a large crockery room, and under a perimeter fence.

The mansion was later used by the Presbyterian Church as a training camp for orphans before the Victorian Government turned it into a minimum security prison.

View from a tower

The first purpose-built internment camp for World War II was located about 167 kilometres north of Melbourne at Tatura. It consisted of four camps, two at Tatura and two at Rushworth, a couple of kilometres away. The lands where the camps are situated has since been sold and is now in private hands, however, the German War Cemetery was built next to the Tatura cemetery a few years after the war ended. It was the first war cemetery to be established in Australia.

The camps at Tatura were opened in 1940 and held German and Italian internees. Conditions were tough, the mess halls were the only heated rooms in Camp 1 and only one section of Camp 2 had hot showers.

But internees were able to develop tennis courts, workshops, a newspaper, flower and vegetable gardens and start small businesses such as haircutting and tailoring.

A Kosher kitchen was established for Jewish internees and one hut was also converted to a Jewish synagogue.

Camp 3 at Rushworth was used exclusively for family groups and hot water was available in all the wash rooms. It also featured a camp school taught by German teachers.

However, internees at Camp 4 lived in corrugated iron huts, which were very hot in summer and freezing in winter as the windows had no glass. This camp was used initially for Europeans who had been living in Australia at the outbreak of the war. They included Germans Italians, Hungarians, Finns and Romanians. Once Japan entered the war, they had to make way for Japanese internees as well as some Chinese from Formosa, now known as Taiwan.

Tunnel dug by Germans

Good morning world, yes it has been ages since I have posted been bloody busy or to tired to bother, please forgive me. So now to update everyone on what has been happening in my life the last few days………….nothing much…………lol

Ok yesterday was Mother’s Day and Tim & I went over to my parents place for breakfast, my brother Dave cooked breakfast for us all. He did this because he cancelled on the Saturday night we were suppose to go out for dinner on the Saturday night but Dave cancelled, Sue cancelled and so there ended up only being mum & dad, Dawson and me. So Dave said he would do breakfast on Mother’s Day to make it up to mum.

After breakfast Tim and I went shopping for a new laptop for him, then we went to Kathy’s for lunch which consisted of roast pork and some roast spuds, with a cauliflower bake and beans. I don’t as a rule eat pork, not a big fan of it and I don’t eat cauliflower or beans, really does the girl no me at all. I did, however, appreciate the effort and the thought.

After lunch we went and looked some more for a laptop for Tim when he bought the last laptop he didn’t take me with him and pretty much bought the first one he looked at, this time I made sure we shopped around and good thing we did the first place we went they stared at $750, by shopping around he managed to get one like mine for only $496 well that was the advertised price he talked them into adding the extended warranty for only $50 so he paid all up $546 for the laptop with 3yr warranty.

I am a shop around person, I prefer to check out the main retailers before buying something that costs a few hundred dollars or more. Tim does too most of the time but he has moments when he just goes to the first place and buys whatever and then regrets paying too much later.

Damn I am feeling like shit today been sneezing a lot and have a stinking headache and I am oh so tired, in short I think I am coming down with something, but since I have to take children to school and pick them up in the afternoon I don’t have time to be sick.

Tim is off work today and tomorrow he has a couple of “rdos” (roster days off), so of course today he wanted to go to the shops at first we decided we would go to Lake Fair shopping centre but they didn’t have what we wanted so he said how about we go to Charlestown Square, this was fine with me but I had to come home and change my pants. I know you are wondering why I had to come home to change well think of it like this the pants I had on are ok for Lake Fair but not nice enough for Charlestown Square, or if I was in America you could say they were ok for Walmart but not Target………………anyway we came home I changed and we went to Charlestown Square so he could get some track pants and a jacket and a new remote for the Foxtel which stopped working the other day and it wasn’t till Tim had to try using it that he decided to go get another one, it would work if you pressed really hard and waved it around.

I just had a phone call from Tasha she wants me to get Blain this afternoon and bring him back here till his father arrives to pick him up, he will stay at Tasha’s tonight with Blain, I wonder if he will drive Blain to school in the morning or if I will have to take him if I have to take him then he maybe a little late as I will take Leo first then Blain as Blain’s school is only a couple of minutes from my place.

Oh yeah I also have to watch Summer tomorrow afternoon for a while not sure why but Kathy asked me too so I will of course.

Ok so I have rambled on enough for this post.

Oh yeah I started writing this in the morning and now it’s the afternoon.

On the 31^st of May so this month, my grandmother will be turning 94 I would love for her to have a room full of cards and as such have asked on Facebook if the family members would send her a card, but thought I would also ask here on my blog if anyone would like to send her a car. If so the cards can be sent to

Flo James

Koombahla Nursing Home,

Room 119

138 Lake Road

Elermore Vale

NSW 2287

Australia

What do you think this looks like?

Here is a shot of it at night

Good morning, it is going to be a lovely warm Tuesday here, but right now I don’t see it but it is only early here in Newcastle and the temp will increase and the warm weather will happen around 10ish.

Have you ever wondered how much your poo weighs, this morning I stepped onto the scales to weigh myself but then thought I need to go to the toilet, so I do and after going to the toilet I go back and re-weigh myself and guess what I was a full kilo lighter………….what the hell my poo weighed a full kilo, who would have thought.

I am going out this morning to help mum with some clothes shopping, what I would love to help her with is to sort out her wardrobe, saying that I know how my daughters feel when they think they need to sort out my wardrobe. In fact on Sunday Natasha did indeed sort through my wardrobe and tossed out a number of pieces of clothes, I was ok with this more or less, although on Sunday night I couldn’t find my purple singlet but thought she had tossed it in the wash so wasn’t worried, however, yesterday when I emptied the box of rubbish she had created I found my singlet in with the rubbish, so yes I claimed it back and tossed it into the laundry basket. Yes she did want to throw out some of my clothes that I still wear around the house, I was ok with some of them being tossed but some of the them didn’t need to be tossed they are still pretty good. I ended up with a small bag of things that are too small for me that I will give to my sister to go through as well.

Now that Jessica is home and back to work I am no longer having Leo during the week, but I still have Blain a few nights during the week, not Monday night as thankfully his dad didn’t work Monday night so he had him and but I will have him tonight and tomorrow night and Friday night, at this stage Natasha is saying she things Jessica will have both boys on Thursday night.

I am picking the boys up from school, but Natasha is driving them to school in the mornings which is a big help for me, ok just got a text from Natasha and I have to pick the boys up and take them to school on Tuesday and Thursday………what the hell…………..

So I guess I had better go in and find some clothes to wear and test my blood so I can go and get the boys, I will drop Blain off first and then Leo and then go to Charlestown to meet mum and I wish I had some money to get a few things this morning but alas I don’t.

Today I want to tell you about the POW camp in South Australia

South Australia consisted of one main internment camp at Loveday, near Barmera on the River Murray. Opened in 1941, it was supported by centres at Bordertown, Clare, Lameroo, Maitland, Mount Gambier, Mount Pleasant, Morgan, Murray Bridge, Naracoorte, Tumby Bay, Willunga and Woodside from 1943—45 and a transit camp at Sandy Creek near Adelaide from 1944—46.

The Loveday Internment Group accommodated German, Italian and Japanese internees from various states of Australia, and international internees and POWs from the Netherlands, East Indies, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Britain and the Middle East. It consisted of six compounds and accommodation for personnel of the 25/33 Garrison Battalion who kept guard.

During its peak, the camp held over 5000 internees who produced goods and cultivated crops for the Australian war effort.

Some Italians were deployed to work as farmhands, while other Italian and Japanese internees were separated and even paid to harvest wood at Katarapko, Woolenook and Moorook West. 300 Italian internees were employed as railway workers at Cook on the Trans — Australia line.

One POW and 134 internees died at Loveday, while another two POWs were killed during an escape attempt while en route to Loveday.

Cause of death varied from illness and fragility brought on by old age, suicide, and at least one homicide.

Loveday Internment Camp closed in December 1946.

How many people have heard of Cowra POW camp?

Cowra is in New South Wales, near Bathurst during the second world war it was the site of a prisoner of war camp. It housed mostly Japanese and Italian prisoners, with some Korean and Indonesian civilians detained at the request of the Dutch East Indies government. It began operating in June, 1941, specially built to house POWs brought to Australia from overseas.

It was divided into four areas, each surrounded by barbed wire fences, the prisoners first lived in huts, but eventually included its own store, kitchen, mess huts, showers and vegetable gardens.

There were other POW camps in Australia in fact most states had prisoner of war camps as well as interment camps.

On 5 August 1944, Japanese prisoners of war housed in the detention camp in Cowra, New South Wales staged a breakout. Armed with improvised weapons including baseball bats and sharpened mess knives, they stormed the perimeter fences and overcame the machine gun posts. Never likely to be successful, the breakout resulted in the death of 231 Japanese prisoners with a further 108 wounded. All survivors were recaptured in the surrounding countryside in the days that followed. It is widely believed the goal of the breakout was for the Australian’s to kill the Japanese, as they felt it brought shame to themselves and their families to be POWs.

Four Australians were killed in the breakout – Privates Benjamin Gower Hardy, Ralph Jones and Charles Henry Shepherd. Lieutenant Harry Doncaster was killed when ambushed during the recapture of the prisoners. Hardy and Jones were posthumously awarded the George Cross.

A Military Court of Inquiry investigated the incident, and a summary of its findings was read to the House of Representatives by Prime Minister John Curtin on 8 September 1944.

The summary indicated the following:

• that conditions at the camp were fully in accordance with the International Convention;

• that no complaints regarding treatment had been made by or on behalf of the Japanese prior to the incident, which appeared to have been a premeditated and concerted plan of the prisoners;

• that the actions of the Australian garrison in resisting the attack averted greater loss of life, and that firing ceased as soon as control was assured; and

• that many of the dead had died by suicide or by the hand of other prisoners, and that many of the wounded had suffered self-inflicted wounds.

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Didn’t get around to doing a post yesterday was far too busy to do so, so here I am on a wet Saturday afternoon at last getting around to doing a post so what am I going to post about well I am going to give you my five things Friday.

Sad…………..me…………….never

Recovering from surgery……………nicely

Two little boys here for the night (Friday night)

Watching YouTube clips, then throwing punches, then back to watching video clips again

Bloody cordless phone

Now let us move onto Saturday what a lovely wet cool Saturday it is, Tasha turned up early to pick up the boys while Tim and I went out to do some shopping, I had to find something for my mum for Mother’s Day anyway when it was time to go to the checkout Tim says to me that he will go threw first and pay for his stuff, I tell him you will have to pay for everything as I have no money I could tell he was annoyed but what the hell I didn’t have any money.

As said it has been a cool/cold wet day, about half an hour ago Tim left for work so I am home alone for the night which is nice. It isn’t going to happen very often now as I will be having Blain most nights a week while his mum is at work.

Thankfully most mornings Natasha will be able to drive the boys to school and I will be the one picking them up in the afternoon. I have decided to have one of the boys stay at the office till I get there so I don’t have to get one out early. I did this on Friday, I rang and asked for Blain to wait at the office for me, however, when I arrived he was standing out the front of the school waiting for me and two office staff came running out looking for him. They see him getting into my car and freak out, I had to wind the window down and yell out “I’m his grandmother, I’m the one who rang”.

So I had Natasha have a talk to both boys about waiting in the office when told to do so, I don’t want them waiting on the side of the road for me as I feel it is not safe, thankfully both my girls and Tim all understand this and agree with me.

Ok that is all I have for today, I will be back with another post tomorrow.