Commando News Edition 13, 2022

in Brisbane close to her but believes it more likely to be
a hospital in North Queensland.
Close reading of Roy’s Service Record reveals an
unknown word related to his hospitalisation,
‘Neurasthenia’. It is defined as: ‘An ill-defined medical
condition characterized by lassitude, fatigue,
headache, and irritability, associated chiefly with
emotional disturbance.’ While it was not surprising that
Roy should be diagnosed with Neurasthenia it was
unexpected. Family lore has always focussed on
Malaria which obviously was a major contributing
factor as well as his being utterly exhausted. All the
more extraordinary then is the manner in which he
eventually put it behind him, showing no ill-affects save
for the physical.
Roy’s assumption that the hospital to which he
would be sent was in North Queensland proved to be
correct. After the ship docked in Townsville, he was
taken to the 2/2 Australian General Hospital (AGH)
outside Hughenden. The contrast between the two
environments could not be more stark! From dense
mountainous jungle to flat grassy plains as far as the
eye could see.
Why set up a hospital in this desolate location? One
wonders what therapeutic value such a landscape
could have. In Roy’s first letter to Veronica once back in
Australia, he tells her of his arrival in Townsville, his
subjection to a battery of medical tests and his
eventual arrival at the location, ‘......well out in the
west, some 250 miles west of Townsville’. There is no
indication of the means by which he travelled. He
continues, ‘....The country round about is flat for miles
and miles and miles. Thank God. It is a pleasant change
to be able to look around and not see great mountains
everywhere.’ So, at least for Roy, this desolate place
was the perfect antidote giving him visual reprieve
from the landscape that had sapped him of his health
and energy.
Roy started a twenty-day
treatment regime that in -
cluded taking three different
drugs, each as he describes,
‘vile’! The only aspect that he
thoroughly enjoyed was one
bottle of beer each day also
part of the prescribed medi -
ca tion! There is tired ness in
the letters he writes from the
2/2 AGH: ‘I expect it will be
another three weeks before I
leave here and after that,
what? I feel I could do with a
bit of leave, but whether I’ll
get any before going back, or
whether I’ll be sent straight
back, I do not know.’
Left: Captain Roy Howard,
New Guinea, 1942
‘Fourteen days of my treatment are completed. I
have four days to go. After that I stay on about a week,
getting strong and some weight back. After that I hope
to get some leave before getting back into the war
again.’
Roy’s ‘stay on about a week’ to get ‘strong’ and
regain ‘weight’ lasted two days according to the entry
in his service record. It indicates that on the third day
he ‘M/O (marched out) to GDD Brisbane’ which is to
the General Duties Depot, presumably at Enoggera. 28
Deciphering the haphazard record entries which have
no sequential order and often repeat the same
information, as well as interpreting the acronyms, was
a challenge.
On 27 November 1942 the Training Centre at
Wilson’s Promontory was relocated to the area around
Lamington Plateau south of Brisbane, which was
deemed a more suitable training environment given its
similarity to the landscape and climate in which the
recruits would be fighting in New Guinea. It included ‘a
Commando Training Battalion supplying reinforce -
ments for the independent companies and an officertraining
program which turned out 60 platoon com -
manders every six weeks. Training was realistic and
physically demanding and instructors were drawn from
men with recent combat experience in either the
Middle East, South-West Pacific, or both.’ 29 Was he
deemed unfit for combat due to the recurring bouts of
Malaria? Or was it that his experience coupled with his
years of knowledge of the terrain was seen as an
indispensible asset? Perhaps a combination of both.
Roy was transferred to this recently opened Jungle
Warfare School at Canungra.
In a letter to Veronica, dated 15 January 1943, Roy
writes ‘I have been fortunate to be able to write every
night lately.’ There are snippets in the letters he writes
‘every night’ that add insight into the work he was
doing. He explains why she may not receive a letter for
a few days. ‘I’m to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning,
and go bush for five, or perhaps six, days on Army
work, and in those days I’ll be in some very rough
country.’ 30 The address on the letters also provides
details not easily interrupted from the Service Record.
The early letter identifies him as being in ‘L’ Company
at the Land Headquarters Training Centre whereas the
last surviving is addressed, 1 st Australian Commando
Training Battalion.
A puzzling entry on Roy’s Service Record dated 21
May 1943 has him transferring to the 2/7 Australian
Cavalry (Commando) Regiment. This pre-dates the last
of the surviving letters written on 25 May from
Canungra. Interestingly there is no reference in that
letter to his being transferred. Researching the
Regiment indicates that in 1943, it was based at
Canungra which could account for Roy’s not deeming it
newsworthy. From his perspective, it made little
difference to his role in the training school except that
now he was attached specifically to this regiment.
By July, Roy was again overwhelmed by exhaustion
COMMANDO ~ The Magazine of the Australian Commando Association ~ Edition 13 I 2022 37