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Movement
order and loading plan published. Tentative schedule calls for movement
with 2d Bn reinforced to Mareeba thence to unnamed advance base by air.
Rest of regt to move by boat from unnamed port of embarkation. Equipment,
individual and organizational, still has several small snarls, but on the
whole is probably more complete than ever before. Morale. Always hard to
judge. It is not at the low experienced before furloughs. Main question:
Do they have confidence in their leadership? The era of Johnnie Eagerism
(Major John M-N-O)* and the showmanship army has kept decisions as to even
small matters.
One of the duties of the Adjutant is to keep
his eyes on morale and let the commander know about it. Major John’s
departure from the regt is not noted in the journals. I do recall that
Major John sometime about here began to be quoted with some unusual
quotations. He advised Lt. Cole that he would be soon Eagle John and Cole
would be his number one man. As I recall the last time I saw him was
probably on landing in the cane from the Mareeba jump. Major John was
there with two nurses. In the landing, I had what we called a “tit.” This
is not a very funny thing. It means one or more of the suspension lines is
not where it is supposed to be, but is messing up the canopy. One can
sometimes shake the chute real hard and get rid of it. At any rate,
Major John, never one of my favorite people, was very cheerful to me. “You
had a tit," he laughed, “I have seen an acre of tits this morning.” The
nurses led him away. But what he said was probably true. By this time, all
of the chutes were being packed by Australian women employees, and some of
them were really not up to Rigger standard. Rigger standard was protected
by the Code of the Riggers which decreed that if someone did not like the
parachute that was given to him, he could challenge the chute. Then
the rigger would be allowed to jump it, to show that it was packed
properly.
Major John’s name was in the Army Register as
retired after the war, so he did survive it.
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