Interview with Edna MacDonald (When the war came to Australia)

Mrs MacDonald went to the Footscray Ammunition factory when the war broke out. She describes it as working long hours, tiring, dirty, boring, depressing, cold, unhealthy, night shifts but reasonable pay- eight pounds a week. The factory was staffed by Manpower. They were visited by Field Marshall Montgomery. She mentions that her brother was wounded and died of wounds, her husband was discharged with war neurosis and became an alcoholic and her brother-in-law, Joe Dalton was a POW under the Japanese and died of berri berri. Mrs MacDonald comments on the black market in underwear and meat. She mentions the American serviceman, Leonski who was convicted of strangling several girls and consequently executed. She comments on entertainment- music and cinema- she says that the girls were too tired to go to dances, and there was no-one to dance with. Mrs MacDonald describes the Australian relations with the Americans-some animosity between the two. In her opinion, wartime hardships in Australia were not that bad- rationing was the worst of it, if you didn't have any family or friends in the war. Her motto was to make the most of things and accept them.