Joyce Enid Linnane as former Sergeant, WAAAF, interviewed by Joyce Thomson

Joyce Enid Linnane (93672) as Sergeant (Retired), Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force, 1942-1945.
Please note the beginning of the interivew is missing.

Joyce Linnane, was the daughter of a Church of England Sunday school teacher, and an Irish Catholic. Joyce was christened in the Church of England. She is not a regular churchgoer but has attended both churches over the years. Joyce was in the Women’s Australian National Service (WANS) and learned signalling. She applied to be WT Operator when applying to join the WAAAF and learned more about WT and Morse code at Ford Street School while waiting. She was called up on 11 April 1942 and sent to the Toorak Wireless School, had some training at Woragaleen and was barracked in very rough conditions at Rathbarren. Her WAAAF branch had people from many religions including Jews but they all attended the Church of England which was their official church.

She was chosen to carry out a special course and sent to Ascot Vale, advised that she would be working for the Central Bureau of Intelligence and top security was essential. The work involved learning the Japanese 'Kana' code which is very different to Morse code. Duties included supervisory and liaison tasks – choosing frequencies and getting material down to Ascot Park. Her main contact was a RAN Commander Nave with whom she would deliver messages and take instructions. She also transferred information from Japanese diaries and other documents to punch cards, and fed them into an early computer, which translated them from Japanese to English. On completion of the course they were posted to Point Cook, and attached to the Signals School but kept separate from it in the "Hush Hush Hut" on Navy intercept. There were three girls to a shift, supervised by a RAAF sergeant, four hours on and four hours off. It was considered that four hours were the most that one could concentrate on kana coding, but the four hours off did not take into consideration the significant time needed to walk from their quarters to the hut, nor the need to eat and to sleep; to wash and to iron and to keep their quarters clean, "let alone have a day off". They moved to Eldinell Building, Hamilton, Brisbane occupied by Colonel Sandford’s ARB (or IRB) team, and were locataed there when peace was declared.

At Ascot Park the Americans were appalled at the WAAAF’s low rate of pay and living conditions which Joyce describes as shocking, being without toilet or shower doors. The Americans were generous in buying food and drinks. Joyce further recalls that the intelligence and wireless unit people would meet socially, even after the war and mentions having parties at Strathpine, where the wireless unit had a big camp. She remembers a wireless unit reunion in Brisbane on 11 August 1984.
GAP IN TAPE
Very few boys had cars so one needed to live on the same side of Sydney to have a relationship because of transport difficulties; sex was not often involved. Good behaviour was expected and received. Young ladies needed an escort to go to a dance. Joyce’s main sporting activity was hiking , sometimes with girls and sometimes girls and boys.

Eventually, they shuffled the shifts around, probably so some girls could go to the Melbourne cup and Joyce had four days compassionate leave to go to Sydney when her mother was desperately ill.

After about six months their operations room in Townsville and quarters at Roseneath were ready and they moved. The bombproof operations room was past Stuart, which is south of the city and was very well camouflaged, including the aerials as trees. The work was very interesting, following Japanese aircraft from take-off. The Japanese rarely used radio silence and our Direction Finding (DF) stations around Northern Queensland at Togga (unknown), Rockhampton and Julia Creek could track them. We may not have been able to decode their messages but we had a signal. The operations room had all the latest communications and plotting equipment and was staffed by linguists, code experts and intelligence officers. A shift would comprise about 20 intercept operators and a couple of code experts with several supporting staff such as clerks, teleprinter operators, straight Wireless Telegraphy (WT) operators and an intelligence officer. This could vary depending on the season and the weather. Each intercept operator would monitor a specific frequency. If the frequency became active the reactions could include taking the message to the intelligence officer, his notifying the DF stations and perhaps the RAAF launching intercepting fighters. In 1944 1WU received letters of high commendation from both Headquarters Advanced Echelon, 5th United States Air Force and Major General SB Aitken, Director of US Central Bureau.

Joyce lived in barracks at Roseneath for about a year, travelling to the operations room at Stuart standing in the back of a truck. She describes in some detail travelling from Point Cook to Townsville as the worst journey of her life. After they arrived and were billeted at St Ann’s, some of the Carna operators were appointed to be radio operators; however, this was not allowed in case they used a Carna signal instead of Morse code. Keeping the interception operation secret was of paramount importance. She describes in detail the many faults of Roseneath as billets, including wildlife such as goats, cane toads, frogs, mosquitoes and snakes and an appalling water supply. Food was not good and seemed to be based on New Guinea tinned rations including tinned biscuits instead of bread, tinned butter which stank and a hot box of fly blown meat full of maggots. Joyce relates an account of her encounter with a snake and its mate in the toilet one evening.

Joyce confirms that security at the Stuart Intelligence Headquarters was tight, requiring that staff not mix socially with others, and that staff correspond through a post office box, preventing their families from knowing where they were. Their shift times were based on Tokyo time whilst other WT operators were based on Eastern Standard Time.

General MacArthur asked for a wireless unit to be part of his invasion force in The Philippines in 1944, and Number Six Wireless Unit was chosen. The WAAAF wireless operators were told that that would go when the others were settled in but in the meantime formed a rear echelon and were posted to the Central Bureau of Intelligence in Brisbane. Dress in Townsville had not included ties or stockings and saluting had been limited so half of Joyce’s girls were on charges within hours of their transfer. Roy Booth found them a room for intercept operations. Boys from around New Guinea were being sent home for a rest and they would work amicably with the girls. Joyce was on supervisory day duty by this time and they were intercepting messages successfully from the increased distance.

Joyce suffered from a fever every time that she moved. This was not documented in Townsville as the girls nursed themselves but was suspected malaria when she went to Brisbane and also occurred when she was sent to Bradfield Park for discharge, where she suddenly recovered for discharge on 7 December 1945. She returned to work in pharmaceutical houses without being a qualified pharmacist.

Places mentioned include: Ascot Park; Ascot Vale; Henry Street; Eldinell Building, Hamilton, Brisbane QLD; Townsville, QLD; Sydney NSW; Strathpine, Brisbane QLD; Buderim QLD; Tasmania; St Peters, Rome; Toorak Wireless School, VIC; Woragaleen VIC; Rathbarren VIC; Pimlico, Townsville QLD; Point Cook VIC; Sink School; St Peters, Rome; Togga (possibly Togganoggera NSW).

People mentioned: Colonel Sandford (Head of ARB/IRB? Team); Willie the WAAC; Ex-service friends, including Laurie Dale; Stella and Phil, (Townsville)
Connie, of Buderim; US MajGen S.B. Aiken; Commander Nave, RAN; Women fliers including Amy Johnson; Jean Batton; Nancy Bird Walton.
Mary Seivers (Chief Officer of WAAAF WT Code recruits)

Abbreviations:
ARB/IRB - unknown
DF - Direction Finder
WAAC - Women’s Australian Army Corps
WAAAF - Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force