AN AUSSIE LARRIKIN

[Maureen Clifford]

Written in memory of my Father in Law
a Son, Brother, Husband, Father and Grandfather
An Aussie Larrikin and a Bonzer Bloke.



TINKER, TAILOR ,SOLDIER, SAILOR


A country boy from Lithgow, a Wool Classer by trade
at 21 years and 7 months a big decision made
He went and joined the AIF. Took uniform and gun
signed up at Paddington, June twenty third in 1941.
Third of September '41 from Sydney he did go
heading by ship to Egypt where sand storms often blow
They disembarked September 23rd to heat and flies.
The 2/9 A Field Regiment - Batman Clifford had arrived.

He paid the price...Enteric Fever and Malaria
would lay him low for many days , at times seemed scarier
than the fighting, for the constant voices sounding in his brain
made him wonder was he dead, just wounded or insane.
He was an Aussie Larrikin or so his records show.
Failed to appear at place of parade per the C.O.
AWOL so many times and absent from parade
he paid the price with wages lost and time in the stockade.

March eleven in forty two, our boys were Aussie bound
on board the USS 'West Point' a naval troopship sound.
Her crew called her 'The Grey Ghost' for she traveled on her own
and never lost a single life..she carried our boys home.
Disembarked them all in Adelaide, back onto Aussie soil
the sick the wounded and the lame, tired from hardship and toil.
She sailed for fifty six long months with never a vacation
renamed 'SS America' at wars end, by her nation.

He did a stint at driving those big Blitz army trucks.
Coming down the range to Brisbane he ran out of luck.
His truck rolled over on the range. At Helidon it was.
Concussion and a fractured arm..he'd got worse on a horse.
January 1945 saw him headed off to Lae
in Papua New Guinea, to fight another day.
Where rainforest's and mountains made the going there and back
tough for those who fought, and many died upon that track.

All heroes, bloody heroes, fighting wars midst raining shell.
These Aussie boys on foreign soil, each living their own hell.
Relentless rain, and sucking mud, and heat made all men curse.
Blood sucking leeches, fungal feet, made each step even worse.
But each man struggled gamely on carrying heavy packs
and rifles, grenades, tools of war on weary aching backs,
an endless stream of men to halt the enemy attack
and endless stream of Fuzzy Wuzzys' bringing wounded back.


In February '46 'Westralia' took them home.
An armed merchant cruiser with six inch guns of her own.
She'd been in Sydney Harbour when the Japanese attacked
but loaded now with helpless men..she'd damn well get them back.
And like so many other men who bravely go to war
so did this man, a larrikin, who was my Dad in Law.
But wars seem to solve nothing, we're fighting one again
and history will tell the tale, but never feel the pain.

And photos on the wall, and words written in books
and pictures shown on videos and TV news that shocks
will never ease the grieving or restore a life that's lost,
the price of War is far to high. Too many bear the cost

Maureen Clifford ©