Letters to Peg by Scotts

Letters To Peg Letters to Peg

Volume 1 1942 - 1943

Allan & Peg Nichols Prolog I had know for a number of years that Mum had kept all the letters Dad wrote to her during World War 2, most of them from Papua New Guinea, nearly eighty years ago. Dad passed away in 2001 and Mum in 2011. The letters were in bundles tied up with coloured wool and ribbons and stored in a plastic waterproof crate. The pages had turned yellow and some were quite damaged with age. I thought it would be a nice tribute to both Mum & Dad to scan the letters and put them into an Ebook for future generations to read before they deteriorated too much more. I thought it would also be an excellent insight into a bygone era that will never be repeated. Like pioneers of the past, Mum and Dad past would be unique. Hardships and endurance are what makes people grow and build better futures for everyone and that is what these two special, individuals did in a life time together.

As I started to scan the letters I only managed to read bits and pieces during the process. I saw names of people who had been a big part of their lives and then my own and brothers lives. It made me think of the boxes of old black and white photographs I use to look through as a child. I managed to ﬁnd them, so the process started to grow. I could actually now put faces to the names in the letters so they would live on as well. There was Mum & Dads dreams of owning their own home, having a family and being part of the community. It's strange to think they were once very young. One generally thinks of their parents as old, wiser, stricter and not adventures as we were when we were young. Looking back I can see clearly how hung hoe and adventures Mum & Dad were.

I found many photographs of the extended family, friends, house building, picnics, camping trips, boating and a whole range of great memories. As I started to scan the photographs, the Ebook became much bigger than I had expected. It brought back so many memories, some I had forgotten and some quite blurred.

Allan Nichols

The Early Years Allan Chew Nichols was born on the 24th of June 1924 to a mother of Scottish heritage Elizabeth Walters and a father of Chinese heritage, James Chew Nichols. Grandad James Chew was a brilliant carpenter and taught Allen the skill of woodworking. Allan was a fairly bright boy and enjoyed making things. He was an avid member of a model airplane ﬂying club and made many diﬀerent large balsa wood and tissue paper planes. He was also keen sailer and loved mucking around with gadgets such as radios. Allan’s father died when he was around 14 years old and due to hardships at the time he was forced to quit school and became a telegraph deliver boy to help support his mother and young brother Harley. His mother had four brothers and all the families were all involved with the Wesley Church on the corner of Hay Street and William Street in the centre of Perth. His mother played the church organ. Allan regularly attended Sunday school.

As there was no supporting mothers pension in those days, his mother took in children to foster and receive a small government support allowance. One of the lads was David Trigg and the two of them became life long friends building their houses together one house apart after the war. As children Allan, David and their other life time friend Les Bradshaw scooted around town, built and sail a little yacht called “Foo” around the Swan River. Perth was a sleepy little town back in the 30’s and early 40’s and the boys had the run of the place.

The War Years 1942 to 1946

In the late 30’s Allan started working at a boot company as a store man. In 1941 he enlisted in the army by lying about his age as he was only 17 years old. He was sent to the Army Trying Camp in Northam about 100 km East from Perth. When on leave he would travel to and from Northam to Perth by train.

Young teenagers Peggy, Poppy and Phillip Petersen were also members of the Wesley Church along with friends Edna, Lilly & John Hall, who all lived in Lawrence Street, West Perth. The Hall’s had 4 children living in a modest two bedroom semi detached house. They would all walk to Wesley Church together or sometimes catch the tram.

The Wesley girls were encouraged to write to the the Wesley enlisted boys to boost their moral and send them parcels of food and news items. Peggy started writing to Allan and as you read through the “Letters to Peg” you will see their romance blossom. There are also a couple of rare “Letters to Allan” that he must have keep.

Allan was flatfooted and therefore couldn’t march or be in the infantry, much to his disappointment. Given his intelligence and love of radios he was put into the Signal Corps as a radio technician. After Northam training he was bundled off to Northern Queensland and then by ship up to Papua New Guinea. Life was very tough and the Japanese still had the upper hand. Allan got Malaria and was hospitalised a couple of times. This would plague him from time to time in later life. He was a small bloke probably weighing around 50 to 60 kg. One day while lifting a case of ammunition, he was hit by the hook of a crane and toppled backwards and falling nearly 2 meters to the ground off the tray of a truck landing on his back with the case of ammunition landing heavily on his chest. He was taken to the field hospital where they did a number of x-rays and thought his spine was fractured. Luckily it wasn’t and he made a reasonable recovery and was sent back to work.

With his love of ﬂying he was sometimes ﬂown in a small sea plane called a Walrus to remote out posts to repair radios used by the coast surveillance personal. This was very dangerous as sometimes it meant landing on narrow crocodile infested rivers and being taken ashore by a indigenous local in a dugout out rigger canoe. Being very mindful that the jungle was crawling with Japanese and he was behind enemy lines. He sometimes had to wait several days for the plane to come back and pick him up.

He kept in contact with David and Les during the war through letters . David joined the Navy and Les the Airforce. Allan was particularly upset onetime when he found out David’s ship had bought supplies up to where he was stationed in PNG and Allan helped unload the ship and not knowing David was on board until a couple of days after it sailed away.

Victory In The Paciﬁc August 15 1945. After the war was over Allan was kept in Papua New Guinea until 1946 as radio communication was essential to coordinate the peace time transition and to ﬂush out the Japanese. Allan was very home sick as you will see in many of the later letters. He formed life time friendships with the men in his section who were scattered around the Australia in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Cairns. After he passed away in 2001 Peg kept in touch with his old mates.

Allan was stationed in Lae, Wewak and Rabaul. He enjoyed the company of the indigenous locals and spoke Pigeon English. To pass time whilst in PNG after the war, Allan busied himself making things. He built a little sail boat and bobbed around the lagoons and oceans with his mates. They fished quite often. On one occasion they fished by throwing hand grenades into the water to stun the fish, which then floated to the surface and then they shared the catch with the locals. He made little trinkets for Peg including an aluminium ring, a set of serviette rings made from wrecked planes and clothing from the silk of used parachutes. One such one was a beautiful grass type skirt made from brightly died silk parachute threads, like a Hawaiian skirt. When he returned to Perth he brought with him a huge assortment of Japanese walkie talkies, radios, valves, head phones and morse code keys. He tinkered with these over the years in his well stocked and loved garage.

Building A Life Together Allan and Peggy were married in Wesley Church. Poppy married Les and David married Sylvia. A bit later Harley married Marcia. They all brought blocks of land next to each other in The Strand, Bedford Park. Harley & Marcia on the corner block, Allan & Peg next door, Les & Pop next door and then David & Sylv. All the couple had two children each. in the late 1940’s Bedford Park was more like a wild bush with a black sandy tracks leading to The Strand from a gravel road called Grand Promenade.

Because of building restrictions after the war it was a case of build it yourself. Allan was very good at carpentry, Les was good at electrical engineering and Dave was good at plastering so between the three of them they could pretty much build anything. They made their own concrete building blocks. Peg use to make several a day while Allan was at work. They build the garages ﬁrst with the traditional outside toilet and lived in that for around ﬁve years while they slowly built the houses.

During this time Allan got his old job back at the WA Boot Company that became Comfortwear Footwear. He once again worked in the stores doing continual stock takes. The government set up retraining programmes after the war for any service personal wanting to learn a new career. Allan who had been fairly good with number decided to go to night school and study to become an Accountant. The footwear company had three factories, one in Lake Street, Northbridge, another near Royal Perth Hospital and one in Northam. Allan would travel between them all doing stock takes and travel weekly to Northam by train. He would also study accounting at night and build the houses on the weekends. The three factories were transitioned into one factory in Lake Street, Northbridge in the 1950’s.

Once again life was tough but all the families including cousins, distant relatives, old and new friends kept in touch through letters, visiting one another. Telephone were rarely and luxury, TV didn’t appear until the mid 60’s so the main form of entertainment was radio. Allan went on and became the assistant accountant for Comfortwear in the early 60’s then the Head Accountant and later General Manager. Always compassionately leading the company and staﬀ with a warm but ﬁrm hand. The company was purchased by Dunlop in the late 60’s along with a parcel of other footwear companies from a business called Felt & Textiles. Dunlop called Allan to the companies Head Quarters in Melbourne and told him they didn’t want to have to deal with a footwear factory so far away. At the time Allan had seen a huge opportunity to make safety footwear for the expanding Iron Ore mines starting in the north of Western Australia.

In the parcel of footwear companies purchased by Dunlops there was a big safety footwear factory in Sydney and their thinking was they didn’t need another one in Perth. Allan was told to go back to Perth and close the factory. This was a horrifying thought, as it meant around 125 people 3

would loose their jobs and there was no scope in Perth for re-employment in any form what so ever for the booties. Allan begged Dunlops not to close the factory, so they came back with an offer. You buy or we close it. Allan flew back to Perth and developed a business plan with the factory Manager John Worth and Sales Manager Fred Marsden to use their superannuation, holiday pay and savings to raise the capital to purchase the company. Dunlops were very gracious and loaned the three men the money on a low interest rate, say they trusted them and believed the industry needed good competitors, such as they believed Comfortwear could offer.

This was very much a gentlemen’s agreement and the business was paid off well before it was due. Because of this Dunlops invited the men to then purchase the Lake and Newcastle buildings in Northbridge in a similar manner. Once again the new purchase was paid off ahead of time. The three men ran Comfortwear as a family business, never over capitalising with a focus on protecting the welfare and security of all the staff. The three men eventually sold Comfortwear in 1987 and then Allan and John reinvested in Steel Blue in the mid 90’s.

Allan spoke fondly of the later part of his service in PNG, so Peg persuaded him to return for a visit on the cruise ship Fairstar in 1994. They had a great time and also revisited his old army mate in Cairns. They visited Port Moresby, Lae, Wewak, Madang and Rabaul. They took lots of photos but unfortunately or should I say fortunately just a few days after steaming out of Rabaul Harbour the town was decimated when the volcano Mt Tavurvur erupted.

Allan and Peg were great contributors to the community and involved in Rotary for over twenty years. Allan held many positions including President. They often had exchange students from around the world come and stay with them for months. Allan sailed nearly every weekend with the South of Perth Yacht Club for many years. They purchased a 24 foot yacht in the 80’s called Honey Bee and had mornings at Rottnest where they ﬁshed and socialised with others at Narrow Neck. They both loved camping and had a range of vehicles starting with a Morris Minor panel van in the late 50’s, then a Holden EK panel van that son Graeme still has. Allen kitted out a second hand Commer van as a camper and drove the family across the Nullaboar when it was gravel between Eucla and Ceduna and then all the way to Cairns via Melbourne and Sydney to see his old army mates. We traveled around WA in it from Carnarvon, Money Mia, Kalgoorlie, Esperance, Albany and where ever we felt like poking around. We would camp out under the stars and Mum & Dad would tell us the stories. Allen eventually joined the Bedford RSL putting the bad memories of the war behind and it formed a good part of their retirement years.

As a child I loved hearing Dad & Mum tell me stories of the past. Dad didn’t say a lot about the war especially in my early years. He hated war. Ernie one of his cousins was captured by both the Italian & the Germans and became a POW. Many good people were lost. Many high positions were given to useless commanders, based on family connections not intelligence or military knowledge. He mentions in one letters, of a group of Japanese surrendering to him and his mates in the jungle, and Dad gave them some of his rations and wondered if they would have done the same if the tables were turned.

I use to love sitting with Mum on a wet, rainy day and she would bring out a box of all the old black and white photos and she would tell me the stories of my relatives and those places Dad was in during the war and what life was like back then. There was also many photos of the house being built and stories of the fun they had. A few years after Dad had passed away I dropped in after work one day to see how Mum was. I could tell she had been crying. She was sitting there with a box of Dad’s old letters from the war. The letters attached to this story. She was reliving it as if it was yesterday. She said “your Dad was only a boy and he is so home sick, all the others came home 12 months ago and Dad is still stuck there ﬁxing bloody radios, its not fair”. Well thats war and its not fair.

Around 7,000 Australian’s and 7,000 Americans lost their lives in PNG and around 202,000 Japanese were killed or died of starvation or various diseases. The Japanese nearly made it to Port Moresby which would have been a staging ground to attack Australia only 300 kilometres south across the Torres Strait. Valiantly a few thousand Australian pushed ten times their number of Japanese back along the Kokoda Track over the rugged Owen Stanley Mountains all the way to the north coast on PNG. They were ably assisted by the local who the troops aﬀectionally called Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.

I hope you enjoy reading Letters To Peg and the couple of Letters To Allan. They tell a story of a young man doing his bit for his country in a foreign land and the blossoming of the love between two amazing people. Some of the letters are very damaged and were written nearly 80 years ago. The printing has faded on some. Some are written on captured Japanese writing paper. Some are undated so I have had to make guess as too when they may have been written. There are several that are too damaged to scan.

Glossary The People Allan’s Grandparents Henry Harley and Mary Ann Walters.

Migrated from Crosshill, Scotland around 1917. Landed in Albany.

Children. Harry, David, Ernie and Elizabeth (Allan’s mother)

Allan Chew Nichols, born 26/7/1924 - 14/11/2001

Peggy Frances Petersen, born 2/5/1942 - 13/4/2011

201 The Strand, Bedford Park.

Allan and Peg’s children

Peter James, born 7/9/1956 adopted 1957

Graeme Allan born 12/7/1960 adopted same year.

Allan’s parents - Elizabeth (nee Walters) married James Chew Nichols. After his death she married Pop Wells, who was a curator at Wesley Church. Corner of William & Hay Street Perth.

They lived in Mahogany Creek from the 1950s through to late 60’s.

Peg’s older brother - Phillip Petersen, never married. (passed away mid 70’s)

Peg’s younger sister - Poppy Ellen Petersen Married Les Bradshaw, who was a lifelong friend of Allan.

203 The Strand, Bedford Park.

Two daughters Lynda 1954 and Judith 1955.

Peg’s mother - Mable, passed away early 60’s. Husband left the family when the children were small and made contact in the early 70’s and had remarried.

Mable’s sister - Nell passed away mid 60’s and Husband Joe passed away early 70’s.

Son, David

Allan’s younger brother - Harley (passed away mid 80’s) married Marcia

199 The Strand, Bedford Park.

Owned and established “Nichols Display Arts”, which was one of Perths leading show and retail advertising sign companies.

Two children Ashley 1959 and Kaylene 1965

Allan’s best friend - David Trigg married Sylvia.

205 The Strand, Bedford Park.

Two sons Winton 1954 and Glenn 1955

Pegs lifetime best friends and childhood neighbours - the Hall family.

Sisters Edna and Lilly Hall.

Brother John Hall.

Edna married Ted Moore and they had a wheat & sheep farm at Tammin.

Lilly married Jim Greg and they lived in Melbourne until the late 90’s.

Peg’s lifetime friend and work mate Elsie married Tom Brennan.

Allan’s Uncles and Aunties - Brothers of Elizabeth.

Ernie Walters married Alex.

Five Children Ann, Helen, Stuart, Margaret & Evan.

Harry Walters married Ida

Three Children Enid, Jeﬀ and Carol.

David Walters married Molly Irene.

No children

Undated Letters To Peg

A Walrus Flying Boat Made by Allan

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Letters To Allan

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Letters To Allan

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Allan, Harley and Nan Walters

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Model Airplane Club 1941

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Sailing on the Swan River in Foo

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Easter 1942 Camping at Mandurah

David Trigg and Jackie Sue of Z Force Fame.

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Foo

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Mandurah Bridge

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Allan in Papua New Guinea

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Allan and some mates and the sail boat he made in PNG

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Allan standing on the wheel of a Walrus

ﬂying boat.

The Walrus Flying Boat Allan was ﬂown around in to ﬁx army radios

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1945 Japanese surrender in PNG

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Rotary Club Peg & Allan

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Allan & Peg

Allan Returns to PNG

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Fun at the beach

Wedding Day

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Peg

Peg, Freddie the dog & Allan building the house

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The Garage Peg & Allan lived in for 5 years while building the house

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201 The Strand, Bedford

Poppy, Sylvia, Peg, David, Harley & Les. House building.

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Grandma and Peg

Grandma and Pop Wells

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Nanna, Poppy, Peggy and Phillip

Edna and Lilly Hall

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1955 Peg wins a ﬂoor polisher

Poppy, Les, Peggy, Sylvia, Allan and David

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Sylvia, Les, Poppy, Peggy, Allan and David.

Honey Bee at Rottnest

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Apricus

Peg with the Surf Cat

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Oﬀ Caravanning Sailing on Honey Bee

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Grandma, Peg, Pop, Lynda, Poppy, Allan, Sylvia, Phillip, Les, Marcia & Harley

Allan, David & Les

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Allan & Grandad James Chew

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Harley

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Japanese War Postcards From PNG

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Allan on the left

Allan On A Captured Japanese Tank

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A Walrus Flying Boat That Allan Flew on to Repair Radios in PNG

Allan standing on a Walrus Flying Boat

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Allan riding his boat made from the belly tanks of a Japanese Zero. Au Natural.

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Allan in a little sail boat he made in PNG.

Allan in the front of an out rigger canoe

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Probably Turtle Soup Tonight.

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Croc Hunting PNG Style

Turtle hunting with the locals

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Fresh Pork Tonight

Canoeing with the locals

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Allan Chew Nichols 210

Peggy Frances Peterson

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Letter from Tommy

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Letter to Les

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Important Letter from Frank

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Peg top left with the Badminton team from Mercia Modes, the dress making company she work for.

Edna and Lilly Hall

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David, Allan, Peggy, Phillip & Poppy

Poppy and Peggy

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Returning to PNG on the Fairstar

4th Battalion Reunion October 3rd 2001 ANZAC House Perth 220

Peggy and Poppy

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50 Year Member Presentation CPA

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A Christmas card Allan made for his Nanna when he was around 7 years old.

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Japanese WW2 money from PNG

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The Walters Brothers and Sister.

Dave, Harry, Ernie and Elizabeth.

Grandma 227

Grandma

Allan School photo. Second row left of centre.

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Allan and Les

Allan, Dave & Les

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Allan elected President of The Mount Lawley Rotary Club.

1965 trip to Wittnoom

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Ashley, Harley, Graeme, Marcia, Kaylene & Peggy

Harley, Kaylene, Grandma, Marcia and Ashley.

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Harley

1956 Lynda, Peggy, Aunty Nell, Poppy and Nanna Mabel.

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1956 Uncle Joe, Uncle Phill, Les & Allan.

Pop Wells and Grandma 234

Les and Poppy

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Letters To Peg Letters45, to Peg 1944, 46

Volume 2 1944 - 1946

Letters To Peg 1944, 45, 46

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The War is Over

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6 June 1944 D-Day

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