Posting to Butterworth Air Force Base in Malaysia, family relocation with Will (less than one year old) and Colan, accommodation, job disappointment, and daughter Judy's memories of arrival in Penang.
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BUTTERWORTH AIR FORCE BASE
Will was less than one year old when I got posted to Butterworth Air Force Base in Malaysia. We got through it, baby and all. The kids were on my passport except Colan; he had his own passport since he planned to come back to Australia.
We had quite good accommodation on the base, except towards the end of it. We were in a position that we didn't know if we were going to get paid or not. I don't know what that was about, something technical - something stupid.
I was truly working outside this time, an outside job. When I arrived I thought I was going to be the flight sergeant. It was six months later I found out another bloke got promoted to the job. I went on having disappointments. I was still a sergeant when I came back to Support Command.
It was hot, humid, all that sort of thing. Pat loved it. She had sport nearly everyday. The kids had a special RAF school with teachers from N.S.W. We were stationed there for two and a half years.
Daughter Judy remembers the day the family arrived in Penang: "It was a shock when we got off the airplane and had to walk across the tarmac. The heat and humidity just hit us. We took a bus and I'm sure there wasn't any air conditioning. I remember when we got the house my sister Cheryl and I layed down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling fan going round and round."
People: Will, Derek, Colan, Pat, Judy, Cheryl
Places: Butterworth Air Force Base, Malaysia, Australia, Penang, N.S.W.
Interesting facts
The Five Power Defence Arrangements. Signed in 1971 between Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore, and still in force. It is the reason Australian fighters were based on the Malaysian mainland into the 1980s.
The Mirage III. A French delta-wing fighter, built under licence in Australia and the RAAF's front-line aircraft for over twenty years. Its delta wing gives it the speed and the famously long landing roll.