Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

65 since Belaria’. On 16 February, he ‘arose early, washed etc - forgot it was my 26th birthday – am feeling a bit better now – have not spent a birthday at home since my 20th in 1939. Peter and I had “bash” to celebrate my birthday.’ Later that day, his response to ‘Panic – supposed to be leaving in the morning’ – was to make ‘some more prune jam out of 26 prunes’ before ‘our last coffee brew this afternoon.’ But instead of leaving, ‘a very miserable day’ followed on 17 February. Two days later, when Keith ‘went out on wood stooge and located firewood’, it was impossible to ignore the threat from the skies. His entry that day referred to ‘three air raids’, while the next one, for 20 February, reported ‘a bad day – two air raids at night – terrific blast – felt it on my face’. The next day he retreated into thoughts of home. It was sister Dot’s birthday and ‘Peter and I thought of a club for baseballers and cricketers of Mosman’: a clubhouse at Rawson Oval at ‘a rough guess’ would cost ‘£200 with £50 for furnishing – £250’. It was back to reality a day later when he recorded ‘Raid – felt hot blast on face’. Gil Docking later described the climactic assaults on Berlin that were prompting these terse entries: The RAF Lancasters bombed at night and the American Flying Fortresses during the day. They often turned on their final run to Berlin right over our camp at Luckenwalde. On a clear day the shock waves from the bombing of Berlin could be seen northwards, as concentric waves of compressed air moved out, like ripples from a stone dropped in the water. On 23 February Keith’s share of a Danish Red Cross parcel, donated by the Norwegians, gave him ‘50 biscuits, butter, cheese, molasses … oats, meat’ and raised his spirits enough to write a ‘card to Josie’, even though a ‘blast really rocked’ his hut. The next day the mood was sustained by a rare hot shower – ‘boy it was really good’ – and ‘a very fine meal’ of ‘fried potatoes and fried Danish meat (tasted like ham or bacon), three slices of bread and a Danish biscuit, butter and cheese’. But the day ended with a ‘long raid’ that shook his bed for 15 minutes. Docking’s 26th birthday on 26 February coincided with a ‘very big day raid on Berlin’ which, Keith couldn’t know at the time, devastated the city centre. Although some ‘very good’ Norwegian meat made the birthday memorable, the regular Australian diet was more often described as ‘slop’. ‘Extra slop, salted pork or something’, was unattractive when served and even less so when Prisoner of War