CHAPTER 18 The Second World War
M any winemakers went off to war. Colin Gramp served in the RAAF as an air gunner. Doug Collett, who worked with the Emu Wine Company and would later found Woodstock, partner with Robert O’Callaghan to establish Rockford Wines, and become a major shareholder in d’Arenberg Wines, served as a fighter pilot, flying Spitfires and Hurricanes for the RAAF and Royal Air Force during World War II. Ray Ward, who worked at Yalumba, served in the Australian Navy in New Guinea and even won gold medals for his homemade ‘jungle juice’. Dr John Middleton of Mount Mary, Ged Kay of Kay Brothers, and Thomas Angove of Angove also served in the RAAF. And Diana Kay, also of Kay Brothers, worked as a physiotherapist with the AIF hospitals in the Middle East. Max Schubert, having been newly appointed as assistant winemaker at Penfolds in 1938, signed up with the 6th Division AIF and served in the Middle East and New Guinea. Jeffrey Penfold Hyland, the son of Herbert Leslie Penfold Hyland, rejoined Penfolds as a South Australian manager after his war service with the 2nd/3rd Field Regiment in England, North Africa, and Syria. Murray Tyrrell, ‘The Mouth of the Hunter’, after war service as a trooper with the 2/6 Armoured Regiment, returned to his family winery. Robert Hamilton served on corvettes in the Pacific with the Royal Navy. And Mark Hill-Smith of Yalumba served with the Royal Australian Navy throughout the war. Wine expert Henri Renault was called up by the French forces to fight as an artillery officer in Indochina in 1940, and Eric Purbrick of Château Tahbilk served with the Northern Australian Observation Unit in the Northern Territory from
PREVIOUS PAGE: Two WAAAF flight mechanics at work on an engine of a Douglas C47 Dakota transport aircraft at RAAF Station Point Cook, Victoria, ca 1943. [AWM VIC0328]
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