Volume 22 Number 4

November 2010

What's in this Issue

(Click on link to read article - Press `Home` key to return to here)

Presidents Report	CO's Report
Report from the QURA 2010 AGM	Correspondence from Members
QURA Christmas Party Invitation	War Quotes
Things to Think About	Quotable Quotes
Functions in 2010	Membership Dues
QURA Office Bearers

 

 

President's Report

 

Another year is nearly over.  The AGM was a great function and was well attended by members. (See a report  later in this newsletter).  A highlight of the evening was the award of Life Membership to Peter Morton for the many years he has given to QURA in the development and maintenance of this website.  Well done Peter and thanks for the time you have spent.  The old Executive Management Committee was re-elected again.  It must be that we did a good job or no one else is silly enough to do the job.

The Committee is still working on the preservation of the history of the Regiment by scanning photos and documents.  As previously stated the scans will be made available to members.  If you have any old photos, instructions, parade cards... anything at all... we would greatly appreciate a loan so we can scan the documents for our history collection.

 The last function for the year is the Xmas drinks at the Victory Hotel in Edward Street Thursday 2 December 2010.  Just drop by any time from 1730 for few minutes.  Some hot and cold finger nibbles will be available. Drinks are at the cost to the member.  It is nice to catch up with old friends.  It would be great to see you there.

 I would extend to the Commanding Officer and all ranks of the Regiment thanks for your support to the Association during the year.  The Association does what it can to further the interests of the Regiment and we greatly appreciate the work which the Regiment does to support us.

 To all the members I wish you the best for the forthcoming festive season.  I wish you safe travel and the happiness of family and friends getting together.

 

*****************************

 

The Annual General Meeting for QURA was conducted at the United Service Club on 10 September 2010. Thirty members attend the function. As usual the past year was reviewed and the financial affairs were presented and accepted.

 

 

 

The highlight of the past year was the conduct of the Unveiling of the badges of QURA and the Queensland University Squadron in the Great Court of the University campus. It was pleasing to note that the appeal for donations to cover the cost of the sculpturing of the badge was successful. I hope you take the time to visit the St Lucia Campus to view the badge.

 

A big thank you to Terry Gygar who accepted our invitation to address the assembly. He spoke of some of his memories and stimulated conversation and comment about the way forward for the Defence Force. Thanks to Terry.

 

As appears to be a certain pattern the old Executive Management Committee was re-elected for the next year.

 

A highlight of the night was the awarding of Life Membership to Peter Morton in recognition of his work developing and managing the QURA website, production of the newsletter, a database of members along with an administrative programme for the management of the Association.

 

The Commanding Officer again presented a quick overview of the past year in the Regiment. Many members were surprised at the busy times for the Regiment with many courses of training conducted. The number of courses are similar to what was conducted in the old Training Group

 

For those members who couldn't attend the AGM/Dinner, here is the excellent menu from the evening

 

 

The following photos were taken at the 2010 QURA AGM by our resident photographer Trevor Luttrell
 

	Rod Hamilton (left) and John Hammond putting the squeeze on Serge Voloschenko (middle)
William Ridley (left) chatting about old times with Pat Shanahan - photographer apologises for the missing hair!!

John Hammond (left) and Rod Hamilton (right) continuing their squeeze tactics with QURA President Trevor Luttrell ( Note the QURA gold pocket badge worn by Trevor )
	Rod Hardaker (left) and Garry Collins chatting with after dinner speaker Terry Gygar (right)
Peter Morton (left) and Greg Adams (right) trying to convince Mal Try that beer is the appropriate before-dinner drink
	Col Ahern (left) and Dave Woodrow (middle) getting some devine guidance from Bruce Maughan
Neil Heather and Larry Loveday getting together before the dinner while in the background Mal Try councils Bruce Davis about the appropriate dress for the AGM
	Table layout at the 2010 QURA AGM/Dinner before the marauding hordes descended ( Note the centre piece fashioned by our man of all trades Trevor Luttrell )

 

 

*****************************

 

 

Correspondence from Members

Please note:  QURA receives emails/letters from time to time requesting contact details of members.  The current policy is if a fellow member requests contact with another member, the contact details are given without contacting the relevant member. 

Where contact is requested by a non-member, the contact is referred to the individual member to follow up the contact if they so desire.

 

==================================================================

 

 

From:- Trevor Luttrell

 

To:- Peter Morton

 

Subject:-  Brilliantly Simple

 

Peter,

 

This is rather good.

If we have space it might be a good inclusion for the newsletter.

 

Simple Analogy    An economics professor at a local college made the statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.  After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.  The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.   As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.   The second test average was a D! No one was happy.  When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.  The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.   All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.  It could not be any simpler than that.

This profound message says it all  "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

 

==================================================================

 

From:- Bruce Davis

 

To:- Trevor Luttrell
 

Subject:-  Sense of Humour - Military

 

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS; WITHOUT THEM WE WOULDN'T BE FREE. This email was sent to you free of  political rhetoric  .. I LIKED IT, so I  forwarded it, kindly do the same.

==================================================================

 

From:- Bill Nason

 

To:- Trevor Luttrell
 

Subject:-  Tip of the hat to the warthogid Smith

 

Hi Trevor

 

Thought this would be of interest to you

 

Bill N.

 

First there was this gun... It was developed by General Electric, the "We bring good things to life" people.   It's one of the modern-day Gatling guns. It shoots very big bullets. It shoots them very quickly. Someone said, "Let's put it in an airplane." Someone else said, "Better still, and let?s build an airplane around it." So they did. And "they" were the Fairchild-Republic airplane people. And they had done such a good job with an airplane they developed back in WWII... ...called the P-47 Thunderbolt, they decided to call it the A10 Thunderbolt. They made it so it was very good at flying low and slow and shooting things with that fabulous gun. But since it did fly low and slow, they made it bulletproof, or almost so. A lot of bad guys have found you can shoot an A10 with anything from a pistol to a 23mm Soviet cannon and it just keeps on flying and shooting. When they got through, it looked like this... It's not sleek and sexy like an F18 or the stealthy Raptors and such, but I think it's such a great airplane because it does what it does better than any other plane in the world. It kills tanks. Not only tanks, as Sadam Hussein's boys found out to their horror, but armored personnel carriers, radar stations, locomotives, bunkers, fuel depots...just about anything the bad guys thought was bulletproof turned out to be easy pickings for this beast. See those engines. One of them alone will fly this puppy. The pilot sits in a very thick titanium alloy "bathtub." That's typical of the design. They were smart enough to make every part the same whether mounted on the left side or right side of the plane, like landing gear, for instance. Because the engines are mounted so high (away from ground debris) and the landing gear uses such low pressure tires, it can operate from a damaged airport, interstate highway, plowed field, or dirt road. Everything is redundant. They have two of almost everything. Sometimes they have three of something. Like flight controls. There's triple redundancy of those,  and even if there is a total failure of the double hydraulic system, there is a set of manual flying controls. Capt. Kim Campbell sustained this damage over Bagdad and flew for another hour before returning to base. But about that gun... It's so hard to grasp just how powerful it is. This is the closest I could find to showing you just what this cartridge is all about. What the guy is holding is NOT the 30mm round, but a "little" .50 Browing machinegun round and the 20mm cannon round which has been around for a long time. The 30mm is MUCH bigger. Down at the bottom are the .50 BMG and 20x102 Vulcan the fellow was holding. At the bottom right is the bad boy we're discussing. Let's get some perspective here: The .223 Rem (M16 rifle round) is fast. It shoots a 55 or so grain bullet at about 3300 feet/sec, give or take. It's the fastest of all those rounds shown (except one). When you move up to the .30 caliber rounds, the bullets jump up in weight to 160-200 grains. Speeds run from about 2600 to 3000 fps or so. The .338 Lapua is the king of the sniper rifles these days and shoots a 350 grain bullet at 2800 fps or so. They kill bad guys at over a mile with that one. The .50 BMG is really big. Mike Beasley has one on his desk. Everyone who picks it up thinks it's some sort of fake, unless they know big ammo. It's really huge with a bullet that weighs 750 grains and goes as fast the Lapua. I don't have data on the Vulcan, but hang on to your hat. The bullet for the 30x173 Avenger has an aluminum jacket around a spent uranium core and weighs 6560 grains (yes, over 100 times as heavy as the M16 bullet, and flies through the air at 3500 fps (which is faster than the M16 as well). The gun shoots at a rate of 4200 rounds per minute. Yes, four thousand. Pilots typically shoot either one- or two-second burst which set loose 70 to 150 rounds. The system is optimized for shooting at 4,000 feet. OK, the best for last. You've got a pretty good idea of how big that cartridge is, but I'll bet you're like me and you don't fully appreciate how big the GA GAU-8 Avenger really is. Take a look... Each of those seven barrels is 112" long. That's almost ten feet. The entire gun is 19-1/2 feet long. Think how impressive it would look set up in your living room. Oh, by the way, it doesn't eject the empty shells but runs them back into the storage drum. There's just so dang many flying out, they felt it might damage the aircraft. Oh yeah, I forgot, they can hang those bomb and rocket things on ?em too, just in case.  After all, it is an ?airplane?! Like I said, this is a beautiful design. I'm glad it's ours.

 

==================================================================

 

 

From:- Bill Beach
 

To:-  Peter Morton
 

Subject:-  In their Honour

 

http://www.cannonade.net/honour.php

In Their Honour is dedicated to the fine Australian service men and women who served in the Armed Forces from 1914 to 1949. Many of them sacrificed their lives for "King and country". Thousands did not come home to their families and were buried in War Graves in cemeteries across Europe and the Middle East.

In Their Honour shows the burial or memorial location of all service men and women who fought for our freedom and paid the ultimate price.

In Their Honour is an invaluable resource for teachers, genealogists, researchers and family historians. Search by surname to locate the final resting place of our service men and women with information about the cemetery where they are commemorated. If you are planning a Battlefield Tour of Europe, the location of war cemeteries can be accessed via mobile phones and a native version will soon be available on the iPhone.

http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/

Welcome to the World War Two Nominal Roll website.

The World War Two Nominal Roll was created to honour and commemorate the men and women who served in Australia's defence forces and the Merchant Navy during this conflict.

This site contains information from the service records of some one million individuals who served during World War Two.

You may search for service record details by specifying name, service number, honours, place (of birth, of enlistment, or residential locality at enlistment). Once you find an individual service record you can print a certificate, if you wish.

Individuals were given an opportunity to have their service details excluded from the website prior to it being published. More detailed information about this, and the roll, is available at About this Nominal Roll.

If you would like to contact us about this website, please refer to our contact details.[This site was last updated on 1 August 2010.]

Bill Beach

Senior Manager,

Faculty of Arts Library Service,

Social Sciences & Humanities library,

The University of Queensland.

 

 

==================================================================

From:- Chris Backstrom
 

To:- Peter Morton
 

Subject:-  Re QURA AGM/DINNER

 

Peter,

 

I apologise for not having replied sooner. 

 

I will not be attending the AGM this year.  I am having an operation that week, and I'm not going to
push anything too much too soon.

 

I hope the evening goes well.

 

Chris Backstrom

 

==================================================================

 

From:- Peter McCann
 

To:-  Peter Morton
 

Subject:-  re QURA AGM/DINNER

 

G'day Peter,

 

I can't make it to the dinner.  I now live on the South Coast of NSW at Batemans Bay and work 3 days a week at AHQ so I am geographically dislocated. I do however keep running into people from QUR days.  Craig Pandy, who I last saw as a 2LT at QUR, works at AHQ as a civilian SES band 2 ( MAJGEN  equivalent)!

 

Regards

 

Peter McCann

Lieutenant Colonel

Program Support DSRP-A

Russell Offices R1-2-A120

 

 

==================================================================

 

 

From:- Rod Hardaker
 

To:- Peter Morton
 

Subject:-  An Oldie

 

Navy and Army

 

An old Sailor and an old Digger were sitting in the bar arguing about who'd had the tougher career.

 

"I did 30 years in the Army," the grunt declared proudly, "and fought in three of my country's wars. Fresh out of boot camp I fought on the Kokoda Track, clawed my way up the blood-soaked mountains and eventually took out an entire enemy machine-gun nest with a single grenade.  As a sergeant, I fought in Korea. We pushed back the enemy inch by bloody inch all the way up to the Chinese border, always under a barrage of artillery and small-arms fire. 

"Finally, I did three consecutive combat tours in Vietnam. We humped through the mud and razor grass for 14 hours a day, plagued by rain and mosquitoes, ducking under sniper fire all day and mortar fire all night. In a fire-fight, we'd fire until our arms ached and our guns were empty, then we'd charge the enemy with bayonets!"

 

"Ah," said the Sailor with a dismissive wave of his hand, "you lucky bastard, all shore duty, huh?"

 

==================================================================

 

From:- Joe Barnewall

 

To:- Peter Morton
 

Subject:-  Re QURA AGM/DINNER

 

Hi Peter,

 

My dearly beloved passed the message below on to me today – my apologies for the blank wall here.  New contact details as per below and also as per this email address – if you would be so kind as to update QURA records for me.  Having looked through her emails I now see a whole lot from you – my apologies. For the lack of response.

 

Friday – I would love to attend the Annual Dinner but have a pre-existing school function.  Seems to be the story of my life with two kids in high school and one at uni playing a total of some 18 sports between them and no drivers’ licences – bugger - I managed that pretty poorly!  Mind you it is not helped by running my own small business these days.  Anyway, can you please record a ‘Regrets’ for me.

 

Please pass my regards to everybody from the 1981-86 days.  I ran into Michael Bond recently – we exchanged cards so I will have to catch up with him sometime soon.  We did our OQ1 and OQ2 together.

 

Hope that all is well for you and yours Peter.

 

Kind regards

 

Joe

 

Joe Barnewall

Managing Director

Langano International Pty Ltd

26 Chermside Street

Newstead QLD 4006

 

==================================================================

 

From:- Peter Wall

 

To:- Peter Morton
 

Subject:-  re QURA AGM/DINNER

 

Hello Peter

 

Please pass on my apologies for not being able to attend the AGM and dinner. I will be leaving to attend my daughter’s wedding in Edinburgh. Enjoy the evening and I look forward to catching up at Christmas Drinks.

 

Regards

Peter

==================================================================

 

From:- Lou Szegedi

 

To:- Peter Morton
 

Subject:-  Enquiry

 

G'day Peter,

 

Well, where have all those nearly 25 years gone?

 

Clearly, due to your active roll in QURA you have not yet arrived at the early stages of dementia.

To prove my similar status I can vividly recall amusing times in the "Swamp" but more interestingly

some more "special events" that you and I shared concurrently with the odd lumpy OR !!!! 

I occasionally visit your web page to see who is still with us!

 

Enough of nostalgia!

 

Quick SITREP on my current situation:-

 

I retired in 2001 and Mary and I have lived in bliss at Brooloo since then

on acreage midway between the villages of Kenilworth and Imbil, approx 45 km south of Gympie.

 

My excuse for not being a member of QURA is the tyranny of distance (approx 2½ hours drive)

to Brisbane, where we have only visited 3 or 4 times in 9 years! ( about 3 too many times!!!)

 

Apart from the pleasure of communicating with you, the other reason is that I would like to get in touch with Bill Beach who I notice is a current member and your list shows that you have his address and Email (perhaps phone number?)

 

Would it be possible for you to forward these to me by Email or phone.

I would be most grateful. Look forward to hearing from you ASAP.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Your "old" comrade in Arms,

 

Lou

 

==================================================================

 

From:- Peter Morton

 

To:- Lou Szegedi
 

Subject:-  re ENQUIRY

 

Hi Lou,

 

Great to hear from you.  I’ve put your details in my database to you can expect to get emails, etc from QURA. 
We have an open policy on membership dues so don’t feel bad about not being a financial member.

 

Bill’s details are:

Email -

Bus Ph -

Home Ph -

 

If you don’t mind I’ll put your email in the next newsletter (less contact details) so that members will know
you are still up-right.

 

Cheers

PeterM

==================================================================

 

From:- George Fryberg

 

To:- Peter Morton

 

Subject:-  Spin

 

Dear all,

 

Greetings from smoggy Shanghai. 

 

This e-mail is not to be taken as a sign I have too much time on my hands.  I have been extremely busy with 20-25 contact hours and preparation.  We have seen a bit of amusing Chinglish  (anyone care to translate para 6 of the attachment?),

 

but this effort from the brochure for the Holden Caprice, spruiking "the latest innovation from our Ecoline range of alternative fuel and fuelsaving technologies" has me fuming:

 

Bio-ethanol

Bio-ethanol, also known as E85, can contain up to 85% ethanol and 15% petrol.

Ethanol is currently derived from sorghum as well as by-products linked to the agricultural

production of wheat and sugar.

 

During growth, plants absorb significant amounts of CO2  from the atmosphere.  Engine

combustion of Bio-ethanol effectively 'recycles' this CO2, making it available for new

crops to grow."

 

Is there no end to this garbage?

 

Regards

George and Jeraldene

Justice Fryberg

Supreme Court of Queensland

George St

BRISBANE

 

==================================================================

 

From:- Rod Hardaker

 

To:- Peter Morton

 

Subject:-  Old Ironsides

 

 

 
I JUST LOVE  NAVAL HISTORY...

 

 

The U. S. S. Constitution ("Old Ironsides"), as a combat vessel, carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (i.e., fresh-water distillers).

However, let it be noted that according to her ship's log, "On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum."

Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."

 

Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum.

Then she headed for the Azores , arriving there 12 November.  She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchant ships, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted.

Nevertheless, although unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland.  Her landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single-malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.

 

The U. S. S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whisky, and 38,600 gallons of water.

 

GO NAVY!

 

 

==================================================================

 

From:- Trevor Luttrell

 

To:- Peter Morton

 

Subject:-  Birthday Presents

 

I got my son an iPhone for his birthday the other week, and recently got my daughter an iPod for hers.

I was so happy when the family got together and bought me an iPad for father’s day.

I got my wife an iRon for her birthday,

it was around then that the fight started......

  

==================================================================

 

From:- Trevor Luttrell

 

To:- Peter Morton

 

Subject:-  Bacon Tree

 
Two Mexicans are stuck in the desert after  crossing into the United States , wandering aimlessly and starving. They  are about to just lie down and wait for death, when all of a sudden Jose  says.........
  
 "Hey Pepe, do you smell what I  smell.  Ees bacon, I theenk."
  
 "Si, Jose,  eet sure smells like bacon. "
  
With renewed hope  they struggle up the next sand dune, & there, in the distance, is a  tree loaded with bacon.

There's raw bacon,  there's fried bacon, back bacon, double smoked bacon ... every imaginable kind of cured pork.
  
 "Pepe, Pepe, we  ees saved.  Ees a bacon tree."
  
 "Jose,  maybe ees a meerage?  We ees in the desert don't forget."
  
 "Pepe, since when deed you ever  hear of  a meerage that smell like bacon...ees no meerage, ees a  bacon tree."
  
 And with that, Jose staggers  towards the tree.  He gets to within 5 metres, Pepe crawling close  behind, when suddenly a machine gun opens up, and Jose drops like a wet  sock.  Mortally wounded, he warns Pepe with his dying  breath,
  
 "Pepe... go back man, you was right,  ees not a bacon tree!"
  
 "Jose, Jose mi amigo...  what ees it? "
  
 "Pepe.. ees not a bacon tree.   Ees
   Ees
  Ees
  Ees
  Ees  a ham bush....." 

  
   SO SORRY! I know  there is something wrong with me for sending you this.  Just  couldn't help it! 
  
   And  I bet you tried to do the accent didn't you  - I know you  did! 
 

==================================================================

 

 

  *****************************