Wartime Stories from the Exhibition Buildings: Dorothy Quinn and Reginald Hubbard awarded Best Film at the 2021 Australian Museums and Galleries Association’s MAPDA Awards.

As part of the 75th Anniversary of VP (Victory in the Pacific) Day commemorations in 2020, Gatherer was commissioned by Museums Victoria to produce a series of short documentaries commemorating  the stories of individual RAAF and WAAAF veterans based at the Royal Exhibition Building during World War II.  

When Australia joined the war against Germany in 1939, the the Royal Australian Air Force commandered Melbourne’s Exhibition Buildings as part of the nation’s war effort. Up until 1946 it was headquarters to RAAF No 1 STT Exhibition or the School of Technical Training.  

Over the course of the war it’s believed more that 2000 RAAF and WAAAF personnel passed through its doors. And while mostly Wireless Maintenance Mechanics (WMM) and Radio or Radar Maintenance Mechanics (RMM) were stationed there while they attended classes at nearby Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT) and other locations in the CBD. The Exhibition Buildings also housed Instrument Makers, Fitters and other RAAAF and WAAAF personnel.  

 RAAF and WAAAF personnel

Working with Museums Victoria curators Deborah Tout-Smith, Michelle Stevenson and Digital Content Lead Richard Greenhalgh, Gatherer took an archive-first approach to scripting short narrative documentaries based on selected RAAF and WAAAF veteran’s stories. Five subjects were shortlisted for documentary treatment: 

An archive-first approach

In the case of Dorothy Quinn and Reginald Hubbard, Francis Walsh and Norma Hornby and Edward Garth, we had access to veterans or their families for interviews as well as access to photographs, personal effects and in two instances diaries.  

In the case of Richard Thompson and Royce Phillips we had very little apart from their service records cases and enlistment photos.  

Military service records, obtained from the National Archives Australia, formed the building blocks for preliminary scripts. These provided factual information on an individual’s enlistment, training, transfers and conduct during the war which was then used to locate related footage and photographs from public and private archives. 

Credits:
Produced by: Gatherer Media
Curator: Deborah Tout-Smith
Interviewee: Ken Hubbard
Narrator: David Field
Reginald Hubbard voiced by Richard Vette
Script: Tim Stone
Camera: Tim Metherall and Tim Stone
Sound Recordist: Stuart Thorne
Hair and Makeup: Marlene Olsson
Sound Design: Adam Milburn
Graphics: Aya Hatano
Historical Images and Footage Courtesy of: Australian War Memorial, National Archives of Australia, State Library of Victoria, Museums Victoria
Special Thanks: Richard Greenhalgh, Michelle Stevenson, Carmel O’Keeffe

Wartime Stories from Melbourne's Exhibition Buildings:

Reg Hubbard and Dorothy Quinn

Dorothy L. Quinn’s dog tags belonging to were discovered under the floorboards of the second floor balconies during building restoration works in 1989. But it wasn’t until her son Ken Hubbard stumbled across Dot’s tags on Museums Victoria’s website that the remarkable tale of his parents WAAAF Dorothy Quinn and RAAF Lieutenant Reginald Hubbard came to light. 

Originally from Perth, Dorothy L Quinn was stationed at the Exhibition Buildings from 1941 to 1943. And it was here she first met Reginald Hubbard on Friday 7th October 1942 at a dance for service men and women in the the Palais Royale immediately adjacent to the great hall. 

Reginald ‘Reg’ Hubbard was a Wireless Air Gunner with No 23 Squadron based at Lowood in Queensland during WW2. When Reg was on leave, as he was when he met Dot, he would stay at Osbourne House, a boarding house on Nicholson Street owned by his family and just a short distance from the Exhibition Buildings. 

Throughout the war, Reg kept a diary, recording the moments, big and small, that impacted on him. From the loss of friends during combat and training, to his marriage to Dot and the birth of their son Ken. Reg’s diary paints a vivid picture of his life during the war years. For Ken, Reg’s son, his father’s diaries also reveal a side of his father that he rarely saw. 

“I never knew my father to show too much emotion, but the emotions he put into that diary after meeting my mother – amazing”, Ken Hubbard. 

Credits:
Produced by: Gatherer Media
Curator: Deborah Tout-Smith
Interviewee: Paula Hyndes
Narrator: David Field
Francis ‘Frank’ Walsh voiced by Adam Grossetti
Script: Adam Grossetti and Tim Stone
Camera: Tim Metherall and Tim Stone
Sound Recordist: Stuart Thorne
Hair and Makeup: Marlene Olsson
Sound Design: Adam Milburn
Graphics: Aya Hatano
Historical Images and Footage Courtesy of: Australian War Memorial, National Archives of Australia, State Library of Victoria, Museums Victoria
Special Thanks: Richard Greenhalgh, Michelle Stevenson, Carmel O’Keeffe

Wartime Stories from Melbourne's Exhibition Buildings

Frank Walsh

Frank Walsh was a school teacher from Bridgwater-on-Loddon in Central Victoria when he enlisted in the RAAF as a wireless trainee in 1943. While stationed at the Exhibition Buildings, Frank’s wife Rene and their young daughter Paula, took up residence in a boarding house at 62 Nicholson Street, just across the road from the Great Hall. 

Frank struggled with the Wireless Trainee course, and in late 1943 transferred to the RAAF Medical Unit based at Point Cook, there he retrained as a medical orderly before he joined the Number 5 Medical Receiving Unit (5MCU) on Good Enough Island just north of the New Guinea mainland in the South West Pacific. 

As a Medical Orderly with the RAAF, Frank’s unit provided critical medical support to pilots and ground staff – he was constantly on the move. After a short stay at Good Enough Island,  Frank was transferred to Biak in the Dutch East Indies, then to Morotai Island, and finally Labuan Island off the coast of Borneo.
Frank also kept a diary, and much of what we know about his time in the Pacific comes from diary entries and letters now in the posession of his daughter Paula Hydnes. 

Credits:
Produced by: Gatherer Media
Curator: Deborah Tout-Smith
Interviewee: Richard Desmond (Dick) Thompson
Narrator: David Field
Script: Tim Stone
Graphics: Aya Hatano
Sound Design: Adam Milburn
Historical Images and Footage Courtesy of: Australian War Memorial, National Archives of Australia, State Library of Victoria, Museums Victoria
Special Thanks: Richard Greenhalgh, Michelle Stevenson, Carmel O’Keeffe

Wartime Stories from Melbourne's Exhibition Buildings

Dick Thompson

Richard ‘Dick’ Thompson enlisted as a Trainee Wireless Operator with the RAAF and in December 1941 was stationed at the Exhibition Buildings while he trained in morse code and telegraphy at nearby Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT). As one of more than 2000 RAAF and WAAAF personnel stationed at No. 1 School of Technical Training (1SST Exhibition), much of what we know about life in the Exhibition Buildings during the war is through Dick Thompson’s recollections. 

Sometime in 1992, Brisbane-based Dick made an impromptu visit to the Royal Exhibition Buildings in Melbourne. While there he shared stories with staff of the time he spent there, and an interview was hastily recorded. In the recording Dick shared vivid descriptions of cold winters and unbearable summer heat; marching at all hours of the day; nightly concerts and barking seals in the adjacent aquarium.  Dick’s recollections help connect the hundreds of objects uncovered during building restoration works in 1989 to the lived experience of the men and women stationed there from 1941 to 1946. 

In addition, Dick also shared his experiences of the war. On the 19th February 1942 he narrowly survived the first bombing of Darwin: "You could see the bombs falling out of the aircraft and the sun flashing on them," Thompson said. In 1944 he returned to 1SST Exhibition to retrain in VHF transmitters and receivers, before joining the Mobile Fighter Control Unit (MFCU) on the Admiralty Islands. Later he participated in the Australian-lead Battle of Tarakan, and after the war helped re-establish communications systems on war-ravaged Borneo.