1964

Recruit Training

Kapooka - Punch Up

By Alex Elliot.

A humorous incident that is imprinted on my mind still, occurred while completing recruit training at Kapooka, in approximately May 1964.

Behind the old Nissen huts that we lived in was a flat area where we used to congregate to sit in the sun, kick a football about etc on the odd occasion.

They had at that stage dug deep trenches around the area to put either drainage or sewer pipes in with one running through said flat area.

One day two recruits Carlo “Charlie” Fragomeni (later Gunner Fragomeni with 4th Fd Regt) and Graeme Smith (later Private Smith with 6 Battalion) had a disagreement and had a punch up between the huts and the trench while many of A Company looked on.

Charlie was quite a bit smaller than Graeme but very fit and muscular and during a flurry of punches Graeme was backing away when suddenly he vanished, having fallen into the trench which was about seven feet deep. Charlie immediately started triumphantly jumping up and down waiving his arms and shouting I’ve won, I’ve won or words to that effect.

As we watched on a furious livid red face with angry glaring eyes appeared out of the trench, finally Charlie must have noticed that we were all looking past him and glanced behind him. By this stage Graeme was in the act of scrambling out of the trench, Charlies face in an instant changed from a look of triumph to one of horror/terror and he immediately fled the scene with Graeme in hot pursuit. Fear must make people run faster than anger as Graeme was unable to catch him.

When they eventually returned they had both calmed down, as both were by nature good hearted blokes who didn’t hold grudges and I think eventually they both saw the funny side of the incident.