The search for Norma Callaghan

They were young Australian army girls in uniform in World War II, smiling and laughing and each looking like a beautiful actress from a black and white film of the era.

These were the photos that smiled back at me from the family album, ever since I was a little boy.

"Oh, that's Norma Callaghan", my mother use to say as she pointed one particular girl out.

"We use to go everywhere together".

"I lost touch with her after the war when we went our separate ways and got married".

"I wonder where she is now?"

In later years, as a military historian with Defence in Canberra, I would eventually grow to understand what a truly great task these young army girls did in World War II.

Named the "Australian Women's Army Service" (AWAS) the girls came from farms, small towns and cities as they enlisted from the far flung corners of Australia.

If the girls were under 21, which many of them were, they had to have a parent's written permission to sign up.

In mid 1941 there had only been 1400 female enlisted in all three services.

By the end of the war some 24,190 of the women had enlisted in the AWAS with a further 2744 joining the army as nursing sisters.

My own mother, Nola Bates, and Norma Callaghan had been based in Sydney, often around aerodromes or at North Head at the harbour entrance, on the anti-aircraft guns. An airborne attack on Sydney in 1943 was still considered a very real possibility and Japanese submarines were still regularly sinking allied shipping along our eastern coast. The girls were on the searchlights, predictors and height finders.

The searchlights were to seek the enemy aircraft out at night and the predictors and height finders to predict where the shots should be fired and at what height to set the shells to explode.

Many years later, after my mother had passed on, I looked again at these photos and thought how challenging it would be to find Norma and return copies of these wonderful old prints with their magic memories.

Advertisements in veteran's magazines and Sydney papers brought no result.

The problem lay in that Norma had probably married and had a new surname.

Late one night, just recently, the penny dropped.

Hadn't the registrar for Births, Deaths and Marriages in Sydney recently upgraded their online data system to release marriage records up to 1949?

I checked and they had.

Norma's details were entered in and there was just one person by that name in NSW, married between 1945 and 1949.

Joy oh joy and her new surname was a very unusual one.

Thanks heavens it was not a Smith.

A search of Sydney's white pages phone directory and a Christian and surname came up with very real possibilities.

Norma appeared to be widowed and was using her own full name in the directory.

A discreet and gentle phone call to Norma, now living in Umina, was an emotional experience for the writer and his mother's best army friend.

Photos and memories to be exchanged of two army girls who served Australia well in World War II and were reunited in spirit after 67 years.

Email, 16 Mar 2010 Bob Piper, Higgins ACT