Phyllis Weston MoRRis

(1923-1963)

Sergeant Phyllis Weston was a Code/Cypher Clerk during WWll with the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF).

Phyllis June Weston was born 4 April 1923 in Subiaco, but lived in Malcolm (about 20 km’s east of Leonora), then Menzies, then Broad Arrow and finally in about 1935, in Kalgoorlie. Her father was Ernest Joseph Weston who was a younger brother of Alfred David Weston who, in 1910, found gold adjacent to an area known as the Bodallin Soak but now officially known as Westonia. (The family story has it that Ernest and Alfred were sandalwood cutting when they discovered the gold, but as Alfred, being the elder brother, attended to all the formalities, he got all the glory.) Her mother was Amy Weston.

In 1928 Phyllis, like many country children, was welcomed into the Sunshine League, run by ‘Auntie Nell’, through the Daily News children’s pages. The object of the Sunshine League was to train children In acts of kindness and love, believing that such acts bring blessings to themselves and others. (reference)

Phyllis finished to IX Standard with her schooling and then attended Miss Winter’s Commercial College in Kalgoorlie, for twelve months and worked as an Office Assistant for 16 months at SW Johnson’s, City Buildings, Kalgoorlie whilst also attending the Goldfields Technical School in Boulder studying Book Keeping and Short Hand. She was also registered with the Women’s National Voluntary Register.

The Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) was formed in March 1941, after considerable lobbying by women keen to serve. A WAAAF Training Depot was established at Malvern, Melbourne and recruits increased markedly after Japan entered the war in December 1941 when some 1500 women were serving. This number grew to a peak strength of 18,667 officers and airwomen by October 1944. 

 In 1942 there was a call out for women to join the war effort:

"Every woman who enrols in the WAAAF will do a war job which will mean that a member of the RAAF can be utilised in some task closer to the enemy lines… Applicants need a reasonably good education and must be between the ages of 18 and 28 years. No previous knowledge of morse code is necessary. The RAAF will provide everything. Young women with previous experience in commercial offices can find a vital war job in the various types of clerical duties open to them in the WAAAF, and as teleprinter and telephone operators, cypher assistants, and for stores and equipment duties. (reference)

On 24 April 1942 Lake Karrinyup Golf Club was taken over by the RAAF and used as a WAAAF recruit centre and for the No.3  WAAAF Training Depot which held 4 officers, 40 airwomen and the 100 trainees who passed through the training programme each month. (reference) 

Every WAAAF, like the men of the RAAF, was a volunteer; they served in all states of Australia and were paid two-thirds of RAAF male pay for equivalent positions. They proved, together with the women of the Navy and Army, those who worked in munitions factories, the aircraft manufacturing industry, on the land and in all areas where women had been manpowered to replace men, that women could fulfil tasks and roles previously undertaken solely by men.

Phyllis joined the WAAAF on 22 June 1942. According to her son Raymond- he had heard from his mother’s bridesmaid that “Mum had joined up with the notion of seeing more of the world than just Kalgoorlie”.

On enrolment she was classed as ‘Clerk General’ and sent to the No. 4 Initial Training School, Victor Harbour, South Australia where she would have learnt to send and receive Morse Code. In late July 1942/early August 1942, she was transferred to Melbourne as a Cypher Assistant (Pay Classification – IV). One year later in July 1943 Phyllis was reclassified as Cypher Assistant (Pay Classification III) and in April 1944 was sent back to Western Australia to work in Cunderdin, and then in August that year to Pearce Airbase, Bullsbrook where she achieved the rank of Sergeant.

It was at Pearce Base that Phyllis met Arthur Morris.

1945 The engagement is announced of Phyllis (Sgt. WAAAF) only daughter of Mr and Mrs E. J. Weston, Broad Arrow road, Kalgoorlie to Arthur (W/O RAAF), eldest son of Mr and Mrs G. A. Morris, Edmund-street, Fremantle. (reference)

Phyllis was discharged 3 January 1946 and she married W/O George Arthur Morris Jnr. at St John’s Cathedral, Kalgoorlie on 11 February 1946, both of them having been discharged from the Air Force.(reference)

George -always known as Arthur to save confusion between he and his father(George Arthur Morris Snr) was born 1 March 1923 and spent most of his early life around the Fremantle area apart from a few years in the timber town of Nanga Brook. 

For a year, in 1925, the Morris family lived at 86 Hubble Street (now no. 46). Arthur would have been two years of age and his brother Kevin Samuel  was born 26 February 1925. 

Arthur left school when he was 14, c.1937, and worked at J. & W. Bateman Ltd. in Henry Street, Fremantle for 3 and a half years. He resumed work there after service in WWII and stayed there alternatively as a Traveller/Salesman or a Clerk, until his death in February 1975.

During WWll Arthur joined up on the 20 May 1942 and served with the RAAF Air Crew in Dakotas (Douglas DC-3’s) around the South Pacific areas doing Supply drops, ferrying troops and POW‘s; he may also have spent some time in Catalinas (amphibious aircraft) doing long range patrols. His brother Kevin also joined the RAAF (also as Air Crew) and ended up in the UK on the Heavy Bomber Crews that did bombing runs over Germany. Kevin’s trip to England was via USA and he stayed at Bing Crosby’s place for a little while when he was in transit -apparently it was a “mark of honour” for the Hollywood stars to put up the Servicemen in transit, which meant that Kevin got to attend some of the Hollywood parties. Apart from his time in the Pacific areas Arthur was also variously posted to Victor Harbour, Mount Gambier and Port Pirie (South Australia), Ballarat and West Sale (Victoria), Rathmines and Richmond (NSW) plus Pearce (W.A.).at

In 1949 Phyllis and George ‘Arthur’ moved to 89 Duke Street, East Fremantle, where they lived until 1955. They had two children at this house; Raymond John (born 1949) and Margaret June (1952).

The Morris family left 89 Duke Street in mid 1955. They had applied for and been successful in obtaining a War Service Home loan and they built a house in Hilton Park. 

Phyllis caught Polio (Poliomyelitis) in the early part of 1954 and went back to Kalgoorlie for treatment by the famous Kriste Martinovich, who used a tennis ball to manipulate her calf muscles. 

Kriste Martinovich, a chiropractor, emigrated to Fremantle Western Australia in 1922 from Brac, in the former Yugoslavia and subsequently travelled to the Goldfields to work in the goldmines. At the same time, he worked part-time as a masseur and treated local footballers. His unique techniques included using tennis balls and squash balls to gently manipulate the spine. In the 1950’s, his successful treatment of people whom until then had been unable to find a cure for their conditions and his dramatic patient improvements, meant his reputation soared and he was known as a ‘Miracle Man’. The prominence of several of his patients enhanced his fame, as did the way in which he defied his critics. In 1957, Martinovich moved to South Fremantle to teach and established a successful clinic in Douro Road. He trained three of his sons as chiropractors and the last of these, Mr Ted Martinovich, still operates from the same premises along with his grandson. (reference)

“Mum was one of the lucky ones”- she only ended up with a slight limp and could still dance and play social tennis...Mum went back to Kal again either later in 1955 or 1956 for her final lot of Martinovich’s treatment.”  Raymond Morris, Phyllis’s son 2019

Phyllis died very young-on 14 August 1963, at only 40 years of age. She had high blood pressure and this was in the days before kidney transplants were available.

Arthur died 9 February 1975.

Written with the help of Raymond John Morris 2019

Erica Lorimer Phyllis would have crossed paths with our father, a Flight Sergeant Beaufort pilot, W J (Jack) Lorimer; also at Cunderdin , SA and then Pearce. He wrote in his memoirs “(we) travelled in a converted railway guards wagon (to Cunderdin) and, as most trainees had never been so far from home, the train journey to the training school was in itself an adventure. Approaching Cunderdin... we became aware of the wasp like drone of the many aircraft engines and saw the sky filled with flitting yellow Tiger Moths. This sent us into a state of high excitement, verging on euphoria, shouting and pointing at the Tigers”. (W J Lorimer) 17.2.2020