‘Waddyer Mean? Don’t I Salute Officers Any More.’

“Alec Downer, David Griffin and Tony Newsom, the scholar, the lawyer and the salesman, from the first days of Selerang in 1942, ran the library. Irked beyond endurance by the ‘officers – must – be – saluted – and – treated – like – tin –gods’ nonsense of 1942, they called everyone who came to their library – be he Colonel or Private – ‘Mister’! In this atmosphere of almost pre-war courtesy, they studied their readers’ tastes, persuaded men who had never read to start, urged everyone to steal books and contribute them to the library, ignored the nastiness that was Nippon and – whenever trouble arose with any of the minions of officialdom – promptly had it squashed by their term ‘people in high places’.
The library which, between them, these three ran for all the days of our captivity, was one of our main consolations and there could have been no better men to run it.”
Source: The Naked Island by Russell Braddon; 1955 edition Pan Books Ltd, Pg 259

‘From what we could see, the old class system was still very much at play in the British Army. Thier way was not the Australian way. In the British tradition, the relationship bewtween an officer and his men was one of master – servant, but in the Austlain Army it was more one of master – friend. As an officer, you were considered the boss, but outside of working hours, friendships could be egalitarian. The British officers, as a class all on thier own, became immediately ‘offside’ with us.’

Source: A Doctors War, by Dr Rowley Richards, pg 50, Harper Collins Publishers, 2006.