Linda Janetzki speaks about her service in the Women’s Royal Australian Air Force (WRAAF) where she rose to the rank of Sergeant. Linda was fascinated with planes from a very early age and joined the WRAAF in 1965 at age 19 as an accounting machine operator and did her basic training in Adelaide before her first posting at the RAAF base in Richmond NSW where she was the only aborigine – ‘You didn’t see many aboriginal people at all in the services’. After initial homesickness Linda made great friends and enjoyed good times working at the base in Richmond and travelling to Sydney with friends to socialise, but it was also not long before the reality of the Vietnam War hit home as the first Australian conscripts flew out from the Richmond base: ‘I went down to an area that was parked off, and I saw the Qantas plane there. And I saw our young men go up those stairs.’ Linda’s husband was also in the air force and in 1977 they were posted to Butterworth Air Base in Malaysia, where she was often assumed to be Indian as very few people there knew anything about Aboriginal Australians. Linda is very proud of her service and she also notes her family’s rich history of service – Linda’s father served in World War 2 and was taken prisoner in Italy, and two of her brothers have also served in the Australian Defence forces.

• Listen to Linda’s interview in Townsville;
• Return to the Townsville Yarn Up page.