[Dave Mills]

Hello Jack, I too worked as a dixxy basher around the kitchens with these cookers from 1978 to at least 1985 whilst pulled out of the gun line to help the cooks and stay out of the way of the WO caterer but never in 2/10 Medium Regiment. I think these blokes may have been confused as in 1975 they would have been in 10 Medium Regiment Army Reserve based at Geelong and Colac with 2/15 Field Regiment Army Reserve based out of Batman Avenue (HQ) Dandenong (2 Fd Battery) and Frankston (23 Field Battery). The Regiments had been merged as 2/10 medium regiment in 1991, I was the Battery Guide of the new 22 Field Battery, interesting, in the field we often deployed with mixed ordinance on the ground the 155mm and the 105mm.

I can recall deploying with the Regimental kitchen in the bush and setting up and refueling, with standard fuel, the choofas to boil the kitchen water, a total of 15, 60 litre steel rubbish bins all with a drop of petrol dripping onto a hot plate causing the drip of fuel to ignite and hence heated the water and hence the term Choofa as all you could hear was the Choof, Choof, Choof of the heating units. The field kitchens you are speaking about fed at least 400 troops 3 times a day and the gun lines got their meals delivered by the Q staff in hot boxes run by at least 6 cooks including the WO CAT and Catering Sgt. They also used a petrol powered oven which pressurized the fuel and heated the oven much the same as a Tilley light works.

Great to hear that you have one back up working, I cannot tell you if boilers had been lined but I know they did the lot, onion bags with 400 eggs in them immersed to hard boil them, stews and those delightful curries at 1am in the morning, food cold but still burning the lining of your tummy. It would be great to have a Choofa and one of those ovens also in your display, then you would have the complete field kitchen and of course the metre wide plate BBQ as the final piece.

Boy, I hated being in the dixxy bashing crew left to pack up the kitchens into the back of a 6x6 F1 for the trip home, a gun crew could pack up and move in 3 mins a field kitchen took hour upon blasted hour, oh well it was the army and we hurried up and waited quite a lot.

Hope I have not bored you too much.

Cheers,

Dave.