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WYNNUM CADETS BECOME AMPHIBIOUS .....

Exercise”Phutt=Ni

The sleek grey Army Fairmile was nosing cau
tiously into a maze of shifting mudbanks just offshore
from sleepy Coochiemudlo Island in Moreton Bay.
From the foredeck the CMF leadsman called his
soundings:
“By the mark, two less a quarter two” . . .
A scud of icy rain hunched forty cadets on deck
under their dripping slouch hats. Forty pairs of
eyes moved speculatively from the bending leadsman
to the misted undulations of tangled forests on
Coochiemudlo and to the chilly waters in between.
Somewhere on those rugged slopes lay The Bomb.
Last night it had Hashed from an unknown base
in South-East Asia aimed with vicious intent at the
heart of Brisbane.
Today, unexploded, it had become an urgent
problem for Army authorities already hard-pressed*
by the need to rush every fighting man north to
New Guinea to stem the flood of air and seaborne
invasion swirling from Asia.
Only two days old, World War III was involving
every able-bodied Australian, soldier and civilian, in
the dire national emergency. Even schoolboys, for
tunately already organised into companies of Cadets,
were being briefed for Home Defence duties, guarding
installations and communications: and, in this case, 5
Battalion Cadets of Wynnum State High School
clutching rifles, Brens and Owens on the deck of an
Army Small Ship desperately intent on defending
an unexploded nuclear missile against any possible
enemy attempt to explode it before Army experts had
probed its secrets.
Such was the opening narrative of Exercise
“Phutt-nik”.
Behind the scenes an Army Workboat represent
ing an enemy nuclear-powered submarine was plough
ing through choppy waters to land a fanatical enemy
demolition party such as to stir Wynnum’s annual
bivouac into a sizzling ferment of jungle warfare..
Public interest in this Unit’s exercise was evi
denced by newspaper, radio and television coverage
resulting in what was probably the first telecast in
Australia of an Army amphibious exercise.
Meanwhile, the Fairmile, thwarted by shifting
mudbanks lurking beneath the waters of a low-tide,
glided to a stop.
First of a series of unexpected developments for
the Cadets, then came the necessity to effect a beach
landing. Bearing arms, packs, ammunition and
rations, the platoon waded ashore, while Platoon