Snowy was a West Australian country boy, we're talking Texas size here.Living in small holes in the ground was a big change from the wide openspaces he was used to. By the expression on his face, he may have hadcause to use his bren prior to this snap being taken. Note he has an openbeer bottle close at hand though, so all was not too bad.

We are still dwelling in the very basic foxholes, it wasn't until about June 53 thatthe more up-market pre fabricated bunkers came the way of our sorry lot.

The bunkers were both a measure of one's comfort and also social status. Snowy's is the style a front-line infanteer would be happy to call home. To be blunt about this very basic home unit though, as in city life, one's status would improve the higher up the food chain you were.

Thus a lowly Lieut. commanding a platoon in the line would expect to have more creature comforts. A larger bunker, most often dug by some miserable private under protest. Perhaps such added luxuries as a kerosine lantern, a better class heater for the winter, and so forth.

The buildings became grander as you went along the chain, a company commander would live in a veritable palace along the static war positions. Well it was a palace compared to what the diggers called home. Back at battalion HQ it was verily a wonderland, tents, heaters, duck boards in the wet, sandbag walls to a safe hight around the tents and so forth. Verily the denizens of the HQ company even had tents to dine in, cooks to prepare their 'lavish' meals, and I do believe recreational tents to help while-away the hours. I never did get to see what they had at brigade or divisional HQ's. Surely their funk-holes would have been of mighty structure.

Ron