Norman Hetherington - War Service

War Service

He served with the First Australian Army Entertainment Unit during World War II.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Let me take you a little further back, during the war you were attached to an entertainment unit. What sort of entertainment did you provide the troops?
NORMAN HETHERINGTON: I was invited by the producer of the particular entertainment group, Des Turner, who pre-war had been with the ABC in sound effects, and he was the producer, and he talked me into joining and being on stage every night and caricaturing people in the audience, caricaturing them on large sheets of paper on a board; colonels, cooks, captains, sergeant-majors… must've done hundreds and hundreds of them, but it was fun.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: Where did you perform during the war?
NORMAN HETHERINGTON: Oh, Dutch New Guinea, which is now Irian Jaya, New Guinea, New Britain and all the Torres Strait Islands, Thursday Island, Horn Island, Good Island, Entrance Island, Hayman Island, Jacky Jacky which was on the tip of Cape York, and WA over there where they thought they were going to have problems. It kept one busy.

The Entertainment Unit also included actor Michael Pate, and comedian George Wallace Junior.

"Heth", our cartoonist, apart from doing lots of little bits and pieces in the show, has his own specialty: lightning caricatures of the most prominent personalities in every unit we play to.
It is marvellous how he goes about getting his subjects.
He usually goes to the unit early on in the day to chat people up, finding ones he wants to "do" in the show, making little sketches of their salient features on a pad.
Then, back at the unit, he prepares his easel for the show.
During the act he goes into his spiel, introducing each of his subjects with some very funny ad libs, then with a flourish of his brushes he magically sketches each personality.
It’s a great act and very popular.
In his spare time he designs costumes for various new spots in the show, draws up posters we can put up on a unit’s noticeboard, and usually finds time to think up and sketch some cartoons he sends down to the papers on the mainland.
You can see his stuff in many of the magazines.
Corporal Michael Pate NX120651 (extract from a letter sent home by Pate in 1945).