Ray Lindwall - Juggling Work, War and First-class Rugby League and Cricket

Juggling Work, War and First-class Rugby League and Cricket

At the end of the year, Lindwall gained his Leaving Certificate. This made him eligible to study at university, but this clashed with his desire to play sport and earn money to help support his parentless family. He thus took an office job with Commercial Steel and Forge Company, which manufactured aeroplane parts and bomb fuses. During the 1939–40 season, Lindwall's bowling was only moderately successful, with 16 wickets at 34.93. A highlight of the season was an unbeaten 49 as St. George won the grade final.

In the winter of 1940 Lindwall made his first grade rugby league debut in the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership for the St. George club alongside his older brother Jack, who had been with the club since 1938. He played at fullback and assumed goal-kicking responsibilities. Lindwall's cricketing improved during the 1940–41 season, taking 34 wickets at 16.45, approximately doubling his wickets while halving their cost. By this time, many of his colleagues had enlisted in the armed services and the competition was beginning to thin out during World War II. Lindwall missed the 1941 NSWRFL season due to illness, and in doing so missed out on the team that won the premiership that season. In October 1941, Lindwall was selected to make his first-class cricket debut against Queensland in Brisbane, just after turning 20. Playing along his childhood hero McCabe, Lindwall put in a wayward performance. He conceded an expensive 81 runs in 15 wicketless overs and made just one run with the bat. The Sheffield Shield season was cancelled a month later after the December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, that signalled the widening of the war into the Pacific arena. The Sydney grade cricket competition continued, and Lindwall helped St. George to a hat-trick of premierships with 27 wickets at 22.19 and 405 runs at 27.00. During the winter of 1942, Lindwall helped the St. George football team to reach the grand final for the second consecutive year and also finished the season as the League's top point-scorer. Lindwall and his brother Jack, who played on the wing, scored all of the team's points in the grand final, Jack scoring a try and Ray kicking three goals. However they were denied by a last-minute penalty goal and St. George were defeated by Canterbury-Bankstown 11–9. All the while, the Japanese were inching ever closer to Australia. Malaya had fallen and the northern Australian city of Darwin had been the subject of Japanese air raids.

Army commitments intervened during the 1943 season. Lindwall had attempted to enlist in the Royal Australian Air Force, but he was rejected because the employees of his firm were exempted from military service. Thus Lindwall resigned his job in order to join the army. As part of his Anti-aircraft and Fortress Signal unit, he was deployed in May 1943 to New Guinea as the Japanese reached the Kokoda Trail close to Port Moresby. Lindwall's unit were bombed while they were ashore and he was lucky not to be killed. In 1945, he returned from the Solomon Islands, where he was believed to have contracted malaria and Dengue fever, although medical tests did not confirm this, he needed injections and atebrin tablets to aid him in recovering from bouts of minor illness for some time afterwards, and he resumed State cricket in 1945–46, despite the rigours of war having reduced him to just 73 kg, which was thin for his height of 178 cm.