He ‘clobbered’ a prime minister’s son, dropped bombs in the south-west Pacific and lost the tips of his fingers in his first week on the job with The Sunshine Advocate.
It’s fair to say Sunshine’s Ray Carlton led a long and interesting life for more than 90 years.
That life came to an end last Tuesday when Ray died after a short stint in hospital.
The son of
Sunshine Advocate founder Clarrie Carlton, Ray served in the Pacific during World War II as a member of a Beaufort squadron in New Guinea.
“I spent the whole of 1944 in New Guinea,” Raytold Sunshine historical bible
Harvester City of his service.
“In the air force you weren’t in close contact like the army. You were bombing places from 10,000 feet and it was sort of remote.”
One experience was “sobering”.
“We were the third aircraft taking off from a strip off Cape York Peninsula,” he said.
“The second aircraft exploded in mid-air and we flew through the burning wreckage. You realise every time you take off, your life is in danger.”
During his teenage years, before his time in the war, Ray served his father and the wider community working on the
Advocate, which was first published on March 1, 1924, from Devonshire Road.
Friend John Willaton said Ray started off as a typesetter but eventually rose to be in charge of printing.
“I believe he was about 14 or 15 when his father took him out of school to work at the
Advocate. “Within a few days of starting, Ray lopped off a few fingers on a printing machine.”
Ray’s sports exploits were also legend. He played a 1940 Victorian Amateur Football Association match in front of then prime minister Sir Robert Menzies.
Sunshine Recorder has it that Ray decked a close-checking defender, Ken Menzies, the PM’s son.
At half-time, the umpire relayed a message from the PM to Ray: “If that young man can fight like that we have a job for him in the Australian Army”. He enlisted the next day.
Ray, a Sunshine Historical Society member, Sunshine RSL treasurer, Rotarian, lawn bowler, footballer and cricketer, was farewelled last Friday at a service in Sunshine.
“Ray, together with his brother, were charter members of the Lions Club of Sunshine,” friend Frank said. “When the Rotary Club of Sunshine was formed, the brothers tossed a coin and Ray became a Rotarian while his brother remained a Lion.”
