'After-Action Reports' of the Corowa experience have been written by many individuals, year after year since 1980. A number of them have generously passed copies of their reports along to us, and here on Corowa30 you will find extracts of these, while the full reports will ultimately be included in the publication itself.
Upon due consideration, we have elected to make one exception regarding extracts, and this appears below. In our previous History Section, we reproduced the complete text of Alan Newton's original introduction to the very first Corowa Swim-In event in 1980; here, we felt it entirely appropriate to present to you an after-action report of that same event written by a couple of participants in the show, Dave Brown and Geoff Denniss. This report is reproduced in its entirety for your enjoyment.
In the following pages three decades of the Corowa experience will be documented using extracts of the reports some of the participants and organisers wrote shortly thereafter. Certain years are still missing, but with your help, we hope to be able to include those as well over time.
Taken together, this section of Corowa30 will give those who may be unfamiliar with the event an excellent taste of what they might expect should they choose to attend this, Australia's premier ex-military vehicle show! For those who have attended one of more of these marvellous events, we invite you to take a stroll down memory lane...
The Corowa G.P.A. "Swim-In" 1980 by Dave Brown and Geoff Denniss
On the morning 13th March, Peter Short and family arrived at Geoff Denniss's place in Peter's GPA. Geoff took charge of Pete's trailer and with no further messing around they hit the road for Corowa. Camp was made at Gundagai for the first night and the next day saw them heading for Albury, making a right turn there and eventually in to Corowa, on the banks of the Murray River. Some miles before Corowa Peter's rubber band gave out - fuel blockage in his petrol tank. Peter was able to blow it clear and off they headed once more and booked into the caravan park. On being told that it would cost $3 (no power) a night to pitch his tent Geoff proceeded to throw one of his famous wobblers, but he unlocked his wallet and paid for 10 days, as did Peter.
Both the Short family and Geoff set up their tents and settled in. Before the day was out both Ian Grieve from Queensland and Colin Anderson from Shepparton (Vic) turned up and set up their campsites.
Quite early in the show after one of our numerous trips to the local junk yards, Peter started up the GPA and was greeted with a hell of a clattering sound from the motor. He was able to drive back to the caravan park where he removed the head and found that the valve on No.2 exhaust had blown out and had ground the seat to pieces, blowing bits into the muffler no doubt. Now this did not make Peter a very happy man, and he worried about it until Colin Anderson came to the rescue with his truck and car float and carried the GPA into Albury, where Repco fitted a new seat, vibro-synchro honed it, faced the valves (No.3 exhaust was also crooked), and surface ground the Head. So, by about 1630hrs, they were back on the road to camp again. Next morning everything was put back together again and the little machine ran as sweet as a nut. Later on that day (Thursday) the other lads turned up and the others we had to wait for were the King family and Dave Brown.
Several trips were made to local wrecking (junk) yards and lots of interesting junk was purchased (all good junk), with Phil Rider cornering the rocket launcher market and Geoff being heavy into Bren Carrier bits. Tom Dwyer from Tassie and Colin Anderson were just mad abut everything they saw and bought up; a barrel of fun. Alan Barker had a good find of a quantity of petrol gauges.
In the meantime Dave had headed off from Sydney late on Thursday night, reaching Gundagai at 0400hrs. After first checking on the position of the table in the campsite there, he had a sleep and was woken up by trail-bike riders racing round the area at 0630hrs. They obviously had some sort of death wish, for they were tearing through the trees at high speed. They took to the hills when Dave lurched out of his Landy clad only in his under-pants and yelled abuse at them.
Dave eventually arrived at Corowa at about 13.30hrs on the Friday and not knowing where to go, drove to the Police Station to ask where the caravan park was. When he went in to enquire the constable behind the desk started to tremble, his eyes glazed over, he started to dribble a lot and he shook his head in his hands muttering "No! Not more of them!" "Hullo, hullo, what have the lads been up to here?" thought Dave, and after finding out the directions couldn't wait to get there. Upon arrival about the only person around was Bob McCann who seemed to be suffering from a headache and had a distinctly shaky appearance about him.
In the meantime the "swim-in" had commenced, with GPAs popping in and out of the water as if they were made for it. Alan Newton from South Australia had been working his rear end off to get his GPA in enough of one piece to take to the water, which he did to a round of applause from Peter Short. That night saw the night exercises conducted on the river and it must have made an interesting sight for the motorists crossing the bridge seeing headlights, taillights, brake lights and blinkers in the river below them. It was great fun.
A GPA race was organized on the Sunday and let it be known that your miserable Secretary donated one dozen cans for first prize. Dave flagged away a fleet of four GPA's on a course from the start line, up to the bridge some 400 yards away, round a pylon and then returning to the start line. Geoff's beer was safe as Peter Short won the race.
A Jeep trailer race was suggested and without further ado, the Victorians were challenged and they accepted with extreme delight. Two teams of four men were selected, one team for each trailer, and the race was on. Each trailer made a high speed entry into the water, and the four team members had to swim alongside towing the trailer through the water. After about 75 yards, they had to bring their respective trailers ashore on a spit of land, pull it through 15 yards of soft sand and the race was over, with a very exhausted N.S.W. team just scraping in the winners. A challenge was made for the return run with the crew members sitting in their trailers and paddling them. Into the water again and about halfway across sabotage struck with one of the Victorian members diving overboard, swimming over to our trailer and upsetting it, causing it to sink rather rapidly. Not to be outdone, the action was reciprocated and the Victorian trailer went for the deep six. Colin Anderson, as captain of the Victorian team maintained the true traditions of the sea and went down with his trailer, standing rigidly to attention and saluting his retreating crew, who had all left him to his own devices. Luckily for us, we had tied an inflated inner-tube onto the trailer with a piece of rope and so knew where it was, and it was out of the water in short order. Not so for the Victorians though. Much duck diving took place and the trailer was eventually found by Ronald King. Tom Rolfe in the meantime was floating in the near vicinity in his rubber NRMS boat - just in case.
By now it was Sunday lunchtime and Barry Ryan and family, from Shepparton, came to visit us. They provided a sumptuous luncheon washed down with several bottles of a very fine local vintage. Our resident club wine buff reports that it was an amazing little number and was really amazed at the wines impertinence. It was during that lunch that Geoff told a very funny story about water buffaloes and brought the house down with it.
Barry indicated to us that for next year's swim-in he would bring his DUKW. What a sight it would provide! I'm sure there would be no shortage of volunteers to help him with an escort.
This was the time that the King family had to leave for Sydney, followed about an hour later by Dave Brown who had the Landy trailer loaded up with extra junk bought by the lads; one GPA petrol tank (which is still in my garage, Peter), one other petrol tank of unknown origin, Bren Gun Carrier Suspension units, Blitz Fans (stacks of them), Bren gun tripod, assorted head-lights and other junk.
Sunday night, the last night, was spent sitting around with members of other clubs from the different states, enjoying a last chin-wag. The majority of our lads headed off the next day for Sydney. Peter and Geoff ventured a bit further afield to check on another vehicle. This lead came to a dead-end but Geoff (Eagle Eyes) Denniss spotted a couple of cut up Bren Carriers on a farm so he made himself known to the owner to ask if he could get some pictures and the serial numbers. According to Geoff they were really in a very bad way.
Pete and Geoff caught up with the rest of the convoy for the remainder of the trip home. In the meantime Dave had got himself somewhere between Junee and Cootamundra during the Sunday night, having gone back by a different route. He decided to pull up at about 2300hrs for a snooze so he found a spot and pulled off the road, crawled into his sleeping compartment and was soon fast asleep. A few hours later he was woken up by a shrieking banshee wail, very loud. Wondering what the hell was happening he smartly ejected himself from the scene, in underpants again, just in time to see the Southern Aurora scream past six feet away at something like 80mph. God almighty, talk about heart failure! Dave had parked his Landy by the unseen railway fence just six feet away from the main south line. After a shaky cigarette and a clean out of the sleeping bag he managed to get to sleep again.
Back with the rest of our lads, they were happily bowling along the road to Sydney though they were subject to the extreme tortures of verbal diarrhea said to be emanating from the Dodge Ambulance.
Coming into Sydney the members all went their own way and so ended a great couple of weeks for some and a few days for others. The weather was great, the town picturesque and the company convivial. I'm sure we'll be back same place, same time next year.
Editor's Note: ...and here ends the story of the first example of what would become almost thirty annual events to-date. The participants went back to their private lives for another year, already plotting, scheming, cajoling and preparing for another assault on Corowa in 1981, and word of their experiences began to circulate rapidly throughout the ex-military vehicle fraternity. The event called Corowa as we know it today had just begun, but was already solidly entrenched in the hearts and minds of those lucky enough to have experienced it, and would ultimately span more than a generation. For extracts from more Event Reports covering the years 1981 through 2007, please click the link below...
	Currently resident at Army Museum Bandiana, 2pdr carrier hull no. 6176 is fully restored and operational. Shown here at Corowa in 2005, its purpose-built design was far superior to the equivalent British version, which simply mounted a 2pdr AT gun on top of an early Canadian Universal Carrier. For those with a particular interest in this rare vehicle, we are featuring a history of 6176 along with a photo study of its restoration; please see the Event Photos section!
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