He arrived in Bournemouth in November 1941, a few weeks before Pearl Harbor. After training, he was commissioned and then posted to England. By then almost 32, he was mustered as a wireless operator/air gunner. He was posted to Sydney, and then on to a training school in rural New South Wales. In February 1941, some seventeen months later, Williams began his training. They agreed between themselves that Doug as the elder should remain in the army so that he could stay in Australia to take responsibility for the family, but younger brother Charlie should volunteer for the air force.
Both he and his brother could have avoided military service on the grounds that their elderly father was ill, and could not run the property on his own but they both joined the army reserve. When war came, he was already 30 years old. Like many young men of his generation, Williams had long wanted to fly and took some flying lessons at the aero club in Townsville.
The great crash of the early 1930s led to his father losing his job so, as part of a syndicate, the family bought their own station which they had to work hard to build up. He also became a skilled mechanic and took up building wireless sets and photography as hobbies. Leaving school at 16, he went home to work on the station his father managed. Australian country districts did not have elementary schools in those days so Williams was tutored at home until he went to Townsville Grammar School as a boarder at the age of 12. This was a small settlement in inland Queensland, some 250 miles west of Townsville. At the time of his birth the family lived in Winton, but then lived at a series of other sheep stations before moving to Telemon, a station near Hughenden, when he was 10 years old. His mother seems to have decided to travel to Townsville in order to have the baby. He was the middle child of the three surviving children of sheep station manager Horace Williams and his wife Hedwige or Helene (she used both names). Charles Rowland Williams was born on 19 March 1909 in Townsville, Queensland.
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