A highlight of this convention was the release of the Australian-printed edition of the Children book. This book had been released at Saint Louis, just four months earlier. On obtaining a copy of the book, Brother MacGillivray gave the order: “Print the Children book!” It seemed impossible for the underground factory to carry out such an assignment. Even under ordinary conditions the branch in Australia had never yet produced a bound book! However, under the oversight of master printer Malcolm Vale, a fearless organizer, the underground organization got to work!

The various printeries used were ostensibly doing ordinary secular printing, and when police officers inspected them from time to time that was all they saw. But in the middle of the night the wraps would come off the Society’s printing project. Many were the book signatures that were produced by the time dawn came around.

One of the biggest problems was binding the books. The brothers rented an unused warehouse, and the bindery equipment was carted in there at night. Shifts of brothers and sisters worked there day and night, producing books after the same pattern as those published in Brooklyn. Sometimes, after a few days, the neighbors got curious as to what was going on, and perhaps the local police would take an interest. This was the signal for packing up the entire bindery in the middle of the next night, loading it on trucks and transporting it to another rented warehouse. And so the process of binding and producing the books went on week after week. The bindery had to change locations 16 times. But the brothers were rewarded with seeing a fine supply of the book ready for release at their convention.

Since the Society’s literature was banned, the release of the book also had to be done quietly. For one early-morning session of the assembly, the conventioners were directed to private homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses in various locations. There the book was released to the small group in attendance at each place. The branch overseer’s report in the next Yearbook said: “In the face of overwhelming odds, the printers did a job which could have been completed only by consecrated labor and in the strength of the Lord. Each child received his gift, and 20,000 of the book are now in circulation throughout Australasia.” Six thousand attended the convention under ban!

Later the Society asked Brother Miller to go to Brisbane to take care of one of the congregations there. But how was he to get there? Train travel was restricted to military personnel or those traveling with orders from the government. Brother Miller thought about the problem for a while and then decided to go dressed as a clergyman! He succeeded in getting passage on the train, carrying two large suitcases filled with copies of the Yearbook, which had been printed underground. In this way the brothers in Queensland received their copies of the 1943 Yearbook.

Aubrey Baxter used another ruse to get literature into the hands of the brothers. He collected Children books in Brisbane and traveled by train to the far north of the state. At each place where there was a congregation he left the train with a carton of literature. Each time he tied a circular saw blade to the outside of the carton. Police always met the trains and passengers were scrutinized, but the circular saw blade and our brother were always allowed through!