 He was sent back to Australia in August 1943 after contracting malaria, and was discharged a sergeant on 23 October 1945.During his service in the Middle East, Campbell came to believe that Syrian Catholic priests had betrayed Allied forces after observing a man signalling from a monastery window, instilling in him the anti-Catholicism that would characterise the rest of his life.In January 1945 Campbell began publishing "The Rock", a "brash eight-page tabloid", reporting on supposed corruption, sex scandals and intrigue inside the Catholic Church.