COATES, Albert Ernest
| Service Numbers: | 23, VX503645 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 17 August 1914, 58th Infantry Aust Citizen Forces |
| Last Rank: | Lieutenant Colonel |
| Last Unit: | Australian Army Provost Corps (WW2) |
| Born: | Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, 28 January 1895 |
| Home Town: | Wangaratta, Wangaratta, Victoria |
| Schooling: | Mount Pleasant State School, Victoria, Australia |
| Occupation: | Postal letter-carrier |
| Died: | Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 8 October 1977, aged 82 years, cause of death not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: | Not yet discovered |
| Memorials: | Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, Hawthorn Postmaster General's Department Victoria 1, Wangaratta Uniting Church Memorial Window, Wangaratta and District Victory Roll |
World War 1 Service
| 17 Aug 1914: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Lance Corporal, 23, 7th Infantry Battalion, 58th Infantry Aust Citizen Forces | |
|---|---|---|
| 19 Oct 1914: | Embarked Lance Corporal, 23, 7th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Hororata, Melbourne | |
| 19 Oct 1914: | Involvement Lance Corporal, 23, 7th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '9' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Hororata embarkation_ship_number: A20 public_note: '' | |
| 18 Mar 1916: | Transferred AIF WW1, Lance Corporal, Australian Army Medical Corps WW1 | |
| 13 Apr 1917: | Transferred AIF WW1, Private, Australian Intelligence Corps - Security Service | |
| 17 Aug 1918: | Promoted AIF WW1, Corporal, Australian Provost Corps | |
| 21 Feb 1919: | Discharged AIF WW1, Corporal, 23, Australian Army Provost Corps (WW2), 2nd MD |
World War 2 Service
| 2 Jan 1941: | Enlisted Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Lieutenant Colonel, VX503645 | |
|---|---|---|
| 16 May 1942: | Imprisoned Malaya/Singapore, Prisoner in Thailand (Surgeon on Burma Railway). | |
| 12 Sep 1946: | Honoured Mention in Dispatches, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette: 12 September 1946 on page 2475 at position 16 | |
| 14 Nov 1946: | Honoured Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette 14 November 1946 on page 3183 at position 1 |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by Evan Evans
AWM Biography
Sir Albert Ernest Coates, OBE (1895-1977)
Born into modest circumstances, and after leaving school at an early age, Albert Coates undertook night study and excelled as a student. In 1914 he enlisted in the 7th Battalion as a medical orderly and the following year served on Gallipoli. Later, on the Western Front, he transferred to the intelligence staff at corps headquarters.
Back in Australia following the war, he studied medicine and over the next decade established himself as a leading surgeon and academic. He was also a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps. Then war came again; in 1941 he was appointed lieutenant colonel and Senior Surgeon to the second AIF in Malaya.
Following the Japanese landings on the Malay Peninsula, Coates moved with the 2/10th Australian General Hospital to Singapore. A few days before the city surrendered he was a part of a group ordered to Java. Their convoy was bombed; Coates was rescued and reached Sumatra. There he treated casualties and declined opportunities to leave. He became a prisoner of the Japanese and in May 1942 was sent to Burma.
Short and nuggetty, Albert Coates was courageous, honourable, and unpretentious; he became renowned for his dedication, skill and wisdom. He worked tirelessly to help the sick and dying prisoners of war on the notorious Burma-Thailand Railway.
Conditions were deplorable, the treatment brutal, and the death rate enormous. He later described his daily work as segregating the sick from the very sick & curetting seventy or eighty ulcers & and, in the afternoon, proceeding to amputate nine or ten legs . In 1944 he became responsible for a major prisoners hospital in Thailand.
After the war Coates returned to Melbourne and resumed his distinguished medical career. In 1953 he was made a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and in 1955 received a knighthood. Throughout his ordeals and achievements, he was proud to be involved in great causes as a soldier and a citizen .
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