Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

The photograph below showing Bill his wife Dorothy and son John was taken on the day that the 2/9th Division Cavalry did their ‘Victory in North Africa’ march through Adelaide in March 1943. After the march the troopers met their wives and children in Elder Park.

Dorothy had this photo taken of the family all together for the very first time. It was the first time Bill and young John had ever seen each other, as  John was conceived during embarkation leave in March/April 1941 just before the Unit took ship to the Middle East, initially for the Syria Campaign, and then in 1942 to El Alamein to defeat Rommel. When he got word John  had been born on 14 December 1941 (a week after Pearl Harbor) he was in freezing conditions at Hill 95 at Gaza.

 After the brief afternoon meeting the 2/9th entrained to Melbourne where they had another Victory March (there was also one in Perth, as the 2/9th Division Cavalry had been raised in Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia), and then got sent to Puckapunyal.

Once there the men were told quite tersely that  tanks were no longer needed and  they had the choice of demobilising, or being retrained as Commandos to fight the Japanese in New Guinea.

Bill chose to stay in, as did most of them, and from Puckapunyal they were sent to Canungra for Jungle training.

This was in April 1943 and the Kokoda Campaign was over and the Japanese were on the retreat through the islands to Borneo,  and so Bill and his mates fully expected to go to New Guinea  as the need was so urgent.

Instead they sat around Canungra for the rest of 1943, all of 44, and didn’t leave for New Guinea until January 1945.