Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Corporal Thomas James Scanlan (Service No:WX19130) enlisted in the Army at Claremont WA on 16 January 1942 as a Private with 13th Infantry Training Battalion. Private Scanlan served with No 1 Special Battalion, 5 Infantry Battalion and 23 Australian Coy AASC. Promoted to Corporal, he served in Darwin NT (10 March 1943 to 21 November 1944) with 24 Australian Coy AASC before embarking from Darwin for Jacquinot Bay with 52 Transport Platoon on board the Evangeline.  Corporal Scanlan embarked for Brisbane on board the Westralia on 5 January 1946 and was attached to 52 Australian Transport Platoon at Discharge on 15 January 1946.

Tom was born in Kalgoorlie, WA in 1909, second of three children of Robert Scanlan (b1865) and Frances (Fanny) Finn (b1880) Robert worked as a Gardener in Wanneroo, WA before moving to the WA Goldfields where he was working as a Miner at Paddington via Kalgoorlie when he and Fanny married in 1907. They lived in the Kalgoorlie Region, where Robert was a Miner, before moving to Perth in 1913 and by 1916 had settled at Emu Hill via Doodlakine where Robert was a Farmer. 

Tom worked in Beverley as a Farmer in the early 1930s and was in Perth in 1935 when he married Phyllis Ayleen Mahlstedt (b1913 in Wagin, WA). Tom and Phyllis settled in Perth, where Tom worked as a Dry Cleaner until their Divorce in 1940. Tom remarried in 1942 - to Lorna Walton Rowe (b1914 in Boulder, WA) - Lorna was a Nurse at Worooloo and Kalgoorlie Hospitals. Tom and Lorna lived in Fremantle and Perth and Tom worked as a Bus Driver until his death in 1953. Lorna died in 1996.