Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Vernon Victor Thopre was born in Northcote, Victoria on 26 October 1894. At the age of 12 he started work with S.A Paper Bag & Co, before becoming an axeman with a government land survey team. Victor had an interest in body building becoming Mr South Australia. Vernon joined the South Australian Fire Brigade, before enlisting in August 1915 at the age of 20 years, joining the 13/4th Field Ambulance and serving in 7th Australian Field Ambulance. He saw service in France and was awarded the Military Medal in October 1917, as a lance-corporal for bravery. While in charge of a bearer squad and under heavy fire south of the village of Zonnebeke in Belgium. Here he rescued two wounded men who were bogged, dressed them and helped them to safety. He also ‘by his courage and coolness kept his bearers carrying through the barrage and brought them through safely on two occasions’. He was discharged on 29 September 1919. Then followed a restless number of years. Vernon rejoined the SA Fire Brigade in 1919, before resigning in 1920. He then travelled, working in Chicago and as a fireman and oiler on a merchant vessel in the United States. He joined a floating maritime museum on the 1840 built cargo vessel, S.S. Success, which had served as a prison hulk on Hobson Bay in Victoria. The vessel toured international ports to display the horrors of penal incarceration. Victor gave lectures on the ship and travelled with an Australian kangaroo. He worked in an American hardware store in Rhode Island. He gained employment on the Cunard line vessel, S.S. Orduna and travelled to France where he married a French woman when he was 30 years of age. Vernon returned to South Australia in 1925 he rejoined the SA Fire Brigade and worked once again for the SA Paper & Bag Co. In 1927 he gained a position with Dunlop-Perdriau Rubber Company, working as a trye sales representative until 1935, when he joined Dunlop Rubber in Bristol in the United Kingdom. In 1958, he returned to live in South Australia wife his wife and adopted daughter.