Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Henry Walter DAVIS (1890 - 1964)

I remember my Grandad Davis with great affection because he was also a soldier during the second world war when he understated his age by 10 years in order to be enlisted - he gave correct DOB but wrote on his papers “41 years of age”.

Because he was over age the military would not allow him to go into armed service abroad but sent him to Murchison in Victoria to be a guard at a POW camp. Grandad came home to 9 Rennie Street Coburg on weekend leave in his khaki military uniform with slouch hat and as a kid of maybe five /six years of age I felt mighty proud of him.

Because he was not well pleased with being kept in Australia his WW2 records reveal a number of misdemeanours ( usually AWOL ) whereas his first war service - including the winning of the Military Medal - is filled with distinction.

After his discharge from the military on 6 Jan 1945 Grandad purchased a few acres of property in Upper Beaconsfield where I went each school holidays to spend at least a week with him in his two roomed shack.  It had no proper floor - compacted dirt one end - no glass in the windows but hessian sacks to cover the openings against wind and rain.  He would tell me stories of his childhood and youth around Camperdown and Pomborneit in the west of Victoria and occasionally some tales of his time in the war days.  He had a bad cough which he said was because he was “gassed” in France.

The Beaconsfield property was fully timbered but at 55 years of age Grandad cleared it by hand felling large trees and using the manual skills he had learned as a young man in the western district.  During holidays I loved to work with him on the other end of a two handed crosscut saw enjoying the crashing sound of a large tree and shouting at the top of my voice “timber” as if I were a Canadian lumberjack.  After clearing the land Grandad then split and sawed the timber to make fence posts and fenced off his paddocks.  He bought an old draught horse called “Nugget” and hand ploughed the ground before planting potatoes to break up the soil and later other crops such as passion fruit.

Later a small weatherboard cottage was built on the property for which my father did some plumbing and other building work although I think a contractor did most of the building. My grandfather then re-married a Catholic woman ( whose given name was Mary ) whom we thought to be a  widow.  She had a young son named Brian who was a little younger then me - I was then about twelve. I think she may also have had older children.  This new marriage was a cause of severe friction between my father and Grandad and they virtually broke off contact.

Grandad died in Sale on 8 July 1964 and was buried in the Sale cemetery after a Requiem Mass in the Sale  Catholic Cathedral.  I drove Dad to the funeral ( five hours on the road from Melbourne in those days) but he would not come into the Cathedral with me so I sat alone near the back in my Salvation Army uniform and then took Dad out to the cemetery for the interment where I said a silent prayer over the grave after the priest had finished the service.