Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

George Gosse (1912-1964) was born in Western Australia and educated in Adelaide. He had been in the RAN for several years until 1933, and then rejoined during the war.

He was one of a number of Austrlaian Naval Officers who found their way into the very dangerous occuaption of bomb and mine disposal.  The Germans used sea mines in a range of applications other than their original purpose - a practice they had begun during the Blitz in London.  They were almost invariably booby trapped with multiple devices in the detonation train, specifially intended to kill the teams sent to disarm them.  One man at a time would work on defusing each mine, recording his actions in a recording device monitored by his colleagues located well away from the danger zone.  A mistake would result in the disarmer being vapourised in the resulting blast.  The next process on a similar mine would pick up from where the last recording had ended.

The work of these men was described in a famous book "Softly Tread the Brave".  Gosse arrived on the teams later in the war but the work was no less dangerous.

Once while working underwater on a mine in Bremen harbour, he was lucky to escape when the detonator fired; fortunately, he had just managed to remove the primer. After the war he remained in the RAN Reserve until 1958.

***

George Gosse has had numerous biographies written of him so it is not the intent of this site to repeat what has already been done in great detail and to good effect elsewhere.

There are two key biographies that the reader may wish to access:

Australian Dictionary of Biography by I. Mcl. Crawford - Click Here (adb.anu.edu.au)

Extended Australian War Memorial Biography - Click Here (www.awm.gov.au)

For further information regarding George Gosse and the George Cross please refer to the related links side-bar.