Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Jacob Nehmy was my uncle, but unfortunately I didn't get to know him, as he returned to Lebanon before I was born in about 1950-51 and died in 1954. He was the brother of my father, John Hanna Nehmy. They both migrated from Lebanon to Mannum, a small country town on the River Murray in South Australia in 1927. Jacob was less than 4 years younger than my father. He remained single in his short life of 47 years. He also sounded like a very colourful character! There was very scant information about Uncle Jacob, but my father always said that he was stationed in the Darwin area of the NT. My father had an incredibly good memory. The VWMA records have been extremely helpful in recording his service history, which was from January 1942 - August 1945, and it confirmed that he was stationed in the NT within several Employment/Works camps.

The other incredible facet of this story due to my father's amazing memory, started in the coastal village of el Barbara (aka as Berbara) in Lebanon during WW1. My father would have been 14-15 years of age and Arabic was his only language before he migrated to Australia. He told this story throughout his life of how soldiers from different countries would camp on the beach near his village towards the end of WW1. He must have known a few broken English words, as he said that they loved the Australian soldiers the most. He said that he would take them fresh fish in exchange for some of their rations (tinned food). My father recalled the Officer in Charge of the group as having the surname of 'Murray' and he obviously took a mental picture of that generous and friendly leader of the Australian group.

From 1927, John Hanna and Jacob Nehmy were Hawkers of drapery items within the Mannum rural district, then they established a store in the Mannum township after several years. Jacob returned from the Army for 5 years before returning to Lebanon. Jacob had a respiratory illness that according to his medical records caused hospitalisation in the NT and the Repatriation Hospital in Adelaide.

About 50 years or so after my father's encounter with the Australians in his Lebanese village, a male customer who lived across the river from Mannum, came into the shop. My father's vivid long term memory kicked in and he thought that the customer's facial features seemed familiar. My father noted that his surname was 'Murray', and despite it being a fairly common English name, and the very narrow odds, he mentioned the soldier with the same surname. It turned out that the customer was the brother of the soldier with whom my father had remembered from his encounter on the other side of the world!

I have tried to ascertain from the VWMA website of all the surnames of 'Murray', if one of them could be the same soldier? However, there are too many with the surname and the soldier would have to have been born around the turn of the 20th century or late 1800's to have been a senior rank in the Australian Army during WW1? Is it possible for a relation of this soldier who may know? It would be an Australian relative who knows that their soldier relation was in the Middle East during WW1 and that there is a family connection to the Mannum area?

I often wonder whether this marvellous encounter between my teenage Lebanese father and the Australian soldier influenced my father and Uncle Jacob to migrate to Australia as adults? It's ironic that Mannum is located on the River Murray ...?