Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Claude served in New Guinea.

He started in Port Moresby, training, digging, and defending against air raids.  He was given a job rescuing downed pilots from Bootless Bay before the injured pilots were attacked by hungry land crabs.

He served in Milne Bay during the Japanese attacks of which he claimed to have no memory. He assisted on the airfield. He recalled that the Americans had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Luxury!

He drove Jeeps with supplies from the Popondetta airstrip to the front at Buna and returned with casualties. 

He worked with the Americans bringing equipment to Buna and was told he was an excellent driver and reader of maps. He drove tanks for them through a fast flowing river, he had never driven a tank before. These tanks were destroyed in the fighting at Buna.

The war had lasting effects on his health. He recovered from Malaria, tropical fevers and hepatitis.

As with most veterans he never spoke of the horrors, and he would protect himself by claiming amnesia. 

In his words. "I don't know why I can't remember. Maybe it is best that I can't, because the things I do remember I would not want to go through again."

I am convinced he was involved in very close fighting in Bunaa nd  Sanananda, as after the war he had nightmares in which he used to to try to strangle his wife believing she was a Jap.

In 1949 he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Adelaide and he was subjected to electrical shock treatment and a leucotomy.

This was a new type of operation. The aim was to disable the emotional centres in the  frontal lobes of his brain, using needles under his eyelids and through holes drilled in the sides of his temples. Hoping to calm his emotions and ragged nerves.  This was an experimental treatment, which had varied outcomes.

Amazingly, the operation was a complete success. Claude lost the ability to feel strong emotion. 

The result was he was able to hold down a job again and passed the rest of his life as a loving husband, father and grandfather. If you were family he offered a constant and unquestioning love. He did not quarrel or hold any grudges. I don't believe he had the capacity to do so.

He loved animals and card games and remains to this day my hero.

Luke Burrow