Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Roland Victor Pfitzner (commonly known as Roly) was born on the 16th of July 1920 at the Eudunda Hospital to his parents Heinrich Alfred and Emilie Louise Pfitzner (nee Morick).
He was baptised on the 15th August 1920 at St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Point Pass by Pastor Johannes Zwar and confirmed on the 8th September 1935 at St. Johannis Evangelical Lutheran Church Robertstown by Pastor J.E.Materne.
Roly was the youngest of nine children in the family. He was the last surviving child and his brothers and sisters all pre-deceased him.

The ninth child died as a baby by accident and is buried in the homestead garden. Roly being the baby of that generation at the ripe old age of 95 years.
Roly did his schooling at Ngapala School and left when he was fourteen to work on the farm at Ngapala with his father and brother Arnold sharing plant and family farm equipment for some years. he also helped his mother on the Ngpala Telephone Exchange and Post Office.

Also Roly worked on other properties in other districts until he joined the Army in December 1939.He marched a hundred donkeys and horses all around South Australia and Victoria to be used in New Guinea. He transferred from the horse transport section to the Army Training section to receive proper military training. One of the more interesting Army jobs he had was burning Dutch occupation money printed by the Japanese, some high valued notes didn't get burnt but put into greased ammo boxes and were used to fill in and bury the holes in the bombed air fields. If the war turned sour, Dad and 6 to 8 personnel would have been very rich with the Dutch currency.

Towards the end of the War, he guarded the Japanese prisoners for some time. The camp was set up by the United States Engineers with running water, buildings and a fence. The Australians guarding, then camped in tents with a fuel drum cut in halves , one to wash their hands and the other to wash their pannikin, knife and fork. The Japanese got bully beef , spuds and sometimes onions to eat while the Aussies got tin mutton and 50% meat in some tins of fat and jelly, the rest were spuds, onions and water. Also each soldier only had 4 or 5 rounds (303's) the rest were blanks to guard 500 plus prisoners of war. During his time in the Army, Roly served overseas on active duty in Borneo and Papua New Guinea.

In 1945 he was discharged from the Army and Roly went back on the farm at Ngpala and married his first wife Roma Williams of Marrabel in 1953. A year later in 1954 I was born. He bought extra farming land over the next 25 years. His interests in farming were sheep, cropping and also training sheep dogs as a hobby and also sold over 50 trained dogs to other farmers as far as kangaroo Island. Cows and chooks paid the grocery bill till quotas came in the 1970's. Roma died in 1967at the very young age of 47 years. I think Dad was broken hearted for some years afterwards.

He played his first game of football for Marrabel in 1937 and later for Julia/Point Pass until the late 50's. He played his first game of cricket in 1933 for the Ngpala Cricket Club against Marrabel and he made 15 runs. I was actually playing cricket with Dad at Riverton when he got hit in the face with a ball and was bleeding from where he got hit - no blood rules in those days. He played bowls for the Robertstown and Eudunda Bowling Clubs from the 1970's to 1982 when he moved to Waikerie and joined the Waikerie Bowling Club playing from 1982 to 2010, retiring at the good old age of 90 years.