Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Bryan Joseph Savage was born on the 16th of January 1922 in Prospect South Australia. He lived with his mum his dad and his sister. He told family about what life was like when he was young (8-19) saying “I could have quit my job and had a new one by the time I had walked down the street”. In 1940 Bryan had volunteered for the senior cadets and trained in Woodside. Then he was granted leave and was employed at auto parts accessory company.

On the 12th of September 1941 he applied for the army. He was 19 and working as a clerk at the time. During his time at war, he was mostly in Australia (1124 days). He was a messenger, he rode Harley Davidson motor bikes to give messages to other divisions. During his time in in Puckapunyal, in 1942 while he was at camp, he went AWOL from 11pm to 8 o’clock the next day. He was punished with 5 days contained to barracks and he had to forfeit 1 days pay. There was a comment in his service and casualty form saying that he was stationed at a swimming school in Tweed heads in Queensland on the 16th of April 1944.

On the 14th of April 1945 he left Cairns on the ship “USAT Sea Barb” to go to Morotai . At that time Moritai was used as the site for the air bases and naval infrastructure necessary to support the Allied push from the South Pacific up into the Philippines, which was scheduled to launch on 15 November 1945 led by General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the Southwest Pacific Area. Morotai had to be transformed by building massive airfields, big enough for the large heavy bomber planes, as well as building ports for the hundreds of ships needed for troop movements in the area.

Two months later Bryan was stationed in British North Borneo for 6 months. The Australian army forces were the ones chosen by General MacArthur to invade Borneo. There were three different beach landings, and with damage from heavy bombing before the landings, messenger running by servicemen like Trooper Bryan Savage was invaluable. Over 74000 Allied troops were used in the initial invasion in Borneo. Most of these were Australian. While he was in Borneo Germany surrendered on May 7th, followed by Japan on 2nd of September. Bryan was stationed in Borneo until February of the following year when he finally got to go back home on the 16th of February 1946.

After the war, he carried on a normal life, besides a scar on his hip from a boil. He married a lady named Dawn and together they had 5 children. He worked many jobs. He worked at Chryslers at South Road in Tonsley Park, Adelaide, then he worked at the Highway Inn. He later divorced Dawn and remarried Patricia.

In 1998 he reached out to the defence personnel executive stating “I believe I am eligible for the following medals- 1 the Australian service medal 1945-75 clast SW Pacific 2 the 1935-45 star.” Not only was he eligible for those medals he was also eligible for 4 more. He died on the 26th of May 2003 remembered by his grandchildren as ‘Pardy’.

Bibliography
1 https://www.birtwistlewiki.com.au/wiki/File:USAT_Sea_Barb_2.jpg
2 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/SearchScreens/BasicSearch.aspx
3 https://vwma.org.au/education/the-premiers-anzac-spirit-prize
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Morotai
5 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=6413135
6 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=6413135
Because Bryan was my grandmas dad, I got some information from her. She didn’t know a whole lot because he had not talked about his war experience very much.