Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

RSL VIRTUAL MEMORIAL

Gordon Murray was my stepdad for some years, and we had a place in the Adelaide Hills just after the war. He was a tall man (his Mum – a smallish, wiry, energetic woman – always called him “Jumbo”!) with reddish hair, worked hard, always good to us kids, and as I remember him in those days, most of the time was like a big kid himself, up for a laugh and a bit of fun, loved a feed of fresh cooked yabbies straight out of the Torrens.
Gordon was born in May 1921 at Milang on Lake Alexandrina in South Aust, in the middle of the six children of Horace and Christine Murray, and grew up and went to school in the area, going on to work for local farmer A. R. Schubert in his early teens.
Aged 20, Gordon initially enlisted and had his medical at Milang, but soon after moved to Adelaide and the barracks at Warradale for basic training, and was assigned to the 2/27th Batt, where he became good mates with SX8051 Albert Gordon “Brownie” Tuffery (his story is also here on the RSL “Wall”).
Late in June 1941 the 2/27th embarked for the Middle East campaign, arriving at the Dimra training camp in Palestine in July 1941, then on to “...Lebanon as part of the Allied garrison after the armistice (with the Vichy French) of 12th July.” (Unit history online).
After a spell in hospital with measles in December, in late January 1941, Gordon and the 2/27th sailed home via Bombay to nine days leave in Adelaide, but soon the Battalion was on the move again, to Queensland for more training, and in August 1942 embarked for Pt Moresby.
By early Sept 1942 the Batt “...was in position at Mission Ridge on the Kokoda Track, preparing to meet the relentless advance of the Japanese... (then) a grim 2 week withdrawal through the jungle, with little food... sick and exhausted...”, and his mate Brownie Tuffery wrote home that “...I don’t think we can say where we are but I’ll let you know as soon as I can but I’m not in the Middle East, but it couldn’t be much worse than this place as you haven’t got anywhere to go. One sees a big hill all around him and if he climbs that he still sees another, and so on.”
In late Nov 1942, after a spell of rest and retraining, the 2/27th returned to action in the heavy kuni grass at Gona, and “...suffered heavily in a series of rushed and ill-conceived attacks and ... by the ravages of tropical disease...”, during which Gordon contracted the malaria that he carried for many years.
In Jan 1943 the Battalion was brought back to Cairns where for many months he was in and out of hospital, not cleared back to active service until September, and was shipped with the Battalion back to New Guinea, spending a month training near Port Moresby.
But his malaria flared up again and again, Nov 1943 cleared for service, when “...the 2/27th's operations were principally patrol actions...”, but in Dec he was back in hospital, although about then the Battalion began returning home through Cairns, with Gordon arriving in late Feb 1944.
He spent the best part of the next year alternating between army duties (including the big March Past in Brisbane of the 7th Divn on Aug 8th 1944) and some health problems. In Feb 1945 he was reassigned to the “1 Aust Base Sub Area Details Depot (Staff)”, and in April was shipped to Morotai as part of support operations for the “mopping up” work going on in Borneo.
With the end of the war in August 1945, Gordon was finally evacuated to Brisbane in December, then entrained to Adelaide, getting his discharge in Feb 1946 at the Hampstead Barracks, after a total service of 1741 days, being 817 on active service in Aust, 854 overseas, and the balance of 70 days on the sick list.