Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

George Herbert Edwards was one of the many soldiers who rotated in and out of our Osborn/Edmonds family home at Prospect in Adelaide during WWII, being relatives and mates from the Eyre Peninsula, or their mates.

George was born in Tamworth NSW in 1910, but the family moved to Stockport in the lower north of SA, where George and his mother and brothers and a sister were farming for many years, and where George “...took a prominent part in sporting activities, playing football and cricket in the Gilbert (Valley) Association, and also a member of the Stockport Tennis Club.”

George was working in Wudinna as a truck driver on the Eyre Peninsula at the outbreak of the war, and enlisted in Pt Lincoln in July 1940, then transferred to Wayville for training as part of the 2/43rd Inf Batt, and married in uniform to Elsie Osborn in November 1940, at St Cuthberts at Prospect SA.

In April 1941, when the war in Africa was intensifying, and the Siege of Tobruk had just begun, George embarked on the “Ile De France” troopship, and in May 1941 he writes home about being “...somewhere in Palestine...”, and reassures them he’s well, but “...by the time this war is over I will be a first class laundress (like hell) anyway a bloke has to do his own now as he has not got anyone else to do it for him, only one thing I won’t guarantee that they are clean but I will say that they are fresh...”, but otherwise talks about his mainly uneventful trip over through Colombo.

Here they had 4 days shore leave, and “...my cobber and myself were lucky to be picked up by one of the residents and driven around the place and given a marvelous time, one day we were taken out to a rubber estate and shown around and also given lunch and our host supplied as many cigarettes as we cared to smoke and we could have beer or cool drinks whatever we wanted...”, and the next day “...we were taken out along the coast to one of the fishing villages and we had the best fish lunches that I have ever had at that place, we had sear fish, prawns and lobster and cucumber salad, and they were freshly caught that morning, and they melted in your mouth. We also had some curry and rice just to see what it tasted like, and do you think it was very hot, it is a lot hotter than the stuff we have in Aussie, but it is very nice just the same.”

He writes his next letter on 5th July, presumably in the Tobruk area, where - “The 2/43rd participated in the usual pattern of defensive duties, manning parts of the Red Line, working on the Blue Line, and aggressively patrolling no man's land. The Red Line was a series of concrete pillboxes forming a semi-circle around Tobruk.” (Tobruk history online).

He tells them how he’s “...now in camp somewhere in the desert of Egypt, nothing much to see for miles only dirt and stones, one thing about the place is that the least bit of a breeze is that we just about have a fair sort of a dust storm. I do not know which is the best now, this place we are in or back where we were in Palestine, we are also fairly well off for flies over here, they just about fly away with you they are that bad and a few fleas thrown in, so you see we have flies and dust during the day and fleas to worry you at night.”

He also tells he had “...a few hours leave on Monday last at Alexandria for a while, it is not a bad sort of a place to have a look at in certain parts, by that I mean the higher class of the people that live there. I had a look in at some of the clubs and music halls but was not over struck with them as they are only dens to harbour the booze-artist crowd and they have too many of these drunken brawls there.”

But then he adds that “...one thing about this place is that we get a good few route marches and that is more than we ever had over there at Wayville, of course they are only short ones, about 8 or nine miles each morning with an all day outing thrown in occasionally. I think if I get home from the war I will be that way I won’t want to ride anywhere. Not much! I’ll ride every chance I get!”

Just 16 days after writing this letter, the Unit Diaries of the 2/43rd in Tobruk on 21st July 1941 close with - “Approx 12 rounds of shell fire and 80 mortar bombs fell in the Bn area today causing 2 casualties. Pte Edwards subsequently died of wounds and 1 OR wounded, both of C Coy. As a result of this fire sig lines to B Coy are severed almost nightly...”

In Sept and Oct 1941 the majority of the Australian force was evacuated from Tobruk by sea.

George Herbert Edwards is buried in Grave 584 in the Tobruk War Cemetery. He left no children, but in time his wife Elsie re-married and raised a family in Prospect.