Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Charles’ father worked for the railways in South Australia so the family moved around as required, including stints at Williams Creek and Oodnadatta before enlisting to serve in WWI. The two younger children, Bill and his sister Cath were SA born but the older three siblings were born in Hull, England. Bill was born on the 11th February 1913 at Quorn, which was the closest town to William’s Creek. Lord Baden Powell’s Scouting movement was particularly strong at the time and was a movement which taught Bill many skills that were to be useful to him over his life.

Bill initially attended Mitcham Primary during those war years but post war when his family moved to Rosewater, Bill attended Pennington and Port Central Schools, gaining his QC (Qualifying Certificate). Aged 15, he then left to work in the local sugar refinery laboratory. With unrest on the wharfs leading to strikes and lack of employment, rank was pulled by an engineering boss who placed his own son in Bill’s job. Bill then turned his hand to a range of labouring work on wheat stacks and in the wool stores before heading to Currency Creek to work on a dairy farm, rapidly learning how to milk a herd of cattle by hand.

Bill married Elizabeth in 1937 and the young couple moved to Two Wells working on a station owned by the Brook’s family. Their next move was to the West Coast, a little township of Pinkawillyony near Kimba where Bill successfully share-farmed with Stan Johnson. Their daughter, Barbara was born soon after. Then WWII broke out and Bill decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and enlisted. (Bill’s father had enlisted for WWI and was in the military camps at Mitcham, which was why the family had moved to that area. Having been gasses three times, his father was hospitalised in France so his war did not finish until 1919 when he finally returned to South Australia.)

At that stage the RAAF selected pilots based on their academic achievements, so Bill’s ambition was thwarted in that field but he enlisted as a soldier, in July of 1940. Bill then moved his family to Adelaide to stay with his parents while he served. He became SX7654. training at the Wayville Showgrounds and being issued with the basics of a .303 rifle and bayonet. The enlistees then moved to Woodside in the Adelaide Hills. Ironically the training was based on WWI conditions which had little similarity to conditions the young men were to encounter.

Eventually the SA contingent boarded the ‘Stratheden’ for the Middle East where they were issued with ammunition before being loaded onto trucks for the Dimrah camp as members of the newly formed 2/48th Battalion. When on leave, Bill especially enjoyed visiting the biblical sites he had grown up learning about at Church and Sunday School. Initially Bill was in the group taking the cooperative and quite relived Italian Prisoners of War to Marsa Mutruh. From there, Bill’s battalion headed to Tobruk where they put up defensive wiring at night and slept during the day, or tried to despite the fleas. Because the ground was limestone, digging at most was 2 feet deep creating slit trenches with the stone and limestone filled sandbags facing ‘Jerry’ and the opposite side open. Bill vividly remembered the first tank attack at the back of Tank Hill where the men of the battalion were in their holes as the tanks rolled over the top and went on before eventually being destroyed. The following German infantry failed to follow up behind their tanks.

With just one quart water bottle per man per day for shaving, washing and drinking, the evening meal, often of bully beef was also supplemented by a large dixie of hot tea. Other staples included cheese and hard army biscuits and usually marmalade jam made in Palestine, where orange groves were harvested.

From Tobruk, Bill was shipped at night to Alexandria and thence to Palestine. In an astute assessment of the 2/48th Battalion, Bill thought they blended well; “We had farmers, we had chalkies, we had office men, and we had ordinary city dwellers. And somehow or other they blended into a real good force, fighting and sport.”

At El Alamein, In Bill’s estimation the understrength 2/48th in the last night’s efforts were 350 men but over 100 were killed that night. The German forces withdrew creating a major victory for the Allieds, but at a huge cost for the 2/48th battalion. From there it was to the Suez Canal then back to Australia on the ‘New Amsterdam’, disembarking at Melbourne before training to Adelaide and three week’s leave. By that time Elizabeth and Barbara were living at Renmark and Bill had a brief respite before entraining to the Queensland Tablelands (via Brisbane). A little recorded fact was that the gauge of train tracks varied in different states, so the Adelaide Brisbane leg was in comparative comfort. However, the next leg was to have been in inferior carriages so the CO of the 2/48th ordered his men off, insisting bigger carriages be used. They were built, taking the final leg to Ravenshoe in reasonable conditions. Conditions at the Atherton Tablelands were primitive, despite the length of time the war had been underway. There were no showers, bathing was in the river and latrines were of the long drop variety. Uniforms changed to jungle green to cater for jungle warfare and very different conditions to desert warfare in which Bill’s 2/48th Battalion had been so successful. (Jungle warfare meant that the men were forced to work closer together both to their own men and to the Japanese. Bill still believed that despite the British thinking the Japanese were cunning, the Aussies were superior in that regard.) Arriving in Milne Bay, each tent was flooded, creating a marshy ground so immediately the CO insisted they move higher to a point virtually overlooking the Japanese airstrip. The mosquitos were a big problem, despite the troops being given Atebrin tablets which turned skin a sickly yellow colour. Bill was one who at night would throw his groundsheet over him for protection.

Now promoted to Lance Corporal, Bill also recalled that, in comparison to the deserts at Tobruk, the Japanese would hide up trees, so the order was always to ‘look up’. The terrain was very steep so movement was slow, with troops needing to hang onto trees as they climbed towards Sattelburg. Bill did a reconnaissance patrol initially before returning to report seeing the Japanese, the tower they had build and the holes they had dug for protection.

Finally, with that fighting over, Bill returned to Australia via Brisbane and then to Renmark where Elizabeth and their daughter Barbara were living. Elizabeth had become known for her cake making and decorating, including for local 21st birthday celebrations. She was also actively involved in raising funds for ‘Food for Britain. With money short, Bill unofficially ‘extended’ his leave to take work in the local fruit packing sheds which were particularly short-handed for the summer season. Docked a few day’s pay but not his promotion, Bill then returned to Wayville and thence to Cairns, with practice on landing barges and beach storming exercise at Townsville as the civilians passed on their way to work. Morotai and Tarakan service followed before, finally, the news of the bombs being dropped on Hiroshima signalled the end of formal warfare. Being a family man, and with over five years of service, Bill was amongst the first to return home. He was finally discharged in September 1945, re-joining his small family to live in Remark and rebuild his life.

Bill, Elizabeth and Barbara were amongst the first to be allotted one of 20 building blocks donated by Pat Evans for returned soldiers in June of 1946. Bill also resumed his interest in Scouting as a Cub Leader. His daughter, Barbara Snel, also honoured her father through the writing of a book titled ‘The Mariner’s Son’ about his life and times and the enormous changes he had witnessed.  Bill Fogarty also interviewed the then 81-year-old Charles at the Australian War Memorial in September, 1994 (accession Number S016979).

Bill died a few years later, aged 85, on the 19th July 1998 and is buried at the Enfield Memorial Park where Elizabeth’s remains are also interred. She died on December 2nd 1992.

Researched and written by Kaye Lee daughter of Bryan Holmes SX8133, 2/48th Battalion.