Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Richard was born in Ballarat, Victoria on the 9th January 1917 to Thomas and Cecelia Smith. He was the fifth of six children with siblings Harold, Grace, Albert, Pearl and Merle. The family moved to the expanding town of Hummock’s Hill, now known as Whyalla where workers were in demand for the BHP iron ore smelter and later, the shipworks. Richard, known as Dick, worked as an assayer, involved in assessing the quality and purity of ores and minerals to be used in the smelters.
Sporting competitions were a unifying activity for the expanding town, with brothers Dick and Albert both being involved in baseball, Dick as secretary and both being on the management committee. Richard also played cricket for South Whyalla.
Aged 23, Dick enlisted to serve in WWII on the 21st June ’40, being allocated the number, SX7476 and allocated to the newly formed 2/48th Battalion. By September, the effect on the Whyalla workforce was huge. BHP published the names of the 78 men who had already left Whyalla to ‘give their services to their King.’ The local Whyalla News continued to publish the names of their local volunteers as the war progressed.
Dick’s early intensive training was in the Adelaide Hills at Woodside, before he embarked on the Stratheden on the 7th November, arriving in the Middle East on the 17th December. Early the following year he attended a course on Hygiene and Sanitation, essential for the good health and well-being of the troops in the challenging conditions.
Dick wrote home to his parents, with the contents being shared in the Whyalla News in January ’41having been read at a Comforts Fund meeting. 'I believe the papers have been printing articles written by some or the chaps who have been sent back from here complaining that their units have not received their fair share from the Comforts Fund. I want to tell anyone who is working for the Comforts Fund that as far as our unit is concerned, we have received far more than we expected to get and that their Christmas hampers and other gifts are very much appreciated. 'The reason I am asking you to do this is that we realise that if these reports continue our Comforts Fund issues may eventually stop, and we don't want that to happen.’

Later that year, sixty members of the Whyalla unit of the Fighting Forces Comforts Fund again met, bringing completed garments and distributing more wool. The Whyalla group was high on the list of country contributors. Four more letters from local ‘boys’ who received parcels from the Whyalla War Workers Club were received. The soldiers were Privates R. J. Smith, C. J. Hughes, R. Thompson and Eric Hill. Each mentioned how much the articles contained in the packages were appreciated, particularly as they had just returned from the firing line. A wry comment was made that should they run short of ammunition, the "bully beef ration" might well serve the purpose.
Over the ensuing years, Dick earned an unofficial title of which he and fellow soldiers were particularly proud. Designed to demoralise the troops, leaflets were dropped encouraging the men to surrender, rather than live like rats in their hand-hewn dugouts. Instead, the term Rats of Tobruk was quickly adopted as a badge of honour, which persists to this day. In those hot, dusty desert conditions Dick contracted tonsilitis in October ’42 before being able to return to Australia, via Melbourne in February ’43.
Training in Queensland followed as the battalion prepared to face a very different enemy in the tropical conditions of New Guinea. Dick arrived in Milne Bay in August ’43. Within six months he was diagnosed with Dengue fever and treated by field ambulance. Returning to Australia he developed an extremely high temperature (Pyrexia of Unknown Origin) and several bouts of malaria.
That year, moves were already underway in Whyalla to construct a Roll of Honour, with locals drawing up a list of those who had served. The initiative came from the Planning Department of BHP. In later years the list was finalised, and the impressive tribute of plaques were erected at the gates of Memorial Oval.
By October ’44 he was graded as a Group III Tech Storeman. In the closing months of the war Dick sailed from Cairns to Morotai and thence to Tarakan in April ’45, returning to Australia via Sydney seven months later to be finally discharged on the 13th November. Dick continued to be involved with the Legion of Ex-servicemen, Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers and Airmen's Association. In ’48 they combined to give about 80 children a monster Christmas party, complete with icecream, cool drinks and a visit from Father Christmas.
Aged 84, Dick died on the 25th September 2002 and was buried in the Whyalla Cemetery where his parents are also interred. His wife, Coral lived to be 86 and died on the 16th June 2011. Her ashes are also in a niche in the same cemetery.
Researched and written by Kaye Lee, daughter of Bryan Holmes, SX8133, 2/48th Battalion.