Allan DALLOW

DALLOW, Allan

Service Number: SX3715
Enlisted: 27 May 1940
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: Not yet discovered
Born: Reynella, South Australia,, 5 December 1905
Home Town: Gumeracha, Adelaide Hills, South Australia
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Labourer
Memorials: Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, Gumeracha District WW2 Roll of Honour
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World War 2 Service

27 May 1940: Involvement Private, SX3715
27 May 1940: Enlisted Adelaide, SA
27 May 1940: Enlisted Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Private, SX3715
27 Apr 1942: Imprisoned Malaya/Singapore, Date above is date reported 'Missing in Action'.
7 Jan 1946: Discharged
7 Jan 1946: Discharged Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Private, SX3715

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Biography contributed by Tim Hanna

Allan Dallow as born in Reynella, South Australia on 5 December 1905.  Dallow was a labourer/sawyer prior to enlisting at the age of 34 years.

Dallow served as a cook with the 2nd/3rd Machine Gun Battalion. The 2nd/3rd Mchine Gun Battalion was formed in June 1940 under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Blackburn, VC.  The unit undertook action, initially in the Middle East and then, in March 1942, in Java.

The Japanese landed on Java on 28 February. Blackforce went into action at Leuwiliang, near Buitenzorg, on 4 March. They fought the Japanese for two days in an effective delaying defence action but on 8 March Dutch forces surrendered and the next day Blackforce was ordered to lay down its arms.

Those who had survived the fighting spent the rest of the war as prisoners. For the next three years they were used for forced labour, most of them working on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway or in other prison camps. One-hundred-and-thirty-nine men from the 2/3rd died while prisoners, including numbers lost at sea while being transported to Japan.

After the war, Dallow returned to his home town in the Adelaide Hills.

 

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