Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

King Island Anzac Day Dawn Service 2024 Speech
Remembering Private Don Rowe

Sub branch President Gary Barker
King Island’s record in volunteering for war is second to none, as is the support that islander’s provided to those serving regardless of where they came from. We are most fortunate that a collection of over 530 letters from 139 writers during World War 2 to the Island’s War Service Fund has survived. With the support of the Marshall family, Ann Ghazarian and her team transcribed them all, and now they are all on each veteran’s page on the The Virtual War Memorial of Australia.
Slowly but surely, we are making contact with descendants of these veterans who are unaware of this piece of history. I welcome Helen Conley, one such descendant.

Guest Speaker - Helen Conley
On this Anzac morning I would like to talk to you about a World War 2 King Island
soldier, who I will call ‘Blue’. Born in Tasmania in 1918, by his teen years Blue was a farm worker on King Island and on the Sixth of March 1940 decided to enlist in the Second Australian Imperial Force. This meant he was volunteering to fight overseas, and was allocated to the Second Twelfth Infantry Battalion.
Blue was soon off to the Middle East to fight the Germans, and in trouble. He had a bit of dislike for obeying order, probably drank too much and the term that probably best describes him is ‘larrikin’. Blue was soon in front of his Commanding Officer, for the wrong reasons, and was to spend time in a military prison.
He received support from the King Island World War 2 Service Fund and enjoyed receiving ‘Weed’. Now, before you jump to too many bad conclusions about this young soldier, I better explain that Weed was tobacco. In some camps he could not get it; in England it was too dear.
He was a lover of wild life and while in North Queensland wrote ‘a fellow has to be
careful up this way as the opossums will carry a bloke away, as they flock about the tent in dozens at night.’ He was always thankful for what he received, but writing didn’t come easy, ‘very sorry I have not written lately, but I am not much good with the old Scratcher.’
He also took on advice he was given, as he noted in a letter in March 1941, ‘Hoping you are all well at good old King Island. We are having heaps of good times over here, mixed with a few bad ones. But as the returned men told us when we left, if you take all the good times you can get, they more than overcome the bad ones.’
Blue’s next move, still as a Private soldier with the Second Twelfth, was to New Guinea where he contracted malaria, and then really upset the Army. He went absent without leave for two months, and on 11 March 1943 faced a District Court Martial. His sentence was 90 days in the New Guinea Field Punishment Centre, noting that he also forfeited 175 day’s pay – almost half a year. Maybe the larrikin is now our Wild Colonial Boy.
But despite these misdemeanors, Blue was a good soldier and loyal to his mates. In January 1944 the Second Twelfth was in action against the Japanese at Shaggy Ridge in the Finisterre Ranges in North East New Guinea. The country and the enemy were treacherous and one Sergeant who had been a ‘Rat of Tobruk’, recalled ‘Tobruk was a picnic compared with Shaggy Ridge’. From Blue’s Division 13,576 were evacuated sick – that is 96% of the men in the Division.
On 21 January 1944, the first day of the Shaggy Ridge advance, Blue and seven of his mates were killed in action. The fighting was so fierce that the Commanding Officer of the Second Twelfth, who would normally be somewhat remote from the fighting, was seriously wounded. Blue and his mates were buried in the field and later re-buried in the Lae War Cemetery.
In our current world, Blue would probably be discharged as a liability. But this man
gave his life for his country and never feigned away from his duty as an infantry soldier. He made the ultimate sacrifice.
His name is on our Cenotaph, directly behind me – not Blue but Rowe D. Donald
Duncan Rowe was my half uncle who died six years before I was born. Like all the
names on the Cenotaph we should be proud of them and not judge them by what is written in red ink in their Service Records. After this service please pay your respects to them in silence.