Gordon James WATKINS

WATKINS, Gordon James

Service Number: VX36671
Enlisted: 10 July 1940, Royal Park, Victoria
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 2nd/10th Infantry Battalion
Born: Geelong, Greater Geelong - Victoria, Australia, 17 April 1920
Home Town: Black Rock, Bayside, Victoria
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Not yet discovered
Died: Killed in Action, 'The Old Strip' Buna, New Guinea, Papua, 24 December 1942, aged 22 years
Cemetery: Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery, Papua New Guinea
C6. C. 8. HIS DUTY FEARLESSLY AND NOBLY DONE EVER REMEMBERED, Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery, Bomana, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
Memorials: Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour
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World War 2 Service

10 Jul 1940: Enlisted Private, VX36671, 2nd/10th Infantry Battalion, Royal Park, Victoria
10 Jul 1940: Enlisted Australian Military Forces (WW2) , Private, VX36671, 2nd/10th Infantry Battalion
25 Aug 1942: Involvement Private, VX36671, 2nd/10th Infantry Battalion, Milne Bay - Papua New Guinea WW2
24 Dec 1942: Involvement Private, VX36671, 2nd/10th Infantry Battalion, Buna / Gona / Sanananda "The Battle of the Beachheads" - Papua

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Biography contributed by Steve Larkins

Private Gordon James WATKINS, 2nd/10th Battalion (1920-1942)

Gordon Watkins was the sone of Son of George and Kathleen Florence Watkins, of Creswick, Victoria.

He enlisted in July 1940 and served with the 2nd/10th Battalion in the Middle East and New Guinea.  He was killed in action at Buna on Christams Eve 1942.

Gordon Watkins  and his mate William Goodgame are explicitly mentioned in Peter Brune's book "A Bastard of a Place" p532.

They were both grievously wounded in the 2nd / 10th's attack at the 'Old Strip' east of the Buna Mission on the 24th December 1942.  They were brought to the Battalion Regimental Aid Post where they were attended by the Regimental Medical Officer Captain Geoff Verco. As recounted by Lieutenant John "Andy" Andrews, the Regimental Signals Officer, they had;

"the most terrible wounds I think I've ever seen, hit in the stomach, and they were two men from D Company and their names were Watkins and Goodgame, and they were only lads.....they were inseparable cobbers, mates.   They came to put Watkins and Goodgame on the stretchers (in the RAP) and they rolled one of them onto the stretcher and his intestines stayed on the ground, and they were still conscious both of them.  And each was saying "Never mind about me, look after my mate".  I didn't realise at the time, I should have known, Geoff Verco told me afterwards that he looked at these blokes and they were hopelss....so he kept shooting them with morphine...".

Two mates who died together thinking of the other to the last.  A more powerful epiphet is hard to come by.

The inscription on his grave is apt indeed:  HIS DUTY FEARLESSLY AND NOBLY DONE EVER REMEMBERED

 

Steve Larkins Aug 2020

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