Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

The red-brown leatherette is cool to the touch as the needle pulls the black thread through the camel's humps.

It is April 1941, and Private Max Wheeler is in an Egyptian market, choosing a gift for a three-year-old girl in Ballarat. He is a 29-year-old soldier with the $2/2$ Pioneer Battalion, but in the streets of his hometown, he is a champion.

Geoffrey Maxwell Wheeler was known to most as Max, and to his teammates as "Snowy". He was a man of precise physical talent. Before the war, he was the leading goalkicking forward for the Ballarat Football Club, known as the Swans. In 1936, he kicked 108 goals for the season, a feat that earned him a gold watch presented by his supporters. He was an elite all-round athlete, excelling in tennis, golf, and cricket. He even played a single VFL game for Hawthorn in 1937 before returning to the regional ovals he loved.

Max was the son of a Ballarat Shire councillor and WWI veteran, Herbert John Wheeler. He was married to Margaret and was the father of three children: Maxine, Alan, and Mabel. He enlisted in July 1940.

On 17 June 1941, Wheeler was part of a frontal assault to retake Fort Merdjayoun in Syria. The $2/2$ Pioneers were ordered to charge fortified Vichy French positions. They had rifles and bayonets; the French had tanks and machine guns. The Pioneers were cut to pieces on the open, rocky slopes. Out of 160 men who participated in the charge, only 30 remained by nightfall. Max was among those killed.

The toy camel arrived in Ballarat weeks after the family had received the telegram. His daughter, Maxine, was never allowed to play with it. It was kept as a "treasure", a physical surrogate for a father who would never return.

Private Max Wheeler is buried at the Damascus Commonwealth War Cemetery. The area is known as Sabara, the Arabic word for prickly pear. The thorns of the plants surround the graves of the men who fell in the Syrian hills.

Lest we forget

Rod Hutchings

Director, Virtual War Memorial Australia