Henry Albert WILLEY

WILLEY, Henry Albert

Service Number: WX13109
Enlisted: 17 May 1941
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 2nd/2nd Pioneer Battalion
Born: Beverley, Western Australia, 10 December 1908
Home Town: Beverley, Beverley, Western Australia
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Farm Hand
Died: Illness while a POW of the Japanese, Thailand, 18 November 1944, aged 35 years
Cemetery: Kanchanaburi War Cemetery
1 G 43,
Memorials: Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial
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World War 2 Service

3 Sep 1939: Involvement Private, WX13109
17 May 1941: Enlisted Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Private, WX13109, 2nd/2nd Pioneer Battalion

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Biography contributed by Chris Buckley

Henry was the eldest of six children of William (Sonny) Henry Willey (b1875 in Beverley WA) and Edith Mary Grover (b1877 in Beverley WA). Sonny (a Farmer at Windemarry in Beverley WA) and Edith married in 1906 and settled in Beverley where they raised their family.

In 1932 Henry was a Farm Hand in Beverley WA when he married Nellie Agnes Hanna Newton (b1912 in Perth WA) - they Divorced the same year and both remarried. In 1939 Henry married Kathleen Violet Goode (b 1916 in Surrey, England) - Kathleen arrived in Fremantle WA with her parents and siblings in 1923 on board the Esperance Bay.

Henry enlisted in the Australian Army in May 1941 and was a Private (Service No:WX13109) attached to 2/2 Pioneer Battalion when he was taken PoW by the Japanese. Henry was interred at Tamarkan PoW Camp in Burma/Thailand - a work camp established to build two bridges across the River Kwai. Henry died (Dysentery) in November 1944. Kathleen remarried in 1954 and died in 1957.

 

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