WILLEY, Henry Albert
Service Number: | WX13109 |
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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, Beverley District Honour Roll WW2 |
World War 2 Service
3 Sep 1939: | Involvement Private, WX13109 | |
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17 May 1941: | Enlisted Australian Military Forces (WW2) , Private, WX13109, 2nd/2nd Pioneer Battalion |
Help us honour Henry Albert Willey's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.
Add my storyBiography 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.