Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

:: Source- Coolgardie Miner Newspaper
:: Date 4 November 1943
:: Text - A recent visitor to Coolgardie was Pte. Harold Nash of the AIF, who was a comrade of L/Sgt. B. Walsh and Pte. Ron Wilson of the 2/16th Battalion in the Middle East and was a member of the section when these two well known goldfields boys were killed at Kokoda, New Guinea. The relatives of these boys deeply, appreciate the fact that Pte. Nash spent portion of his leave visiting them and giving the true account of the final episode. He stated that they were an advanced patrol machine gun nests around a waterfall. Suddenly they were fired on by a machine gun. Sgt. B Walsh fell mortally wounded at the first burst, a second later Pte. Nash was shot in both arms and fell across Sgt. Walsh's feet. Pte. Ron Wilson dashed across to dress Nash's wounds; he was just taking the field dressing out of Nash's pocket when a bullet severed his thumb and penetrated his brain; he fell across Nash's chest. Their mate, Pte. Ron Haskell was killed a few feet away. Pte. Nash" lay there for 18 hours in a semi-conscious condition. In one period of consciousness he saw a Jap walking around the heap of bodies and he evidently took them to be all dead. After 18 hours our troops recovered the ground and Pte. Nash was taken out by stretcher bearers.