Austin Vaughan COOKE

COOKE, Austin Vaughan

Service Number: NX8410
Enlisted: 2 November 1939, Scone, New South Wales
Last Rank: Lance Corporal
Last Unit: 6th Australian Division Intelligence Section
Born: Scone, New South Wales, Australia, 23 January 1916
Home Town: Scone, Upper Hunter Shire, New South Wales
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: AMP Insurance Agent
Died: Natural causes, Gundy, New South Wales, Australia, 23 February 2002, aged 86 years
Cemetery: Rookwood Cemetery & Crematorium
Garden of Remembrance Wall: 49, Panel: C
Memorials: Ballarat Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, New South Wales Garden of Remembrance (Rookwood Necropolis)
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World War 2 Service

2 Nov 1939: Enlisted Private, NX8410, Scone, New South Wales
2 Nov 1939: Enlisted Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Lance Corporal, NX8410
18 Oct 1945: Discharged Lance Corporal, NX8410, 6th Australian Division Intelligence Section
18 Oct 1945: Discharged Australian Military Forces (Army WW2), Lance Corporal, NX8410

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Biography contributed by John Cooke

Lance Corporal Cooke was part of Division Intelligence Section in North Africa and was captured in Crete in 1941. He spent the war years in Stalag VIIIB in Teschen, where it was so cold he crocheted himself a blanket from cast off wool scraps from other prisoners – it is now preserved in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. He was later moved to Stalag 344 in Lamsdorf (or Lainsdorf), and was repatriated to England in May, 1945 at the wars end. He bore the scars his entire life from being manacled for 10 weeks in handcuffs while in prison, a retaliation by the Germans for Britain’s comparable treatment of captured soldiers after the Dieppe raid.

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