Published on Tuesday, 22 July 2025 at 2:57:31 PM
Welcome back to #TimeWarpTuesday and our celebration of the recent 2025 Local History Awards. Before our Local History Librarian went on holidays we shared the first part of Norma Lyon’s entry into the Awards, and this week we are pleased to share part two:
Original Research
“Uncle Paddy's Letters Home” by Norma Lyons
- Part Two -
“On Patrol in New Britain
“Paddy never got the leave to visit home he was hoping for! The Japanese threat to Darwin had lessened, with the Japanese Navy having suffered heavy aircraft losses over Rabaul and the Solomons. The City of Perth Regiment of the 11th Battalion embarked at Darwin for New Britain on the 25th of November 1944, arriving on the island in December. New Britain is the largest island (600 by 80km) of the Bismarck Archipelago, part of Papua, and only 88km from mainland Papua, New Guinea. Papua was then a protectorate of Australia. Australia and our Allies had been fighting the Japanese invasion on mainland New Guinea since December 1941. The New Britain Campaign had begun on the 15th of December 1943. The Kokoda track offensive had saved Port Moresby from invasion, and fighting continued to rescue other mainland western towns and ports of N.G., and the islands of the western Pacific, from Japanese control. New Britain was mountainous with jungles, mangrove swamps, and torrential rains. There were tropical diseases, heat, snakes, and mosquitoes and other pests.
The 11th Battalion’s Head Quarters were at Jacquinot Bay, on the Gazelle Peninsula, first at Wunung Plantation, then in January at Palmalmal Plantation, and then at Tol Plantation - copra and cacao plantations. Six months later in October, with the war won, Paddy wrote to his mother giving a description of how they had embarked from Jacquinot Bay to “Toll” in twenty-four barges at 8pm at night. With no lights the barges were knocking into one another. And “’Old nip’ came over in a couple of planes and dropped a few bombs on the harbour very close to us.” “When we got to Toll everybody got trigger happy and a lot of our own fellas got shot by their mates on guard.” “A few stray nips being left behind and at the sides as well make them all nervous.”
In 1941 the Japanese had invaded the island and captured the town of Rabaul on the north-east peninsula and occupied the whole island. Australia and the Allies had over three years beaten them back, so that by - the beginning of 1945 the Japanese were largely confined to Rabaul. The 11th and other troupes were now daily patrolling a narrow neck of the peninsula – a line between Wide Bay and Open Bay – which separated the Japanese held port of Rabaul and any Japanese soldiers still holding out in the jungle. In April 1945 they moved to Wide Bay, relieving the 6th Battalion. A history of the 11th Battalion reads: “Little contact was made and actual contact was limited; the battalion’s casualties amounted to three dead and four wounded.” When Japan surrendered after the United States bombing by atomic bomb of Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945, and Nagasaki on the 9th of August, Paddy’s battalion was part of the Allied forces who occupied Rabaul, which was captured on September the 13th, where they assisted in supervising Japanese prisoners.
PH00458-07 Paddy Lyons and some of his mates during WWII service, most likely in New Guinea, circa 1945-46
Donated by Norma Lyons. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
Thirty-three letters home are saved which were written between Paddy’s arrival on the island in January 1945, covering the surrender of the Japanese in August, until he left New Britain in January 1946. His reports of day-to-day activities are similar to those from Darwin. But he is interested in this new tropical world, even though conditions there are worse. On the 4th of January Paddy writes home to tell of the ocean trip and the new tropical place they have come to. He had not been seasick, the food was excellent, he played Chinese checkers, defeating the Chinese cook. And he watched sailors flying kites at sea – “yes kites at sea a funny sight. Ah.” Where they are camped the river is cold, the water gushing out of the side of the hill. He writes that death adders and scorpions are a common danger. The butterflies are as big as pigeons, well almost, and there are lizards with blue tails. And earthquakes at times. There is a craze for building dug-out canoes with axe and hammer. Paddy is making a racing scull. There is a ferry service to plantations where they can help themselves to coconuts and bananas – “as many as you can carry.” While Paddy is writing there is a lot going on in the tent, with loud arguments, Tubby trying to mend his strides, and then a two-foot snake passes through causing havoc.
On the 18th of January he writes to thank his Mum for a Christmas parcel just arrived. He has also had a telegram from Lake View Street [from his sister Mabel and niece Margaret – Mabel’s husband Baden was also fighting overseas - and sister Maggy, brother in-law Jimmy, and nieces Lucy, and Peggy] and a parcel of goods from Fauldings. [It seems, like older brother Bill, he had worked for Fauldings after leaving school.] Rain has been pouring down in bucketfuls, but they get wet anyway by crossing creeks full dressed. They are camped 200 yards from the sea, and 100 yards from a river, which is “below zero, and a fella has to wash and swim in it … at five o’clock in the morning.” Pictures are shown at 6-8.30pm, but they have been “crook lately”. Tubby goes out to get bananas and coconuts. Paddy himself was “hoodwinked” by a native to whom he gave “a couple of smokes” to get coconuts down, who then “turns around and says he’s got a crook foot” and can’t climb. “There are some beautiful butterflies here, so if I manage to catch one, I’ll frame it and send it down.” [He certainly did, I remember more than one on the walls at Swansea Street.]
In a swimming carnival Paddy and digger win prizes of writing cases, and had “photos taken by a war photographer”. Another early letter shows Paddy taking heart at Allied successes in the war: “I’ve brightened up a little since I heard of a few of our victories. But if only I could be drawing wages on a Friday”. Years as a soldier away from home have impacted on his life. He has had a letter from Billie. And Paddy asks his mother how much she has now saved since he asked her to put away ten shillings a week from his pay. Nostalgia for home returns in a dream he tells of: “Last night I was dreaming of the springs”. [The Springs was a popular swimming hole on the Swan River at Riverton.] The dream he tells of is that he “saves a young kid there …as I saved the other three.” The band is due to play at the canteen on Sunday night. They play reveille each morning, with “all the dogs about the place chiming in, like spot used to under the window sill.” He has heard natives beating on a hollow log used as a drum, reminding him of some of the dance rhythms at The Embassy in Perth. “They have wild pigs “and the one with the most pigs is ranked highest in the village.” When out canoeing he has watched native women doing all the work, such as fetching water, and writes that they “wear nothing but a smile.”
On February the 1st Paddy writes that he is building a boat to enter a race, a racing skull. Also butterfly catching – “I hit a Blue Empress with a dishcloth and brought it down.” He will be making a frame for it and sending it down.” Lefty and Tubby are up to mischief, following others who throw gelignite into the river to catch fish. But they were “collared” by the game keeper, who took the fish. The picture shows are “crook” – “Banjo on my Knee” and “Crime Doctor” - and so crowded anyway “you might have to sit at the back of the screen, with the writing backward and hard to read.” He hears news of people back home, asking how Dixie got on regarding a charge of receiving stolen goods. And has read in the “Globe” of Don Christie coming third in the “Swim thru Yarra” of three miles. He sends photos home of him and his mates – “I should have torn them up as I look like a nigger.” He tells his Mum the combs and cakes arrived, and signs off “To the one and only from Paddy. Love and kisses”. “On Sunday Mac, Lefty, Tubby, Peter, and myself went out on a sort of picnic”, Paddy writes on the 19th of March 1945. They went on a five-man outrigger across the bay to native villages. Paddy bartered with a young boy for fish, but felt cheated when he saw him hide the biggest. They bought grass skirts for two shillings each, and Paddy got six wild oranges for two razor blades – rusty ones he had kept covered in their papers. He was disappointed when his racing boat had been ruled out of class for the Boat and Swimming Regatta. “I’ve got it looking like a racing scroll a Bobby Pearce with twelve-foot oars.”
PH00458-08 Paddy Lyons and his mates, ‘eat’ a snake they caught during WWII in Papua New Guinea, 1945
Donated by Norma Lyons. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
Paddy writes again about trading at a native village on the 8th of April 1945. He describes a baby “about the size of two ‘Sal Vital’ tins” he wanted to get for Peggy. While buying oranges he saw “a kid about the size of two hurricane lamps” “… about two years old … he could just toddle along and in his gob he had a big cigarette butt smoking away like a goodun.” It is Tubby’s birthday and they will be having a few beers with Digger and Mac. One night last week, he writes, they drank “three bottles of booze each” resulting in “crook heads next morning.” On the 23rd of April Paddy is feeling cheered now that “Old Joe and Monty have got the upper hand now … the mob ride the wireless for news. Paddy himself had apparently “had a wrap up” in Perth’s “Daily News” paper. “At least six jokers had got that slip in their letters. The news report must have been on the band, as Tubby too was mentioned in it as “the champion trombone player.” There have been earth tremors, reminding Paddy of feeling sea-sick when he went on a barge.
Writing home on the 2nd of July Paddy says how he and Tubby were eight days in the wilderness with no wash or shave, and meals were “eighteen out of twenty-four bully and biscuits.” “What if the ladies of the lounge should see us now, said Tubby.” Paddy had a letter from his little niece Margaret. He has twenty bottles of his beer ration now owing to him. Thinking of the Balmoral pub at home, he asks that they look out for “some of our fellas down on compassionate leave, so don’t forget to have a wongie to them.” Paddy has already received telegrams from home for his birthday on the 9th. He sends a local paper home, “The Guinea Gold”. The boxing championships were good entertainment. A few letters on he says he is not doing well with Tattersalls so will bet on the Melbourne Cup. He has run out of barbers’ combs and draws the comb on the back page to show the size [seven inches] for his Mum to send him some. Paddy had finally found the spring for his clippers he had asked his Mum for when at Darwin – “Lefty had it tucked away in his little string bag.”
Another story is of being with Lefty out to get some paw-paws, taking their guns. They suddenly ran into an armed “native police boy”: “Lefty and the native propped at the same time and both went for their guns like the cowboys…” causing “a hell of a fright.” He has sent home a book, “Jungle Gun”. Another letter tells those at home “I’m not doing it so bad now, seeing that the whole thing is gradually coming to an end.” He writes that he gets war news from the wireless at the YMCA. Sending home a photo of the band Paddy writes “I’m on the right-hand side behind a side drum.” The band is going strong. They had played for the Dutch, who were celebrating their Queen’s birthday, and they were given icy cold beers! Tubby had been in hospital for appendicitis but was not operated on. Digger was also in hospital for two days from drinking too much, whiskey on top of beer – “He went out like a light.” In a later letter, having just recovered from “a crook head”, Paddy says “it will be all on with the Dutchies again this Friday night”, the band playing at a dinner. The next letter reports they were given “bottled E.B very rarely seen around these parts, also whiskey and gin”. He “puts the nips in” by asking his mother to increase his savings of ten shillings a week to one pound. White ants and borers have eaten his cupboard, even his soap which he’d left on a pole three foot high. Picture night will next feature “Mutiny on the Bounty”, and James Cagney in “Johnny Come Lately”. The Javanese also asked the band to play for New Year’s Eve. It was a wild show: “It was like ‘Harlem’ with Javenese West Indians Dutch and a few Aussie airmen.” The crowd had already been drinking and gave them a roaring welcome. Stewards served beer, whiskey, gin and cocktails, and “a beautiful supper of rice salad fried goat’s meat on sticks cow and roast chicken.” “Just as we were leaving the crowd were well oiled up and the fights started so we got.”
General Blamey had inspected them a few weeks before – “the same old thing: ‘you are superior to the jap’ if he knew how bored most of us were that day he wouldn’t bother to come. I’m sure he wouldn’t be missed.” In Europe, following the Allies entering Berlin in April, the war is over on the 8th of May, 1945. In New Britain Paddy is still on patrol “looking for the little Japon man”, War in the Pacific continuing. With no contact with the enemy, he remarks: “I’m only hoping all my patrols are as successful as this one.” He has heard of two medals that are due to his regiment, and he is proud of that. He writes that he is acting as a stretcher bearer now. Describing the surf there –he says “The waves are twice the size of our house and they give you a bit of curry.” With sandflies a big problem he complains that tropical islands are not like what they see on the pictures. On the 30th of June Paddy writes he has been “out chasing Jappys” for several days. “Gee cripes these hills are big…” He complains of having had to help a native soldier who was “as crook as a dog”. But most nuisance seems to come from sandflies, mosquitos, and leeches – “it’s the common leech from Tomato Lake” – and soldiers have had them on their tonsils and in their eye, they are so prolific. On the 14th of May Paddy says: “I am still on the topside”. He had sent his mother a telegram on Mothers’ Day, and one for his niece Betty’s wedding to Frank, a Yankie serviceman. He had performed with his drums to march the guard on, which went well, in spite of his nerves – he even thinks he might be playing with Niddy Roberts and his orchestra at The Embassy when he gets home. He signs off: “I’ll have to close now as I’m off to church.”
PH00458-09 Paddy Lyons and members of the 11th Battalion in WWII pose on and near three aeroplanes, possibly the Northern Territory or New Guinea, circa 1943-1946. Donated by Norma Lyons. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
The Camp Comforts Fund send them each a parcel every month – toothpaste, P.K’s (chewing gum), apples, boot polish, tobacco and papers, and so on, all much appreciated. On the 28th of May Paddy writes that he had followed a snake track from the bush to the Officers’ Mess where an officer shot it – it was ten foot long. (A few months later he tells of Tubby cooking a snake which the mates share to eat.) He thanks his Mum for the fountain pen she sent. Digger is to run in a mile race, which they will be watching and “have a little wager on him to win.” On the 14th of June Paddy complains of no sign of Leave, hoping “these yellow madmen will give in, then we would be able to unstrangle ourselves from the red tape.” Their new name for Tubby is “the Bully of New Britain”, because Tubby had been on patrol and “came across a couple of dead-uns.” He is said to have booted the leg off a body whilst cursing them. “I hate to see what he’d do to a live one”, quips Paddy. Tubby says they will “have some wonderful yarns to tell over the Balmoral bar.” When he writes on the 14th of August he is “waiting for these little nips to give in.” Whereas he had again not been drinking for a few weeks, he now enjoys a bottle of beer a night from his rations. On the 12th they had “Sports Day at Golden Beach. Inter Unit Sports Carnival”, of which he encloses the programme. The main event was a life-saving belt race of a team of five, with one beltman to swim seventy-five yards. Paddy was the fastest swimmer, but he swam to the wrong buoy, so lost to the winner by two seconds. He won the half-mile swim – the prize was a leather writing case. Digger came third to a pearl diver from Thursday Island in the under-water swim. Pictures were “Kings Row” and “Ice Capades”. Another boxing competition is being held. He had got the cake his Mum sent. “The boys” are making cats’ eyes necklaces from shells, but Paddy has not got the patience.
Then Japan surrenders on August the 14th, 1945 – the war is over! Paddy begins his letter of the 7th of September: “Well at last the game is sewn up for us here. Do you think the little yellow bellies had to let their pride go and pull their heads in when we met up with them.” “Yesterday the heads signed the agreement out of Rabaul … I believe there are about a hundred thousand of them.” The job now was to be guarding these prisoners of war until they were shipped back to Japan. Because of heavy celebrations the beer has run out! Paddy writes: “Tubby, Digger, Mac and myself have been getting together and running the rabbit and it ran out at an average of four bottles a night so I think you could say we drowned all our sorrows.” [Perhaps Lefty was celebrating with a service woman.]
They had a series of very strong earth tremors, with coconuts falling on their tents and limbs breaking from trees. And a deluge of rain had washed big logs out to sea - “A man has to be very careful he doesn’t surf into them.” Rifle drill and “smartening up exercises” continue. Paddy is positive when he writes home on the 21st of August that when they “get these buggers off the island the sooner the better we get it finished with”. He has had a hamper of goodies from a high school boy in South Australia. There is to be another surf carnival, and he sends home his last years clothing coupon. He hopes “to be drinking at the Balmoral at about Xmas.”
Rabual
On the 17th of September 1945 the 11th Battalion sailed overnight on the “Manoora” to Rabaul. This town and port had been central to the Japanese as a supply base for their troupes on New Guinea and islands in the West Pacific. Paddy writes a long letter home on the 19th about his new location near the city: “… much to my surprise japs are touring up and down in slashing big motor cars.” He describes the town as a ruin “all overgrown with undergrowth” from the bombing raids of previous years. There are miles of tunnels in the hills – with stores of ammunition and supplies, and used as safe living spaces for Japanese soldiers. “They gave the Aussies seventy trucks and twenty cars and still have plenty themselves.”
There are active volcanoes close by, Paddy writes. The largest, called “the Mother”, is two thousand feet high. On the rich soil of mountainsides and every available place are “lush Jap gardens” growing paw-paws, sweet potatoes and tomatoes. Soldiers trade, until that is taken over by the army for the Allied kitchens. “All this you hear of them being half starved here is all hoey.” Paddy complains of the heat and the tropical rain. He says that 200 white people and nine thousand Indians had been prisoners held by the Japanese. The Japanese now salute the Aussies - “only we don’t salute back not even to the generals.” “We have 3000 Jap volunteers working for the brigade.” Even so, Tubby and Paddy had to dig a latrine – “Sometimes I wonder if we really did win the war.”
Sunk in the harbour are hundreds of boats and barges, and battered seaplanes are on the beach. Japanese defence of Rabaul meant plenty of tanks, and the coast was fortified with big guns. “Just as well we didn’t have a crack at the place, as I think it would have been curtains for us.” Flying boats were now busy taking sick Indian prisoners to the main Allied hospital at Jacquinot Bay. There were 5000 Indian prisoners-of-war held by the Japanese at Rabaul. These had been transported from Singapore as forced labour, captured from Indian Army units in the British army when Singapore fell. They had suffered starvation, illness, and brutality as P.O.Ws. But thin and ragged as they were they remained proud Indian soldiers.
Ninety thousand men of the Japanese force were camped two miles away from Paddy’s camp. Japanese barges continued to take supplies to their troupes along the coast. Paddy reflects disappointedly that the caves full of supplies and other booty are guarded now by “our blokes … so there are no spoils of victory.” In a few months’ time Tubby and Paddy are on a Sunday excursion and discover a couple of midget submarines on a beach, and various gun emplacements, including a pom-pom gun. In September he sees a return home before too long – “I’ll be home when Tom Blamey says I can go.”
Before he left the island Paddy had a ride around Rabaul in a jeep. He saw a large Japanese cemetery: “A nigger told us one of the bombs landed on a hospital and knocked it flying and killed six hundred.” They went up to an active volcano, Vulcan, and felt the hot steam coming from cracks on its side. They passed an airstrip with many downed planes still in their bays. On a hill he saw two six-inch naval guns and one Japanese gun. And at a Chinese village he saw some very pretty girls. In the harbour was a 14000 ton ship and an aircraft waiting to take the Indian former P.O.Ws home via Brisbane.
Waiting To Come Home
By early October they have been told that they “haven’t Buckley’s chance of getting home before six months”. There is a points system – the highest being 200. Paddy has 186. “Old Tom is sure getting his money’s worth out of us.” On October the 4th Paddy tells his Mum that he and Tubby are now Special Constables in the local police.: “…we expect to make our first arrest on Saturday at the S.P. shop.” Digger has answered a call for “Jap Bashers”. He is on guard “with owen gun and a four-foot piece of jarrah for a waddie.” As Paddy and the others marched past him Digger yelled “Hirohito!” to the Japanese to make them stand to attention. With little response he then yells “Ha you!”, which Paddy says is Irish. On a Sunday walk to a native village over the hills they found the natives wanting to play cards, “starting at three shillings a hand and upping it to a quid”. They found a beach that had been fortified by the Japanese with rows of covered bombs, some up to 4000 pounds, now disconnected.
“Still in Rabaul” writes Paddy on the 15th of October 1945 – “this forgotten world of Rabaul.” The points system determines those who return home early. Those men with over 200 points now go home two at a time each day in a flying boat. On the 15th of November Paddy says: “The harbour is always filled with boats but they take Indians home or go for troupes on Bougainville.” He hopes to be “on the second big boat that leaves here full.” As well as the continuing nuisance of “mossies, sandflies and mud” there is a plague of rats, even under their beds. “Another thing that has invaded us here is the yanks. Every time you look up you see one of them peeping in - “Have you got any swords, revolvers or guns and we’ll give you some cigarettes and canned beer.”
Education classes have been organized for the men, but Paddy has “played the wag” – don’t tell young Dennis, his nephew, he says. Digger has managed to get a case of booze “by fair or foul … and I got full.” Tubby and Digger are now on the police force. By the 10th of December Paddy complains from “this godforsaken joint” that “it won’t be long before I’m ding bats”. He has given up hope of getting home before Christmas. “Lefty got down to Perth on a Liberator and has been discharged already.” Men with 188 points have left on a ship which came in on the 18th of December. There is not much work. They parade for inspection each morning and are put on guard occasionally. Paddy finds this “a waste of a lot of good time … I could find a lot of more important things to do down south.
”Out of 250 war criminals they have caged up 70 which are guarded by native soldiers with two bren guns on each corner.” There was rough justice too. One of the Chinese from the Chinese compound stopped passing trucks of Japanese “and looks for certain nips. He found two that had been responsible for 30 of his mates’ death so in he goes with a piece of wood and lathers them.” Australians sent to stop him urged him on. The Japanese prisoners of war can be in bad trouble. “One of the nips working at the jetty filled his water bottle with sugar and got ten years behind bars, another two attacked one of our fellas with a crow bar so the guard shot them both.” “One jap drove a pick into a land mine and blew eight of his mates up and injured two of our fellas.” Paddy himself was not impressed when he had four Japanese P.O.Ws to supervise working. And “The Chinese got stuck into the Japs and killed four. One of the Chinese died another got fined three shillings for fighting.”
But Paddy is “in the pink”. The latest picture show was “Since You Went”. He got the cake, and he encloses some invasion money and “tally brand” reading “Royal Imperialist Japanese Navy”. In a couple of days they will get a ration of a bottle of beer each day. “The natives are also guarding the beer so that the Aussies can’t run amok.” And there are five rows of barb wire surrounding it. This is because seventy cases, plus spirits, previously “went off at the beach head” while being unloaded. Out on a Sunday walk Tubby and Paddy traded with a native for eggs but two of them had chickens in them. They did well with paw-paws and bananas. And the Rabaul Racing Club will be starting its season. There are sixty horses, with the 11th Battalion allotted two to train and jockey. “The last week we have been filling in demobilization forms and having dental and medical examinations.”
Tom Blamey came on a Sunday to tell them most of them would be waiting a long time yet – “the old tale of shipping is short, this was met with one big gro…oan from the whole division on parade, then he follows up with they needed the ships to take food to Japan and Germany that knocked the mob back altogether.” It was “the biggest shambels I’ve been on yet.” The men on parade talked, leant on their rifles, looked around at the nurses – there were thirty of them. They had got up to breakfast at one in the morning on a Sunday, and were marched four miles to the parade held at 7.30, being the coolest time of day. All the battalions had done the same, and then were marched home again.
The heat is unbearable, with the need to wash, and to change clothes due to the heavy perspiration. In late November, because “some blokes burnt their Officers’ Mess down and threw all the officer’s seats out of the picture show” the whole battalion got punished by a fifteen-mile route march a week, and guard duties. After Christmas they are still on “the island of forgotten men.” It was a disappointing Christmas, with even the turkey and beer “not up to the standard of last year … I guess we have all had a bellyful.” Even a sports meeting was “scrubbed” due to loss of interest. Paddy had made a yacht in nine days, “the size and sail size that of a Vi.” “On Xmas day the crowd over the other side of the island were so fed up they burnt down the Officers’ Mess, that’s the second time that it has occurred.”
“At last they have broken our unit the famous 11th up, and are dividing what are left amongst the other units which are under strength.” This meant Tubby and Digger would go to another battalion. The Japanese are now in a big compound. Two of the war criminals have been sentenced to hang. Boxing championships were held, with six silver cups presented. The weather has been “wicked” with storms at night, and heat. “Last night I sat in the rain for three hours to see Abbott and Costello in ‘Hit the Ice’, and ‘Yankee Doodle Dandee’.” The ship the “Ormiston” has been and gone, next due is the “Salamora”, then the “Duntroon” in on the 6th of January, to leave on the 9th. Paddy is hoping to be on that.
Paddy was on that ship home, the “Duntroon”, which left Rabaul on the 8th of January and arrived in Brisbane on the 13th. On the 28th of January he was demobilized in Western Australia, and discharged on the 1st of February. He was by then 28 years old and had served 1510 days of active service – 976 in Australia and 414 in New Britain. His Full Time War Service was in the C.M.F. 15-12-1941 – 8-1-1945, and the A.I.F. 29-1-1945 – 1-2-1946. The 11th Battalion was disbanded on the 11th April 1946.
Battle honours due to Paddy were the “S.W. Pacific 1944-45” and “Liberation of Aust-NG.” Five medals due to him were the Pacific Star, Defence Medal, War Medal, Australian Service Medal, and 1939-1945 Star. It is not on his record that these were ever sent to him. Whereas he had, many months before, been tickled when he was told about medals due to him, imagining himself wearing them proudly at the Balmoral or the Carlyle, his experience of abandonment at the end of the war by the government, in the harsh conditions of the tropics so far from home and his loved ones, may have meant he never wanted to apply for them.”
- END PART TWO -
So concludes the story…. We hope you enjoy this celebration of Local History, and the work of those who have taken the time, talent and energy to submit entries into the 2025 Local History Awards and thus helped us record our stories for the benefit of all those to come. We can tell the stories, because you care and have shared with us in the first place.
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PH00458-12 Paddy Lyons and drum with members of the 11th Battalion Band posed in front of an Australian bomber aircraft, New Guinea, 1943.
Donated by Norma Lyons. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
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