So I spent all of last night deep in a rabbit hole tracing a great uncle who joined the 6th Australian Division in 1939. He was a sapper who spent most of the war in the 2/2 Field Company Royal Australia Engineers - the guys who build up and blow up bridges, clear mines and build everything from latrines to POW cages. I found his war records under VX13952 and his unit records which go for 100's of pages.
He went to Palestine, Egypt, Libya (I think - the division was there to take Bardia/Tobruk vs the Italians), Greece (vs the Germans), Crete (German Paratroops), back again to the Middle East, Ceylon (I think, the unit was there and he got a medal for it), back to Australia in the NT and SA (where he trained as a radio operator) then to Wewak (whose airfield they built) to fight the Japanese. Came back via Brisbane and demobbed in 1945.
In Greece they were blowing up bridges to slow down the Germans AFTER the rear guard had passed them. In the Pacific they were using Flame Throwers and throwing charges into Japanese bunkers (and getting bombed by the USAAF) at the front of the advance.
I've found one mention of him in the unit records driving a truck onto a boat to go to Greece.
The one war story I have is that he told my mother he got off a boat onto Crete and met a lot of very friendly(!) Germans who treated him very well(!!). He died in 1988 and I never met him.
He was awarded a medal for being "Mentioned in dispatches", though I couldn't read in his record for what. He also got dinged many times and got busted for being AWL and other issues about a dozen times.
Ch 1 Order of Battle - Army S 1 The 6th Australian Division
2/2nd Field Company
Embarked — 14 Apr 1940 — Melbourne
Disembarked — 18 May 1940 — Kantara
30 Jun 1940 — Palestine
14 Sep 1940 — Egypt
6 Dec 1940 — Libya
29 Mar 1941 — Maryut
10 Apr 1941 — Greece
27 Apr 1941 — Palestine
25 Sep 1941 — Syria
30 Jan 1942 — Palestine
Embarked — 19 Feb 1942 — Suez
Disembarked — 28 Mar 1942 — Australia
28 May 1942 — NT
15 Apr 1943 — Adelaide
Embarked — 19 Nov 1944
Disembarked — 26 Nov 1944 — New Guinea
Now I want to build a Bolt Action army based on the 6th Division in Greece and Crete and attach a squad of Engineers armed with shovels.
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