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Corporal Walter Ernest Brown

Unit: 20th Battalion, 5th Brigade, 2nd Division
Action: 6 July 1918, Villers-Bretonneux, France
Alerted by a sergeant of nearby snipers, Brown, 33, lay in wait for half-an-hour trying to locate the source of the sniper fire. He then went closer to the enemy, eventually spotting the source of the enemy fire behind a mound of dirt about 60m away.

The citation says: "Hearing that it had been decided to rush this post, Corporal Brown on his own initiative, crept out along the shallow trench and made a dash towards the post. An enemy machine-gun opened fire from another trench and forced him to take cover. Later he again dashed forth and reached his objective. With a Mills grenade in his hand he stood at the door of a dugout and called on the occupants to surrender. One of the enemy rushed out, a scuffle ensued, and Corporal Brown knocked him down with his fist. Loud cries of `Kamerad' were then heard, and from the dugout an officer and 11 other ranks appeared. This party Corporal Brown brought back as prisoners to our line, the enemy meanwhile from other positions bringing heavy machine-gun fire to bear on the party.''

Biography: Brown, who was a grocer before the war, proved to be a soldier of great courage who refused to surrender.
Born on 3 July 1885 in Tasmania, he was working in Sydney when he enlisted in July 1915. He was posted to the Light Horse but claimed he had lost his false teeth in order to be sent to Cairo where he joined the infantry.

He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions at Passchendaele, where he rescued wounded men under fire and taking charge of his section when his sergeant was wounded. He was wounded twice in the month after the VC action, and was promoted to sergeant before being discharged from the AIF in February 1920. He worked as a brass-finisher in Sydney and then for the NSW Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission.

He married in 1932 and signed up in 1940 for the next war by claiming his age was 39, instead of 54. His identity was discovered and was promoted to lance-sergeant, but he insisted on being demoted to gunner.

Brown was part of the 8th Division sent to Malaya in 1941. When the Australians were ordered to surrender to the Japanese in Singapore, Brown's last recorded words were ``No surrender for me''. His body was never recovered. He was survived by his wife, son and daughter.