Thread: Aitape - Wewak Campaign New Guinea - Pacific

Originally Posted by Cobber

Spidge you dad was fortunate not to have gone to Greece as the 2/8th got a hammering from the SS Leibstandarte Brigade and other German Panzer and inft troops.

I may have said in a previous post that mum said he was lucky that he got hit at Tobruk as he probably would not have survived Greece.

Yes I now remember you posting that in the thread about the 42nd street battle in Crete. Was your dad able to rejoin unit later in war or was his wound too serious? What kind of wound did your dad sustain?
2/8th saw a lot of action on different fronts during the war.

Fred Hospital..jpgFred Guard..jpgFred At Camp..jpg

Originally Posted by Cobber

Yes I now remember you posting that in the thread about the 42nd street battle in Crete. Was your dad able to rejoin unit later in war or was his wound too serious? What kind of wound did your dad sustain?
2/8th saw a lot of action on different fronts during the war.

Hi Cobber,

I have copied this out of a word document I put together about dad.

WW2 Battle Scars-Family-Physical -Mental
What Battle Scars did members of your family suffer during WW2. These scars were not always physical. My father had terrible physical injuries but outwardly learned to live with them and return to a "normal" life. These injuries undoubtedly contributed to his death at 69.

After the Australian 6th Division took Bardia, the 6th went onto Tobruk where my father was critically injured on 21st January 1941. His Brigade (19th - "C" Company) apparently got the short straw and he survived the day he thought as most of the shooting had ceased............

Wham bang shot in the arm and twice in the left thigh, he went to ground as you would and boom he was hit by mortar shrapnel. He was cut to pieces and left by the first medic team and not until the second medical team who came later did they realise that he was still alive. Even his Battalion history listed him as KIA. From last paragraph bottom left sets out the sequence of events.

2-8th C company 2&#49.jpg

The eventually got him to hospital at El Kantara where he spent four months before being sent back to Australia.

His injuries:

A hole in his skull the size of a tennis ball:

Severe concussion

A metal plate plate put in his skull

His nose torn apart from top left to bottom right (you could only see the scar when it was cold as it used to turn blue)

Three fractures of the jaw

A large gash in the neck

Three fingers torn apart - Wire used to tie them back together

Shrapnel in his arms and from neck to waist.

Extensive plastic surgery.

Here he is in El Kantara Hospital in Egypt a few months later after plastic surgery.Fred Hospital..jpg
Fred Hospital..jpg
Fred At Camp..jpg
Fred Guard..jpg

He was lucky that the foremost Australian Plastic Surgeon was there to put him back together:

Sir Benjamin Rank was a man that could be mentioned in the same breath as Archibald McIndoe.(of Guinea Pigs fame)

Sir Benjamin Keith Rank
Kt CMG KStJ Mb MS LRCP FRCS FRACS
14 January 1911 - 26 January 2002

This is the surgeon that reconstructed my fathers head, face and hands after he was shot 3 times and the victim of a mortar explosion on the initial battle to secure Tobruk from the Italians on January 21st 1941.

His nurse used to grow the skin that was required for these delicate and painstaking operations.

www.mh.org.au/secure/downloadfile.asp?fileid=1012420

Sir Benjamin Rank was considered the father of plastic surgery in Australia. He left a legacy of sheer artistry in plastic surgery, a field he pioneered in peacetime Australia, building on the accomplishments of his wartime surgery.
His long-time colleague, Don Marshall described him as a "wonderful surgeon, a very good organiser and a man who made plastic surgery an instrument of foreign policy". He really was Australia's first specialist plastic surgeon.
Sir Benjamin grew up in Heidelberg, where his family owned and ran a grain store and mill. He was educated at Scotch College and The University of Melbourne, where he took part enthusiastically in college life and graduated MBBS in 1934 with honours and prizes. He met his wife Barbara on his first trip outside Victoria when he visited an aunt in Hobart. They were married for 62 years and had four children.

Upon graduation from The University of Melbourne, Sir Benjamin began a two year residency at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and from there went to London in the late 1930s and became fascinated with the new speciality of plastic surgery. At this time there were only four surgeons practising in London and Sir Benjamin with his typical persistence became the group's first resident surgical officer.
As a young surgeon in uniform during World War 2, Sir Benjamin's life was transformed. He was only 30 when he found himself heading a new Unit established to reconstruct the limbs, faces and bodies of wounded sailors, soldiers and airmen. He spent time overseas and then returned to Australia in 1942 to set up the plastic and facio-maxillary unit at Heidelberg Military Hospital.
One of his most notable cases at Heidelberg, was Flight Lieutenant John Gorton, whose shattered face, Sir Benjamin reconstructed after Gorton was injured ditching his aircraft in the sea near Singapore. John Gorton went on to become Prime Minister of Australia. By the end of the War the Unit was a world class plastic surgery team.
In 1946, Sir Benjamin became the first honorary plastic surgeon at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and started an association that spanned an extraordinary fifty two years. He brought with him a support team including surgical, prosthetic and secretarial members. This team became the leading unit in the land and Sir Benjamin lead it for twenty years. At The Royal Melbourne he was also appointed Chairman of the Board of Post Graduate Education and medical advisor to the Board of Management on policy and development. He served the Board as a member and as vice president and was foundation Chairman of the Archives Committee.

Fred At Camp..jpgFred Guard..jpgFred Hospital..jpg

Hi Spidge,
Thank you for telling us of your father's injuries. He must have suffered badly before the medics came to his aid. I could not open the attachments in your post

Thanks for posting the information about your Dad Spidge.
He was quite 'unlucky' to have copped the bullets and a mortar round so late in the battle of Tobruk, from memory the Victorian Btns in particular had a hard day's fighting to take Tobruk. Your Dad was also quite lucky that the preeminent Plastic surgeon was available.