A l’occasion des commémorations du Centenaire de la Première Guerre mondiale et de l’échange avec le lycée australien de Lilydale, les élèves de première section européenne anglais vous présentent le parcours de soldats australiens ayant combattu pendant la Première Guerre mondiale. Du simple fantassin à l’officier, du soldat mort au combat au vétéran, ils montrent tous l’investissement des Australiens dans ce conflit qui a marqué la naissance de la nation australienne.
William Evan Allan
Lieutenant Allan when he was young
Lieutenant William Evan Crawford Allan, born in July 24th 1899 in Bega (town in the south-east of New South Wales, Australia) and died in October 15th 2005 in Victoria (Australia) was one of Australia’s last living veterans of the First World War.
He joined the RAN (Royal Australian Navy) in March 1914 at the age of fourteen, he was fifteen when the first world war was declared on 14 August 1914. William served on board HMAS Encounter until the end of the war and became an able seaman in 1915. At the age of eighteen, William survived the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed over fifty of his shipmates on a transport voyage between Cape Town and Sierra Leone.
Allan almost drowned after falling overboard in the North Atlantic, he was narrowly saved by his captain who turned the ship around, and rescued him with the help of a life preserver and a rope ladder.
In 1932 he was promoted to chief petty officer. Allan went on to serve on HMAS Adelaide in the Second World War, sailing in convoy with HM Ships Repulse and Hood.
William Evan Allan on his 100th bithday poses with the service medals he won in both world wars and with pictures of him as a young sailor and petty officer.
He retired from the Navy on 30 October 1947. Allan was awarded the 80th Anniversary Armistice Remembrance Medal by the Government of Australia in 1999, and lived in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon, Victoria until his death at the age of 106.
Juliette Vantournhoudt
John Campbell Ross
John Ross was born on the 11 March 1899 in Newtown , Victoria, Australia . John died on June the 3rd, in 2009 at the age of 110 in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. John’s rank
was Corporal and his unit was Wireless Operator. John served in World War I and World War II. John had a wife named Irene, a daughter and a son.
John Ross was an Australian supercentenarian and veteran of the First World War. He was also the oldest living person in Australia from the death of E. Beatrice Riley on 15 May 2009, until his own death less than one month later.
John Ross was only 18 when he enlisted himself in the Australian Imperial Force in January, 1918 and trained at the wireless training school before he was posted to the 1st Battalion at Broadmeadows camp in Victoria. John Campbell Ross enlisted in World War II.
On 11 November 1998, Ross had been awarded the 80th Anniversary Armistice Medal to mark the end of World War I. He had also been awarded the Centenary Medal for doing his share to the Australian society in the 100 years since federation.
Zahra Zouichene
darchinews 