JOHN WALKER (1892-1972) 

In 2015, during the centenary commemoration of the Gallipoli landings on 25 April 1915, Tim Thomson and Tony Zair of the Bunbury RSL undertook an enormous task in conducting two projects.  One called “Diggers in the Park”,  comprising daily services honouring local soldiers, some of whom never returned to Bunbury and another called “Streets of Diggers”, where soldiers’ photographs, official war documents and biographies were displayed in Bunbury shop windows and shopping centres, for all to see.  

One of those soldiers was John Walker, who was one of the first to land at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915.  John survived the onslaught, but many did not. 

His grandson, Ross Spencer, has kindly allowed the Museum of Perth to publish John’s biography.

“John Walker was born on 7/5/1892 at Airdrie, Scotland and left the UK from Liverpool port for Fremantle, Australia in 1911, with his parents and brother.

He settled with his parents in Wickepin and took employment as a farm manager on a portion of a local cockies station.   He was quartered in a remote shack with food provided and his primary tasks consisted of riding the land through the bush to check on cattle and fencing, he stated that this was the best job he ever had.

At the outbreak of WW1, he like many others enlisted at Wagin in the Australian Government 12 Battalion 1 Aust. Div. 3rd Brigade on the 10/9/1914 at the age of 22, with service serial number 992.

He took the oath and trained at Blackboy Hill, Perth until his departure on the first convoy from Fremantle via Albany aboard the “Medic” to Egypt. He had his dog tag changed to a silver disk which was engraved by an Egyptian engraver at the Pyramids. This he kept with him through the entire war and handed it to me when I was posted to Malaya 75 squadron Butterworth in 1968 to keep as a good luck charm, as it was for him. I kept it ever since as it is a reminder of that Gallipoli campaign and it being an object that went through it all with him.

John embarked from Egypt to Gallipoli aboard HMS “Dewanha” on 2/3/15 to prepare with the 3rd Brigade for the first landing that took place on the 25/04/1915 and was wounded at Dardanelles on 25-26/4/1915 with a gunshot wound to the wrist. He was stretchered out to the beach on what he said was a door and sent to Lemmos for treatment. He was soon sent back amongst it on the 2/6/15 and remained there until the big withdrawal from Gallipoli back to Alexandria aboard HMT “Lake Michigan”.

His next embarkment was to France to begin the trench warfare only to be wounded again, this time in the knee, on the 24/7/16 and sent to England to recover from his wounds. Through this period he married my grandmother, Jessie Gray, in Glasgow on the 22/12/16.  He re-joined his battalion in France on 2/7/17 as a Lewis gunner until the end of the war then returned to Australia aboard the "Taranto" on 8/10/18.

John was allocated soldiers’ settler land at Wickepin where he set up a sheep farm, a long stride from being a farm labourer in Scotland. Unfortunately when my grandmother arrived she found it difficult to live in the total remoteness of the Australian outback. They managed to get that farm up and running and to raise two children at Wickepin but eventually my grandmother had him sell the farm and move to Bunbury so that she could be amongst people again. 

They were to remain in Bunbury for the rest of their lives, where he took up employment on the Bunbury wharves as a lumper and union secretary. He took up an active role in the Lumpers’ Union and became very good mates with John Curtin the WW2 Prime Minister who was often coming to Bunbury and staying at his place, trying to get him interested in their labor politics and to follow him by sitting for the Forrest federal seat.  But politics was not for him and he would have none of it, though he wished John the very best (this information came to me by my Mother).

He said his worst job he had was as head man at the Bunbury wharves, as it was his daily responsibility during the great depression years, to select from the mob who gathered each day at the jetty, those who had work for that day and those that did not. Priority was for those that had families and the others rotated on a daily basis. It broke his heart when he saw in the gathered mob faces of men he served with in the trenches and he could not offer them the work they were so desperate for.  

His war time experience was to have an effect on him as it did with all of those that returned. My mother told me of him drifting into dark moods and disappearing into the bush with heavy drinking bouts.  She was given the task of finding him and coaxing him home. Fortunately my mother and grandmother were able to church him and he never touched a drop of the alcohol ever again.  But others were not as fortunate, because 100 years ago they had no support or treatment offered to them, for the mental nightmares suffered from that conflict and they were left to deal with their dark moods on their own.

At the outbreak of WW2 he again enlisted in the army in the 19th Garrison Battalion on 17/12/1947 but it was to last only 19 days because of his age.

Throughout his later years he was crippled by arthritis from his wounds and the time spent in the French trenches. In the 1960’s he found it near impossible to walk but he was determined to always try. From then every year he tried to get 100% disability cover as on his discharge from his WW1 service he was only deemed to have a 20% disability. It became his biggest disappointment ever, unable to get them to agree on a 100% full disability pension due to his war wounds and arthritis from his service. He was always denied it every year at hearings in Perth.  Even when he was so crippled and could not attend Perth and a GP offered to go to the hearing in his place to back his case, it was denied because they stated only he could attend and it had to be in Perth.  

He passed away in Bunbury in 1972 and was buried at the Bunbury cemetery.

I never heard him talk of any of his war experiences except for one story he found amusing at Gallipoli. He was on duty atop a hill surrounded by sandbags manning a Lewis gun. He was sitting on a chair, shirt off, sunning when in the distance he saw a Turkish model T truck bouncing along a dirt road. In it was a driver and an officer with four Turk soldiers in the back with the rolled up side flaps bouncing around. He thought they were right cheeky so he emptied a Lewis clip in their direction. To this action all immediately flew out the sides leaving the truck to continue on its own way empty and bouncing along the track.

John and wife Jessie had two children Christina and Bill both born on the Wickepin farm. They lived out the rest of their lives in Bunbury. His son Bill served in the Australian army during WW2 and served in the conflict in New Guinea.

I think I am the last direct relative to serve.  I served in the Australian RAAF as an aircraft electrical fitter and spent the last two years of my six years service on a posting to 75 mirage squadron at Butterworth airbase, Malaya.”

Written by Ross Spencer -  John & Jessie’s grandson.

Many thanks Ross for keeping your grandfather’s life story alive.