THE day Ripe magazine hit the streets in the Farm Weekly last month with a story about World War II Rats of Tobruk and the battlefield-created Darnley Dixaline banjo, John Marchant's phone started ringing.
It was old Central Wheatbelt farmer mates calling up the retired Yelbeni wheat and sheep farmer - he and wife Di now live in Edgewater, Perth - to tell him a picture of his father was in Ripe.
"There must have been eight or 10 calls and (a week later) when I went to a funeral (of a farming acquaintance) more people tapped me on the shoulder to tell me there was a picture of my father in Ripe", Mr Marchant, 75, said.
His father was Private William Alfred Marchant, known as Bill, a signalman in the 2/28th Infantry Battalion signals platoon, one of the revered Rats of Tobruk and best mate of Dixaline creator Pte Walter John 'Jack' Darnley, also of the 2/28th signals platoon.
Bill Marchant was one of 29 members of the platoon to sign the front of his mate's Dixaline during the 241-day siege of Tobruk in 1941, when mainly Australian infantry held out against the superior-in-numbers and better armed Afrika Korps to prevent the small but strategic Libyan port falling into enemy hands.
Made from an army mess tin, a drum skin and pieces of wood scrounged from the Tobruk battlefield, with strings sent from Australia, the Dixaline survived not only the Tobruk siege, but the New Guinea and Borneo campaigns of the later Pacific theatre the 2/28th fought in.
Now very fragile, it is on display in the Geraldton City RSL's Birdwood House Military Museum, having been donated with other items by Pte Darnley's family.
His son John, 80, from Geraldton had recalled for Ripe last month how his father's mates and co-conspirators in a number of high-jinks escapades while in Libya, Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon during the 1940-43 Western Desert Campaign, were Bill Marchant and Pte Ken Lucas.
It is more than likely Bill Marchant had a hand in helping Pte Darnley pinch a crate of beer from the officers' mess then shared it around the signals platoon.
Also highly likely is his joining his best mate in posing as conductors on a Cairo tram and collecting 'fares' from passengers to pay for drinks later, while on leave in Egypt.
There is certainly photographic evidence both Bill Marchant and Pte Lucas joined Pte Darnley on 'French leave' - the troops' nickname for unauthorised leave, technically being absent without leave and a serious offence - in Beirut, Lebanon, in February, 1942.
According to John Darnley, his father told a story of the three of them "borrowing" an unattended light aircraft to fly to Beirut, but they left it behind and "made other arrangements" to return to their platoon after the unauthorised sojourn.
Mr Darnley said his father had learned to fly and obtained his pilot's licence while a member of an aero club at Wiluna, where he worked as an electrician at a gold mine before enlisting in July 1940.
He said his father had hoped to join the air force, but was rejected because he lacked requisite formal mathematics qualifications, so enlisted instead in the infantry.
It was that picture of the three of them taken in Beirut, donated to the Birdwood Military Museum along with the Dixaline by the Darnley family and published in last month's Ripe, that set Mr Marchant's phone ringing.
People recognised Bill Marchant from his post-war years as a farmer on Wimmeravale at Yelbeni, where his wife Mary - better known as Molly - was the third generation of her family on the property.
Or they recognised him from 1975 on, when he and Molly moved into Trayning and ran the hotel there after ill health forced him to leave the running of the farm to his son.
Bill Marchant died three years after leaving Wimmeravale, he was 64.
John Marchant, who was born and bred on Wimmeravale and finally sold the property in February after having a sharecropper farm it for the past 15 years, knew nothing of his father's exploits with Jack Darnley and little about his war service.
"He never said anything about those (exploits), he never ever spoke about the war," Mr Marchant said when Ripe visited him in response to his approach to the Birdwood Military Museum after reading the Dixaline story in last month's Ripe.
"I know he got shot in New Guinea - he had a bad scar on the back of his left knee, but if anyone asked him about it, all he would say was 'the Japs were crook shots'.
"He got malaria in New Guinea as well.
"He never went to Anzac services, I conned him to get him to go to one - I was a national serviceman (in the Citizen Military Forces) see.
"At another time I was at a party or something and a bloke asked me if my father was Bill Marchant, 'Maggot' Marchant?
"I thought 'Maggot' Marchant, I didn't like that too much, but he explained that the old man (in battle) had crawled on his guts, like a maggot, under barbed wire to lay a telephone cable."
Bill Marchant was born in Geraldton on March 20, 1914, but moved to 40 Central Avenue, Maylands, Perth and attended school in Maylands.
"He was a very good lacrosse player (at school), would you believe he played State lacrosse," John Marchant said.
After completing his education his father "went bush", Mr Marchant said.
"I know he worked down Kondinin way, he worked on farms at Bendering - he was great mates with a bloke who became a politician from down that way, Bill Young (a pre-WWII Kondinin farmer who was the Country Party MLA for Roe from 1967 to 1974).
"I do know he spent a bit of time on a farm at Bencubbin as well, before he went to war.
"At some time, probably while he was at Bencubbin, he met my mother (she was 'Molly' Gleeson from Yelbeni and also saw service in WWII as a driver with the Royal Australian Air Force)."
Bill Marchant enlisted back at Maylands on July 23, 1940.
Mr Marchant recalls his father on Wimmeravale having a lot of old photographs from his war service, but he loaned them to a crop duster pilot who said he would copy them, but "never saw them again".
His only remaining momentos of his father's war service are his medals - Australian Service Medal 1939-45, 1939-45 Star, Africa Star, Pacific Star, War Medal and Defence Medal - and two old photographs of his father in uniform in the Middle East.
One was of his father with four other soldiers drinking beer at tables in what could be a restaurant or bar, with a man playing a piano accordion behind them.
It was sent from 98 Allenby St, Tel Aviv - there is no date stamp unfortunately - and addressed in Bill Marchant's handwriting to his mother in Maylands.
Across the picture is scrawled in Bill's handwriting: "To Mum with love, Horrie".
"He was always William Alfred, so they might have called him Horrie - it's his handwriting," Mr Marchant said.
A pencilled note on the back, but not in his father's handwriting, says the soldiers were "Western Australian signalers from the 2/28th on leave in Tel Aviv".
The second photo is of three soldiers sitting in cane chairs at a small table with drinks in front of them and other soldiers in the background.
In Bill Marchant's handwriting it was addressed to Miss M Gleeson, 'Wimmeravale', Yelbeni, WA.
On the back, his note to his future wife said: "Taken in Tel Aviv, myself, a yank (an American) and another Australian, 18-11-42".
Mr Marchant is struck by the 28th Battalion's connection with his family history.
On his mother's side, the Drew family pioneered Wimmeravale 112 years ago,
His mother's uncle, Archibald Fraser Drew, was blown to pieces by a direct hit from an artillery shell in France in World War 1.
He was in the first 28th Battalion.
His father was in the second.
"Would you believe it, when I did my national service I was in a CMF unit and that was part of the 28th Battalion - it was just called the 28th in those days," Mr Marchant said.
"I was one of the first (national service conscripts) to get a deferment," he said.
"The old man was crook and not up to running the farm on his own so I didn't have to go for 12 months."
After his case was assessed, Mr Marchant was assigned to a CMF unit created specifically for young men on the land to enable them to complete national service obligations but still be at home for busy seeding and harvest times.
"We had to do 33 days a year and part way through my national service Gough Whitlam got elected and that was the end of it.
"When I was called up the old man was bitterly opposed to it because of what he'd been through in the war," he said.
WHO IS 'STICKY' STEWART?
A NICKNAME on the front of the Darnley Dixaline and a World War II photograph of Western Australia signalmen from the 2/28th Infantry Battalion on leave in Tel Aviv, beg the question: who was 'Sticky' Stewart?
Among the 29 signatures on the front of the Dixaline is a name clearly printed in capital letters "STICKY STEWART", a member of the 2/28th signals platoon along with Privates 'Jack' Darnley and 'Bill' Marchant at Tobruk.
On the back of a photograph sent by Bill Marchant back to his mother in Maylands from Tel Aviv, a pencilled note lists the surnames of the five members of the 2/28th enjoying a beer while on leave, as "White, Marchant, Tredrea, Delf, Stewart".
A "Pink" White signed the front of the Dixaline and was probably Pte Lyall Leslie White (WX 6701) whose military record shows he signed up at Southern Cross on July 20, 1940 and was discharged on September 15, 1945 after being a prisoner of war.
The second man has been identified by his son John as Pte WA (Bill) Marchant (WX4947) who enlisted at Maylands on July 23, 1940, with his date of discharge listed in his service record as October 1, 1944.
He also signed the Dixaline.
No one with the surname Tredrea signed the Dixaline, but there was a John Henry Tredrea (WX8396) from WA in the 2/28th Infantry Battalion.
According to Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) records, he would have been aged about 41 in 1942 when the photograph was possibly taken.
He enlisted at Northam on October 4, 1940 and was discharged with the rank of sergeant on January 12, 1944.
In the picture he is the only one wearing a lanyard on the right shoulder of his dress uniform signifying a rank above private but not an officer.
A "Yackem" Delfs also signed the Dixaline was probably Pte William Grenville Delfs (WX 6702) who signed up at Southern Cross on July 20, 1940 - the same day and location Pte White signed up - and was discharged on October 30, 1945, after being a prisoner of war.
All were members of the 2/28th.
But trying to establish whether Stewart, the fifth soldier in the photograph, is 'Sticky' who signed the Dixaline is more difficult.
Barry Stinson, president of Birdwood Military Museum, Geraldton City RSL president and a national serviceman who went to Malaya, attempted some years ago to identify all of the soldiers named on the Dixaline from their DVA service records.
But he drew a blank on 'Sticky' Stewart.
There appears to have been 12 members of the 2/28th with the surname Stewart and possibly seven of them came from WA.
Of those, research by State Library of Western Australia librarian Peter Edwards, seems to eliminate two as potential 'Sticky' Stewarts.
The State Library holds the Ray Stewart collection - a World War II collection as unique as Birdwood Military Museum's Darnley collection with its Dixaline.
It consists of nine diaries - one written in pencil on a roll of toilet paper - surreptitiously kept by Lieutenant Raymond (Ray) Stanley Stewart (WX7302) of the 2/28th during almost three years in prisoner of war camps in North Africa, Italy and eventually at Offizierslager (Officer Camp) Stalag V-A at Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart in south-eastern Germany.
Lt Stewart had signed on in Northam in 1940 and was captured, along with 489 other members of the 2/28th, in the disastrous assault on Ruin Ridge in the first Battle of El Alamein, Egypt, on July 27, 1942.
His daughter transcribed the diaries which were donated to the State Library in 1999 and digitised transcripts are available free to read online through the State Library catalogue.
But they make no mention of the nickname 'Sticky' and a photo of Lt Stewart as a German prisoner of war (PoW) does not look like the soldier in the Tel Aviv photograph, even allowing for significant weight loss during his time in PoW camps - Ray Stewart's diaries often complain about the poor quality of the food and how little of it there was.
Soldier Stewart in the Tel Aviv photograph also has plain epaulets on his uniform, a lieutenant would have had braided epaulets.
Mr Edwards' research also uncovered a Les Stewart who played a brass instrument in the 2/28th battalion band.
He was Leslie Stewart (WX7525) who was aged 39 when he enlisted in August 1940 at Subiaco and was also a PoW.
But his enlistment photographs show he looked nothing like the soldier in the Tel Aviv photograph and his May, 1945, discharge papers state he had the index finger of his right hand missing.
The Tel Aviv photo clearly shows soldier Stewart has four fingers and a thumb holding his drink.
A third member of the 2/28th, Leslie Norman Stewart (W62368) would have been 47 when he enlisted at Victoria Park in April 1942 and is unlikely to be 'Sticky', given his age and relatively late enlistment.
So the four most likely to be 'Sticky' are:
- George Ian Balfour Stewart (WX5703), who was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1905, but signed up in Harvey, WA, in June 1940 and was a PoW before his discharge in March 1946.
- George Walter Stewart (WX19496) who was born in East Fremantle in 1916, signed up at Beaconsfield in February 1942 and was discharged with the rank of corporal in February, 1946.
- John Dougall Stewart (WX6736) who was born in 1914 in Sunderland, England, but enlisted at Moorine Rock, WA, in July, 1940 and was discharged as a "signalman" in March, 1944 - the only Stewart to have his rank specifically listed by the DVA as signalman.
- Morris Vernon Stewart (WX4039) who was born at York in 1902, enlisted at Victoria Park in May, 1940 and was discharged in September, 1945, with the rank of sergeant.
