When I received an email from Senior Constable Bell from the Queensland Police Service I was somewhat confused about the medal groups and the names. It took a bit to work out I was looking at the a father and son.
The first is 53546 Allan George Mobbs. The second is 2900538 Allan George Mobbs. Allan Snr enlisted late in 1917 as a 20 year old and was able to enlist again for WWII. The next round of confusion was that Allan Jnr had three service numbers. The number commencing with the digit 2 indicated that Allan Jnr served after WWII. This turned out to be part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan.
I eventually narrowed the family connections and was able to provide Senior Constable Bell the name of a member of the current generation. The medals will soon be returned to the family.
There wasn't much information available about Allan Snr or Jnr. I did know from the electoral rolls that Snr was an orchardist. This information led me to a very interesting news article. I'm sure that most Australian readers will know the name Tilly Devine. Tilly was notorious Sydney criminal and poor out of town orchardist Allan had a run in with her in 1922.
No comments:
Post a Comment