Vivian Gilbert Garner

Vivian Gilbert Garner was a 24 year old railway clerk when he enlisted in the AIF on 18 September 1914. He was allocated to 14th Battalion, AIF. His regimental number was 54 which suggest that the day he enlisted on the same day that the battalion was raised. Vivian progressed though the ranks, being promoted to Corporal and then Sergeant before being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant on 27 April 1917. His service record is at this link. 

The 14th Battalion took part in the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Vivian was wounded at Gallipoli when he received a bullet wound to his chest on 2 May 1915. He then was sent to England to recover. His service record indicates that he spent a bit of time in the England at the Australian Headquarters and attended some training courses before being commissioned. Vivian re-joining 14th Battalion, 'Jacka's Mob', in France on 20 May 1917. Vivian was killed in action on 8 August 1917. He is memorialised at Menin Gate.   

This photo is of Vivian as a Corporal.

Despite having seven siblings, I did struggle to find a relative past the 1940s. There are several family trees on Ancestry which include the Garner family but they are either owned by people with no knowledge of the current generation of this family or label the current generation as private with no identifiable information for me to search. Vivian also changed his NOK on several occasions as his parents died while he was serving overseas. I was a little stumped for a few hours until I focused on Vivian's brother Leslie. 

Leslie was a teacher in Victoria and he moved around Victoria a bit as he taught at different schools. Leslie was married to Muriel and had two daughters. However, Muriel died in 1928 leaving Leslie to look after his five year old twin daughters. Leslie later married Marjorie Collins and I found their headstone but there I got no closer to the current generation.

Very often the online newspaper archives on Trove provide the answer to many of these research conundrums, it just takes the right search combinations to find the information. By searching for Les Garner I narrowed down the name of his twin daughters and then came across the following interesting articles.

Trove then came to the rescue again which provided the clue that connected me with Vivian's nephew. By searching 'Garner', 'Collins' and 'Bendigo' I found a birth notice from 1944 for a son by the name 'William'. No middle name and no other clue. On a hunch I searched Ancestry for 'William Garner' as a resident of Bendigo and found just one entry. The result was the name William Vivian Nigel Garner. This name combination was just to coincidental not to follow up. 

From there William was easy to find.  

Bill Garner i(24 works by) (a.k.a. William Vivian Nigel Garner)
Born: 1944 Bendigo, Victoria ;

Biography

Bill Garner graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BA. His career as an actor and writer began in the Carlton theatre scene of the 1970s. He has written widely for stage, television and radio. Garner's first play Cake was produced by TheatreWorks in 1986.

Garner collaborated with Peter Corris to produce the mini-series, Pokerface, for television. This resulted in a further collaboration to produce a series of spy novels featuring their protagonist Ray Crawley. Garner's name also appears on the credits of the successful television shows Blue Heelers and Chances. He was also a writer on Gillies Republic.

The next issue I faced was how to contact Bill. As it turns out , Bill and I have a mutual friend on Face Book, so I enlisted Lambis' help to connect me with Bill.

Bill and I have now spoken and he has provided me a wealth of family history information about Vivian. Bill developed a performance piece of Viv's story. It is an emotive piece and with Bill's kind permission I have chosen to share the final paragraphs. 

As my grandmother lay on her own death bed four months after Viv died, one of her daughters whispered in her ear that she was soon to have a wonderful surprise. She would see Viv again.

 

So, what legacy do I carry? The name Viv was a time bomb. At state school every Armistice Day, during the one minute silence, I would dutifully think about Uncle Viv as hard as I could, but nothing would come into my mind except the picture which always hung on dad’s wall and, after a while my mind would wander. But at thirteen, I was the best dressed cadet in the school. I volunteered for extra camps. I could alpha, bravo, charlie and butt, barrel, bipod better than anyone. At seventeen I was a Cadet Under Officer and I knew dad was quietly pleased: I was doing the right thing. But when a war came along for which I was the right age, it was the wrong war, and I opposed it. Vietnam soured any feeling I had for the military and for many years I pretty much forgot about uncle Viv, too. I travelled through Turkey without even thinking of going to Gallipoli. Then, twenty years ago, an article appeared in the local paper about a new edition of Ted Rule’s book Jacka’s Mob. They wanted photos. Now more tuned to family history, I contacted the editor, Carl Johnson, and took him a picture of Viv. Talking about Viv in Carl’s little militaria shop in Bentleigh, I felt tears welling up. Where were these coming from?

August, 1917.

The thing was still unfinished.

There was a duty I had to discharge. I had to honour that young man. I had to do this for his sake, and my father’s sake and for my own sake. I had to see Viv myself.

Bill has also provided me with a photo of Viv which was in his family home and Bill prefers tot he photo of Viv in uniform.

Below is the Memorial Plaque that Viv's family received. It was signed for by his brother Albert.

One last touching piece of information I stumbled across is Viv is also memorialised on his mother headstone.

Thank you to Leanne for sending me this Memorial Plaque. To Lambis for your help. And to William 'Bill' Vivian Nigel Garner who has been so generous with information about his uncle Viv.

The returned medal tally is now 2678.

WM Bowels

The British War Medal awarded to 2624 Sapper William Morrison Bowels seemed unremarkable when it was first sent to me by Peter M. That was until I saw the unit which is impressed after his name. It says RLY UNIT. I think this is the first Railway Unit medal that I've dealt with.

When he enlisted in 1917, William was allocated to the 2nd Light Railway Operating Company. This is most likely because he was a fitter by trade. The Virtual War Memorial web site provides the following description of the unit:

Formed in Australia in January 1917 as the 5th Section, Australian Railway Troops and arrived in England on 21 July 1917. July 1917 it was redesignated to 16th Light Railway Operating Company and arrived France on 4 October 1917 where on 28 February1918 it was renumbered as 2nd Light Railway Operating Company.

The raising of these units coincided with the implementation of a battlefield rail strategy across British and Commonwealth Areas of Operations.  The widespread use of battlefield rail, particularly the narrow gauge rail network transformed supply, personnel movement and casualty evacuation.

The Light Railway Companies were operated by the Engineers and came into existence when it became clear that the maintenance of roads was becoming a severe problem, in terms of the manpower needed and enormous quantities of road stone clogging up the supply routes. In February 1916 the first new light railways were sanctioned.

I very quickly found William on an Ancestry tree and a message to the owner and confirmed a direct connection to William.

Thanks to Lee-Anne for the connection and to Peter who sent me the medal. The returned medal tally is now 2677.

Ian Mills

The photo which is below of the medals in their boxes may be familiar to several readers. The Defence Force Service Medal and the National Medal awarded to A111651 Ian Leslie Mills first appeared in a Face Book post by Wendy Newman. Wendy received several links to my page made by kind friends and readers. 

Ian proved rather difficult to track down and after Wendy and I swapped emails she put her trust in me and recently the medals arrived in my PO Box. I had done a bit of research into Ian but kept going around in circles. All reference to Ian that I found had his year of death as 2001. As is turned out he died in 2006 and is buried in Bundaberg. 

Having Ian's grandmother's name unlocked a few clues. Ian's grandfather was Leslie Gordon Mills who is also buried in Bundaberg.

However, the names of Ian's parents, particularly his father's, eluded me for some time. These turned out to be Noel George Mills and Isabel Haggart. Noel served in the RAAF during WWII. 

The electoral rolls, which are available on Ancestry, only go up to 1980. While these provided the addresses that Ian, and his wife Rose, lived at doing his career in the RAAF, the key piece of information I was looking for remained elusive. Wendy knew that Ian had a son and they were living in Boonah, QLD in the 1990s/2000s. Finding these details is what caused me the most trouble. Putting all the pieces together led me to an Ancestry family tree owned by Rob.

Rob is Ian's cousin and provide me some very valuable information. Firstly, Noel died only last year at the age of 99. Secondly, that Ian has two sons, I've now been in touch with one of Ian's sons and I'll return these medal in the near future.

The returned medal tally is now 2676.

  

Vietnam War pair

This was a straightforward bit of research. I collected a package from our PO Box on Wednesday afternoon, on Thursday I found the details of the soldier and a connection to his family and yesterday I spoke to the soldier's brother on the phone. While this seems unremarkable, all those individual pieces combine to make up a much more interesting story.

These Vietnam War medals were awarded to 39973 Dennis Francis Richardson. Dennis was a Corporal in 2 RAR and completed a tour of Vietnam in 1970/71. After returning from Vietnam, Dennis discharged and settled in his home town of Melbourne, Dennis tragically died in 1981. I was a bit stumped about where to search once I had found this information but a simple Google search provided the answer.

On the 2 RAR Historical Collection I found this story. In June 2021, Dennis' brother, Jon, had visited the 2 RAR Historical Collection and the visit had been posted online. The collection is run by Jason, better known as 'Harry'. I sent Harry a message and in very short order Harry sent Jon an email. The end result is that Jon and I spoke last night and I'll be sending his Dennis' medals in the near future. 

Dennis medals were sent to me by Bob Sandow of the Mt Gambier. How the medal they ended up in Mt Gambier will remain a mystery. Thanks to Harry for all the assistance and all his efforts running the 2 RAR Historical Collection. 

The returned medal tally is now 2674.

This is Dennis taken from a group photo of his company.