The Market Gardener Who Saved A Boy - William Herbert Clark 1916 - 1974

William Herbert Clark

On the 10th of October 1927 William Herbert Clark, or Bill as he would be called by family,  arrives at the Western Australian Port of Fremantle on the SS Baradine, he is traveling with his parents John Henry Clark and Margaret Davis Clark (nee Boyd) and his 6 other siblings. Their journey started 40 days earlier,1st September 1927,  in Deptford, London England, where William was born on the 30th of July 1916.

It would seem that Bill's family would immigrate to Australia on an assisted immigration scheme, they were to settle in Northcliffe, in the south west of Western Australia on the 16th of April 1929 as part of group 143. Bill would remain on the family farm until they walked off the land some time  between 1931 and 1936.
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After leaving the farm in Northcliffe, Bill moves to Spearwood, an area south of Fremantle with his mother and father and gets work as a market gardener. He continues this work until he enlists in the Australian army on the 4th of December 1939.

Enlistment papers

He is assigned to AIF 2/11th battalion and completes his initial training at the Northam army camp out side of Perth, he also spends a period of time at an army camp in Greta, New South Wales before returning to Western Australia to embark on the British ship Nevasa at Fremantle on the 20th of April 1940, Bill along with the other members of the 2/11th would sail for the middle east arriving in Kantana, Egypt on 19th of May, He would even spend the 6 moths training further in camps at Kilo 89 and Beit Jinja in Palestine.

December 1940 would see Bill and his colleauges of the 2/11th finish their training and move to Egypt where they would enter the war and face their first enemy contact. Whilst in Egypt on the 28th of March 1941 at 2200 (10pm), Bill would take a couple of days leave with out permission and be fined 1 pound and lose 2 days pay, one can think that he must have been enjoying the night life of Egypt before heading back the front lines.

The 2/11th spent the first 4 months of 1941 in action around Tobruk and Benghazi and other parts of the northern African deserts of Libya, which would see the serenader of the Italian troops in the area. After this on the 10th of April,  the 2/11th along with  Bill  would once again be on a ship,  this time a Dutch ship called the Pennland, bound for Greece and a new front. On the 12th they would arrive in Greece and  disembark just outside Athens and move to a camp at Daphne.

POW identity photo

Over the next few days the German troops started an advance in a southerly direction through Greece  and the Australian's would start a withdrawal to Brallos Pass. Bill would be in action as this happened and was wounded in the back by shrapnel on the 24th of April. The following  day Bill was evacuated to an Australian army hospital in Ekali, where he would be treated for his wounds, unfortunately for him he must have been among the wounded that where unable to be moved in the evacuation of the hospital prior to its capture by the Germans on the 27th of April and he became a prisoner of war.

It would not be until 5th of November that Bill's family would have confirmation that he was captured, alive and being held at the German POW camp stalag VIIIB  in Lamsdorf (Lambinowice in Polish)  in south west Poland. He would spend the next 4 years in stalag VIIIB and the many attached work camps in the surrounding areas, Some of the camps  that Bill and others were forced to provide  labour in are E139 a steel works in Ratibor (1942), E770 a shoe factory in Ottmuth (1944) and E152 a lime quarry and kiln in Waldenstein (1945), also in his German POW records there are an number of other work parties / camps mentioned by a E number which I am yet to identify.

Red Cross letter

On the 24 of September 1943 while with one of these working parties,  Bill will put his own life at risk to save that of another and receive a commendation from the camp leader. Bill's family would learn via a letter from the Red Cross that he had dived in to a river fully clothed to save a 4 year old boy from drowning, once Bill had had recovered the boy from the river he and other POWs would resuscitate the boy saving his life .

In the early months of 1945 the Russian army would start to approach the area of which stalag VIIIB was located and many of the POWs of stalag VIIIB would be forced to march west in the middle of winter by their German captives, this would become known as "Lamsdorf death march", On the 17th of March the Russian army would arrive at the camp and in a way liberate the POWs, although it would take time for the Russians to hand over the POWs to allied forces. It is unclear which group Bill was  a part of, however the POWs that where liberated by the Russians seem to be repatriated via Odessa and Bill would find his way back to Australia via the UK. So it may be suggested that Bill was part of the "Lamsdorf death march".

POW identity papers

On the 19th of May 1945 Bill start his return to Australia in a transit camp as a recovering POW in the UK, where he would remain until boarding a ship on the 3rd of July, which would return him to Sydney on the 8th of August. Bill would remain in the army for further year, however it would seem a lot of this time would be spent in and out of the Hollywood repatriation hospital in Perth Western Australia.
The description by family of this time is that he was  a very quiet and softly spoken man , who was unwell at times and unable to drive, it is unclear what Bill's admissions to hospital were for,  and how his experiences of fighting in a war and being held captive as a POW affected him.

In 1946 Bill would marry Ethel May Ford, although she was Ethel Clark at the time of the marriage as she was married to another man with the surname of Clark who had passed away and is thought to of no relation. Ethel had 2 children to her late husband, Evelyn and Cameron, and would have a child with Bill, Phyllis. He would find work at the Fremantle tramways and they lived in a house attached to the Newmarket garage in Hamilton Hill and later move to Petra street in East Fremantle.

Bill would continue to live in Perth Western Australia with Ethel and their children until dying on the 31st of March 1974,  he would later be cremated at Fremantle cemetery and would be placed in the cemetary's  garden of remembrance.