When war broke out in September 1939 Australia did not hesitate to join Britain in her opposition to Hitler and Nazi Germany. The second AIF or Australian Imperial Force, comprised like its predecessor solely of volunteers, was immediately formed and one of those men who were quick to offer their services was Walter Henry Steilberg. He volunteered aged 21 on 7 November 1939 and served as NX1164 in the 2/1st Field Company, Sixth Division. The Sixth Division progressively captured Bardia, Tobruk, Derna and Benghasi in January in the first Libyan campaign before being sent to Greece in March of that year to support the Greeks against the Germans invading from Yugoslavia,  from the start a hopeless task. The inevitable defeat and evacuation, for Australia alone resulted in the loss of 320 lives and the capture of 2,065 men. One of these prisoners was Walter Steilberg. He refused to accept his situation and in the following years escaped seven times from POW camps and work parties. He recalled his motivation and determination later in life when he said ‘I made up my mind I’d beat them in the end and I’d be a free man by the end of the war’ (quoted by Paul Rea in Neave Aussie Soldier Prisoners of War p.280). To punish his continued attempts to seek liberty he was sent to the Nazi concentation camp Terezin in Czechoslovakia. His experience and the brutalities he witnessed there have been documented in newsprint, film and books.

Walter Steilberg 1939 , NAA B2458: 262002

After the war he was amongst those who received the British Empire Medal in 1947 for their attempts to escape from German custody. However his experience in Terezin was unrecognised for forty years because the camp was not accessible to the Red Cross and no records existed of the presence there of prisoners of war. Finally in 1982  the Australian Government granted individual compensation of $10,000 to him and the few others like him.

Writing on the prisoner of war experience in 2011 Peter Monteath (POW: Australian Prisoners of War in Hitler’s Reich p.312) reports an exchange between Steilberg and a German officer early in his captivity: ‘Australian aren’t you? Why aren’t you black?’There was a considerable degree of irony in this question. What is today not well known is that Walter Steilberg was a direct descendant of Yarramundi chief of the Boorooberongal clan of the Darug – traditional owners of the Sydney basin. A meeting between  Yarramundi and  Arthur Phillip, Governor of New South Wales was recorded by Watkin Tench on 13th April 1789.(Sydney’s First Four Years pp.229-30). His Aboriginal family’s record of service was an extensive one. His great uncle Jerome Locke was a member of a colonial unit, the Windsor Volunteer Corps – and with two of his sons served in France with the first AIF. Walter Steilberg’s great uncles Walter and Norman Sims were also members of the AIF – in fact in total 27 members of his Lock and extended Lock family volunteered for the First World War and most went on to serve in the Middle East, France and Belgium. Not only this but William Stubbings, son of his great grandfather’s sister Martha Lock, was a member of the 3rd New South Wales Mounted Rifles and served in the Boer war.

The  Greek campaign was the first time Australian and New Zealand units had fought together as an Anzac force since Gallipoli. In 1915 Walter’s cousins Henry James Locke and Alfred Frederick Bolton were part of the first Anzac force. In 1941 Walter Steilberg became part of its second incarnation.

Walter Steilberg , 2013 wearing his campaign medals. His British Empire Medal is on his right.

Courtesy Karen Steilberg

Walter Steilberg was not the only member of the Lock family to serve in the Second World War. Others included his brother Charles. However few after reading about what he saw and endured could argue that his experiences were not amongst the most challenging.

Philippa Scarlett

29 May 2016

Thank you to Walter’s daughter Karen Steilberg for permission to write about her father and to Walter’s niece Liz Locke, daughter of Charles, who first told me about Walter’s history.

In 1931 and 1932, Reveille the journal of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia, (the predecessor of the Returned and Services League and referred to as the RSL) published lists of Aboriginal men who served in the First World War. These lists named men from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland and noted their service in a range of capacities – mainly infantry battalions and light horse regiments but also transport, signals, ambulance, engineers, artillery, remounts, machine gun companies and service corps. The publication was based on information received from state Aborigines Protection authorities and an appeal to readers. The interest this displayed was not isolated and was part of a wider movement in the 1930s to write about and document war participation and experience. The service of Aboriginal men was then forgotten and never part of Australia’s history of this conflict.

In the 1970s things started to change – if slowly – spearheaded by the discovery of the Reveille lists by military historian Dr Chris Clark and his important 1973 and 1977 articles drawing long overdue attention to Aboriginal service in the First World War. In 2015 Dr Clark revisited these lists in an attempt to explain the increase in number of Aboriginal soldiers which had escalated sharply from the 1980s.  His conclusions were based on careful deductions from the Reveille numbers – 289 (actually smaller because of repetition of names across and within state lists) in relation to the 1911 Commonwealth census which showed 75% of Aboriginal ‘half castes’ lived in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales. The remaining 25 % of men described in this way lived in the states not represented in Reveille’s 1931 and 1932 articles. This led him to estimate, by deduction that the number 289 from the eastern states reasonably could be seen in proportionate terms to represent 75% of the number of Aboriginal enlistments  nationally. This being so the number of men from the remainder of Australia would account for 25% of enlistments or a number of approximately 96. However he noted that the total of these two figures, 385, falls far short of the number of men now said to have served. It was on this basis that he concluded that many of the men named from the 1980s onwards, although undoubtedly of Aboriginal heritage, did not physically display their Aboriginality and that the increase in numbers must be because ‘many of the men now identified as Indigenous either did not know or acknowledge that fact at the time, or chose to conceal it’ and so are the result of what he calls ‘broadening the definition of Indigenousness’.

In the latest edition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Volunteers for the AIF: The Indigenous response to World War One (to date containing the only referenced list of volunteers) I give figures suggesting that 759 men served overseas as opposed to a higher total number of volunteers, including those who were rejected or did not leave Australia. While the majority are from the states covered by the two Reveille lists, it does not automatically follow that the increase in numbers is the result of the recent identification of large numbers of men who were not recognisably of Aboriginal heritage. Although a lesser proportion of men do fall into this category, Dr Clark’s assertion is discounted by photographic evidence, information in service records and by other contemporary primary records and newspaper sources.  What is clear, however, is that the Reveille survey was even less reliable than assumed at the time and sometimes later – and as such is not a firm basis on which to project numbers.

There is considerable evidence to show that the lists from Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales are far from complete. There are no documents showing the way in which the Victorian and Queensland lists were compiled, but the records of the New South Wales survey have survived. These show that the names were sought by police stations across the state with the help of mission managers. It is likely that a similar approach was adopted in the other two states. The Queensland list bears this out. It not only contains men who were born and enlisted in New South Wales and the Northern Territory but also men for whom no AIF records can be located – suggesting that the names were the result of word of mouth searches. Moreover the total number of Queensland men listed in the 1931 Reveille, 154, (of whom only  109 actually enlisted from Queensland) is contradicted by a statement made in 1940 by the Queensland Department of Native Affairs about the service of what it referred to as ‘half- bloods’: ‘In the War 1914-1918 some 200 coloured people of whom this Department was aware, and there would be others, enlisted and served overseas.’ (NAA: MP508/1, 275/750/1310 Aborigines Enlisted in AIF).  The observation supports the contention that local inquiries rather than the records of the Chief Protector were the source of the names provided to Reveille. Just one of the Queensland men who were not listed by Reveille was Charles Alley , who with Martin Blyth was the subject of press and RSL attention in 1930, the year prior to the survey:

The bad old convict days ‘ of Australia are recalled by the banishment from the mainland ‘ to Palm Island of two half-caste aborigines — Martin Blyth and Charles Alley— both returned soldiers … the Returned Soldiers’ League in Northern Queensland are protesting “to the authorities, at what they call the ” barbarous treatment” of the two men. (Evening News (Rockhampton, Qld.) 17 May 1930:5.)

Of the two, Blyth was listed by Reveille and Alley was not, demonstrating the hit and miss nature of the name collection process. Similar comments apply to the Victorian list. Amongst others omitted  by Reveille were six Aboriginal men whose names appear on the honour board from the Lake Condah mission church. The Aboriginality of one of these Herbert Winter was noted as ‘complexion black’ in his service record.

It seems probable the background to some of the discrepancy lies in the fact that the efforts of the officials in NSW and elsewhere, well after the end of the war, were dependent not only on word of mouth but the collectors’ knowledge of the communities they were based in and the degree of application and interest which as individuals they brought to the task. Another indication of how unrepresentative the lists are can be seen in cases where only one brother of a number who enlisted is recorded, despite their enlistment often on the same day and with consecutive service numbers. These omissions can be found in all three states. In addition in some of the New South Wales correspondence, the reply to the official inquiries is demonstrably deficient in relation to Aboriginal men known to have served from a particular district. Surprisingly, too the New South Wales correspondence shows that not all the men whose names were reported by police were published in Reveille. There seems no reason for the omission of these names – possibly a slip up in the publication process – but it does highlight yet another weakness in the information provided to Reveille.

Relevant to men from all lists, but particularly for the larger states of New South Wales and Queensland, were the itinerant work patterns of bush workers which meant that they volunteered far from their original homes, sometimes in other states, making identification difficult or impossible and the fact that some men were loners, unknown in the communities they passed through and so unremembered. In other instances men and their families may have actively sought to keep under the radar of Protection authorities and police. A communication to the Inspector of Police, Broken Hill NSW dated 12 December 1931, from the constable at Ivanhoe, suggests some of the difficulties encountered by the name collectors, often faced with enormous patrol areas:

I beg to report that there are only two Aborigines within this patrol, whom the above mentioned Circular applies to and they are both absent droving somewhere in Queensland, and I have been waiting for their return. I have also been communicating with the Manager at Carowra Aborigines Reserve regarding this matter and the Aborigines cannot give any other information other than that they are returned soldiers.

In another communication, the manager of Angledool Aboriginal Station explained that  he ‘ found it very hard to get in touch with the people [he] named as they are on the move all the time and this information has been given by other people that are conversant with them.’ (AWM27:533/1 Returns showing particulars of men of Aboriginal parentage who enlisted and served with the AIF, presented by the Board for Protection of Aborigines, Sydney, 10 Aug 1932.).

The following indicative examples from New South Wales illustrate that men not recorded by Reveille came from differing locations and backgrounds. Walter Newton was born and lived in Corner country in the Broken Hill police patrol area but went to nearby South Australia to enlist as did other similarly located non-Aboriginal men. His Aboriginality was recognised in his attestation which recorded ‘complexion black’ and is discussed by Jeremy Beckett in Newton’s entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography and an expanded article in Oceania. After discharge he returned to Broken Hill where he worked in the mines before resuming stock work. He also joined the RSL. Despite this he was not included on the Reveille list.

The identification of Aboriginal servicemen in the crowded environment of cities and their suburbs was similarly lacking. The police returns detailing men living in the Sydney area gave the names of three Aboriginal servicemen (Douglas Grant, Thomas Kelly and Tom Williams) but failed to identify amongst others Leonard Gilmore Smith, William Castles and Ewan Rose. Smith – also described in his attestation as ‘complexion black’ was from South Australia and living in Bankstown Sydney. There is no evidence that he was known to the Aborigines Protection Board, however William Castles, ‘complexion brown’ was a former Protection Board ward. He was a member of a family associated with the Plumpton and Sackville reserves and with his brothers, appears in the index to Protection Board minutes. Ewan Rose, awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre, an Aboriginal man from Queensland travelled to Sydney with a circus. He was befriended by a white family and lodged with them at St Marys before and after the war. His appearance is documented in David Huggonson’s Too Dark For the Light Horse photographic collection.

Particularly significant is the omission of William Irwin DCM, the only Aboriginal man to be identified by Charles Bean in The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. He was born at Coonabarabran and although he enlisted at Narrabri, his application to enlist was made at Moree which was also his postal address. His service record shows the presence of family in the Moree area and includes the results of a search in 1919 by the Moree police for family members eligible to receive his service medals and gallantry award. It also contains a 1936 letter from the manager of Quirindi Aboriginal Station about him, written on behalf of his brother. Despite all this in 1932 his name was not recorded in the New South Wales Reveille list.

These are all examples but not exceptions. I hope later to elaborate on this and to show even more clearly that the increase in number is not primarily the result of a changed perception of who may or may not have qualified at the time as an Aboriginal man according to the restrictive racist provisions of the Defence Act, its interpretation by recruiters or the community opinion reflected in the Reveille lists which included men described as both ‘half castes’ and ‘octaroons’. However the question pinpointed by Dr Clark remains, even given the difficulties faced by the Reveille collectors and their glaring omissions – that is what is the reason for the large discrepancy between the lists created in the 1930s and the much larger number of men of Aboriginal heritage now known to have served in the AIF?

The answer to this question lies primarily in the fact that the potential of word of mouth and memory available to police and managers to locate Aboriginal ex-service men, years after the end of the war, is hardly a match for the power of modern day printed resources and search engines. Since the early 2000s we have had the ability to read every AIF service record (available in the 21st century on the website of the National Archives of Australia) and to search for and read contemporary newspaper accounts via the National Library of Australia’s Trove digitised newspaper project. Combined with this is the easy access to a host of records including police records and photographs, and indexes and some records of Protection boards. All this is complemented by the growth in interest in Aboriginal family history and the availability of identifying photographs and family information via the public Aboriginal family trees displayed by ancestry.com. The growth in Aboriginal biography and autobiography and of Aboriginal history itself – so long excluded from mainstream history are also important factors. Put another way this assembly of weaponry dwarfs the limited resources of the officials who conducted the inquiries on which the Reveille lists are based and has resulted in the discovery of information which far outstrips that provided to the journal’s editor. This is not in any way to diminish Reveille’s importance. The 1931 and 1932 articles, with all their deficiencies, were crucial in demonstrating the service of Aboriginal men – and Dr Clark’s actions in realising their significance and rescuing them from oblivion, unquestionably give him the distinction of being the first Australian historian to recognise and write about Aboriginal service in the first AIF. However these lists are only one source and, as Dr Clark acknowledges, are a restricted sample and in the nature of a snapshot. Rather than being seen as the basis for estimating maximum numbers they point instead to the minimum number of Aboriginal men who served in the First World War.

Philippa Scarlett   27 March 2016

Thanks to Christine Cramer for her help particularly with numbers in this post.

The articles published in Reveille are ‘Many served: AIF Aborigines’, 30 November 1931: 22 and ‘Aborigines: N.S.W.’, 31 January 1932: 20.

NOTE

I am pleased that in 2018 the Australian War Memorial endorsed the comments in this blog post by their partial repetition in the War Memorial’s book For Country For Nation pages 22 and 23  and that in April 2021 the Memorial article which is referred to in this post was amended to reflect the position detailed above. See Indigenous service in Australia’s armed forces in peace and war https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/indigenous-service/report-executive-summary

Charlie Alley was born in Charters Towers, Queensland in 1901. His father also Charles came from the Malay Straits and his mother Fanny Palmer was born under a tree at  Canobie station near Blackjack.

During the World War One Charlie’s father was actively involved with the war effort.

My grandfather, he looked after the stockyard for the horses to go over to Egypt … they used to bring the horses in from the station, then they’d hold them in the paddock at Blackjack … and then they’d ship them out from there. Harry Allie 2008.

 Charles Alley senior. Courtesy Alley family

Charlie who was too young to serve would have made his initial contribution to the war effort by helping his father. Then in August 1917 he successfully volunteered for the AIF. Although he stated his age as 18, information he gave when he served again – this time in World War Two – shows he was only 16 when he became one of the 1st Reinforcements Egypt.

These Reinforcements arrived in Egypt on 17 July 1918 and following initial training, were taken on the strength of the 11th Light Horse Regiment. The Australian War Memorial has summed up this last phase of the 11th Light Horse’s activities in Egypt and Palestine:

In August, the regiment was issued with swords and trained in traditional cavalry tactics in preparation for the next offensive against the Turks. This was launched along the Palestine coast on 19 September 1918. The 11th Light Horse displayed its versatility at Semakh on 25 September by first charging the Turkish defences around the town on horseback, with swords drawn, and then clearing the actual town on foot, with rifle and bayonet.

Semakh was the regiment’s last major operation of the war; the Turks surrendered on 30 October 1918. While awaiting to embark for home, the 11th Light Horse were called back to operational duty to quell the Egyptian revolt that erupted in March 1919; order was restored in little over a month. The Regiment sailed for home on 20 July 1919.

In addition to Charlie Alley at least seven Queensland Aboriginal men were part of the 1st Reinforcements Egypt. They joined other Aboriginal men already members of the 11th Light Horse – twenty six of whom were in the 20th Reinforcements, given  the nickname the Queensland Black Watch, because of the number of Aboriginal men in its ranks. (Investigation of slightly higher numbers stated elsewhere show these include non Indigenous men).

Other identified Aboriginal men who formed part of the 1st Reinforcements Egypt were Willie Allen 50246, Glen Combarngo 50248, Herbert Roberts 50265, Patrick Brady 50271, John Lewis 50276, Harry Roberts 50278, and Alexander Stanley 50280. Herbert Roberts did not leave Australia because of an injury before embarkation.  With Charlie Alley they swelled the number of Aboriginal members of the 11th Light Horse Regiment contributing to its Aboriginal character.

Ist Reinforcements Egypt. June 1918 . The photograph contains at least seven Aboriginal men although names cannot be linked to specific  individuals. It is possible that Charlie Alley may be one of their number. Too Dark for the Light Horse Collection. Courtesy David Huggonson.

When Charlie Alley arrived back in Australia on 28 August 1919 he was only just 18 but after the events of 1918 and early 1919 was already a battle hardened veteran. Twenty years later on the outbreak of World War Two he was again in the uniform of the Australian Army.

Charlie Alley, World War Two. He wears his World War One service ribbons in this photograph. Courtesy Mrs Mavis Blackman.

Other members of the Alley/Allie family also served their country.

                          Billy Alley World War Two . Courtesy Alley family

Charlie’s brother Billy Alley served in WW2, his sister Martha Alley was a member of the Women’s Land Army and another brother Albert Alley, father of Harry Allie served in the Civil Construction Corp during World war Two. 

Martha Alley, Women’s land Army, World War Two. Courtesy Alley family.

Charlie’s nephew David Allie served in Vietnam and another nephew Harry Allie was a member of the Royal Australian Air Force from 1966 to 1989. Harry has been continually active in the movement to recognise Indigenous service and is a mentor and role model for Indigenous people. In 2012 was appointed the first Air Force Indigenous Elder.

 Harry Allie: presentation of Defence Service Medal, Malaysia. Courtesy Harry Allie. 

The Alley family is justifiably proud of it service:

I can always remember growing up – my grandmother lived next door – that was always a photo on the mantelpiece of them in uniform Harry Allie 2008.

But despite their record, until 1983 Charlie’s family as Aboriginal people in Queensland still lived under the Act – the dehumanising Protection Act which dominated Aboriginal people’s lives. Records show some members of the Alley family at Palm Island – the artificial Aboriginal community formed from forced removals from the mainland by the Queensland government.

The Alley family’s contribution of service beginning with World War One is remarkable – however it is not unusual for Indigenous families to give generously to the service of their country, despite the treatment they and their extended families received.

This history is now coming to light and following the completion of Serving Our Country, a project which is exploring the contribution to Australian defence services of Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples, stories like those of the Alley family will at last receive the recognition they deserve.

Philippa Scarlett 

15th April 2015

Thank you to  Mrs Mavis Blackman, Harry Allie and his cousin Yasmin Johnson for allowing me to reproduce photos of the Alley family and for their advice and comment.

In particular I must thank Mrs Mavis Blackman the daughter of Charlie Alley for kindly permitting me to write about her father.

[ Note.Charles Alley’s WW1 service number was 50270. His service record available on the NAA website has been amalgamated with his World War Two record under his service number for this conflict Q186382.]

While the experience of Aboriginal men in the AIF is receiving increasing attention the experience of their families – particularly wives, mothers and sisters on the home front has to date been relatively neglected.

Aboriginal women’s stories are in many ways the same as those of non Indigenous women – but they are also different. The difference is created by the circumstances of Aboriginal life – lived in so many instances ‘under the Act’ and subject to restrictions on personal liberty and removal of children by the state. Not only this but allotments made to them from a soldier’s pay were in some cases made to a state Protection Board rather than to the woman herself.

Information about these women is not readily forthcoming but should not be impossible to piece together starting with service records, the most readily available source supplemented by other selected primary and secondary sources and hopefully helped by memories and knowledge held by families.

Women of Empire Exhibition is a travelling exhibition launching in February 2015. After touring Australian locations it will move to New Zealand and Canada and possibly further afield. The project is keen to include stories of Aboriginal women.

Contemporary newspaper articles show that Aboriginal communities supported the service of Aboriginal men they saw as fighting for the Empire and for King and Country, ironic though this seems in view of the treatment of Indigenous people under the Empire’s rule. Barambah in Queensland was one community which was active in raising funds for the war effort.

More about the Women of Empire Exhibition can be found at www.womenofempire.com. Contact details are womenofempire@bigpond.com

 Philippa Scarlett

22 October 2014