Australia Service Medal : Staff Sergeant G J Howell, Headquarters Eastern Command

Australia Service Medal. Unnamed.

George Julian 'Snowy' Howell was born to Francis John and Martha Howell at Enfield, Sydney on 19 November 1893. Following his education at Croydon Park and Burwood Public Schools, Howell was apprenticed as a bricklayer to a Mr Shannon of Campsie. He was a keen athlete and enjoyed football, playing with the local team the Enfield Federals. It was as a bricklayer that he enlisted in the first AIF on 3 June 1915.

Posted as reinforcement to 1 Battalion, Howell embarked with his unit on 14 July 1915, bound for Egypt. He joined his battalion on Gallipoli on 4 November but returned to Alexandria on 28 December following the evacuation of the peninsula. Embarking again in March 1916, the battalion moved to France. During the bitter fighting around Pozieres in July, Howell was wounded in the back and evacuated to England, returning to his unit on 26 November.

Appointed lance corporal on 10 December, Howell attended a training school prior to a further promotion to corporal on 6 February 1917. For his actions while leading a section during the capture of Demicourt on 9 April, Howell was awarded the Military Medal.

On 6 May, during the Second Battle of Bullecourt, Howell was involved in the action for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Due to the severity of the wounds he suffered in the engagement he was invalided to Australia on 31 December 1917 and discharged on 5 June 1918.

Howell did not return to his pre-war occupation, instead choosing to work on the advertising staff for a number of publications in New South Wales and Queensland. He married Sadie Lillian Yates on 1 March 1919.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Howell once again enlisted. On 14 October 1939 he was posted to the 2nd Garrison Battalion as private N69450 at Sydney Showground. Promoted to staff sergeant in October he was discharged in December. Ostensibly the discharge was for services no longer required but in reality Howell was bored with the garrison duties.

In June the following year he again enlisted, understating his age by three years possibly in the hope of an active overseas posting. Disappointment followed with another domestic posting as private N75435. Promoted to corporal in October he was again discharged in February 1941. Finally Howell managed to see fighting when he joined the merchant marines of the United States Sea Transport Service in 1944 in time for the invasion of Leyte.

He served on tug ST-131 under Captain Norman Philpott through October and November. While Howell was serving on the tug it was attacked by suicide bombers and survived a monsoon while carrying a cargo of high octane fuel between Hollandia and San Pedro Bay in the Philippines.

In December 1953 Howell moved to Western Australia to live with his daughter, Norma. This followed the death of his good friend Bede Kenny VC in April and the loss of Sadie in September. He attended the centenary celebrations of the Victoria Cross in London in 1956. George Julian Howell died in the Repatriation General Hospital in Perth on 23 December 1964, and was accorded full military honours. His ashes were interred at Karrakatta Cemetery.