The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (SX10657) Private William Edwin Dobbins, 8th Divisional Ammunition Sub Park, Australian Army Service Corps, Second World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (SX10657) Private William Edwin Dobbins, 8th Divisional Ammunition Sub Park, Australian Army Service Corps, Second World War.

SX10657 Private William Edwin Dobbins, 8th Divisional Ammunition Sub Park, Australian Army Service Corps
DOD 18 December 1943
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 22 March 2016

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private William Edwin Dobbins, who died during the Second World War.

Bill Dobbins was born on 14 October 1902 in Port Lincoln, South Australia, to Patrick William Dobbins and Emily Edith Danzic. He was the eldest of three boys and three girls born to the couple.

Dobbins worked as a waterside worker and wheat lumper, and played for the local Wayback Football Team. In 1922 he married Bessie Norah Adelaide Garrett, and the couple went on to have four children: Clifford, Theodore, Merle, and Barry.

Dobbins enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 10 December 1940 in Wayville, South Australia, at the age of 38. Posted to the 8th Divisional Ammunition Sub Park along with his cousin, Private Arthur Howard Dobbins, in 1941 he embarked for overseas service in Malaya on board HMT Zealandia.

Following Japan’s entry into the war the Malayan peninsula was invaded by Japanese force. From mid-January 1942 the units of the 8th Division were involved in fierce fighting against the Japanese forces on the Malayan peninsula. On 15 February the Australians surrendered to the Japanese, and William Dobbins was among the thousands who, overnight, became prisoners of war.

After a period of imprisonment at Changi, Dobbins was drafted into A Force, a workforce of slave labourers. Transferred to Kohn Khan No. 3 Branch Camp in Burma, he was one of the thousands of prisoners of war used by the Japanese to construct the Burma–Thailand Railway.

Various letters from the prisoners found their way back to Australia, and several sent to the Port Lincoln area indicated that Bill Dobbins was in the camp among his friends. The horrendous circumstances of the railway were not communicated to the families back home.

In August 1943 Bill Dobbins’ cousin Arthur died in the camp of illness. Four months later Bill contracted dysentery, and died of his illness in Burma. Initially buried at Kohn Khan Cemetery, his body was later exhumed and reinterred at Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery in Myanmar.

Bill Dobbins was 41 years old.

His brother Bob enlisted in the AIF in 1942, while his son Clifford enlisted in June 1943 and was sent as a sapper to New Guinea with the 2/2nd Port Operating Company. Both men survived the war.

William Dobbins was remembered with great affection by his friends back home, and at a local football match both teams wore black armbands in remembrance of the former player. Over the following years his parents, siblings, children, and friends sent many tributes to the local newspaper on the anniversary of his death. His son, Cliff, wrote this in 1946:

Deep in our hearts a memory is kept
Of one we loved and will never forget.

That same year his parents included this epitaph for their beloved son:

Partings come, hearts are broken.
Loved ones go with farewells unspoken:
We who loved you, Bill, truly know
How much we lost three years ago.
Alone and unseen he stands by our side
And whispers, “Don’t grieve dear, death cannot divide.”

Private Dobbins is commemorated on Adelaide’s Second World War Wall of Remembrance, and at the Soldiers’ Memorial Hall at Port Lincoln. His name is also listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 others from the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private William Edwin Dobbins, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Christina Zissis
Editor, Military History Section