'Welcome Black Jack and the Greyhounds' banner: Mr Roy Chipps

Place Oceania: Australia, New South Wales, Sydney, Sydney Harbour
Accession Number AWM2019.132.1
Collection type Heraldry
Object type Heraldry
Physical description Linen paper
Maker Chipps, Roy
Place made Australia: New South Wales, Sydney
Date made 1945
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Description

Linen-backed paper banner reading 'WELCOME BLACK JACK and THE GREYHOUNDS' and featuring coloured pencil drawings of a red ensign and the 2/30th Battalion colour patch. The 2/30th Battalion was commanded by Frederick 'Black Jack' Galleghan and was known as Galleghan's Greyhounds.

History / Summary

The banner was made by architect Roy Chipps for to welcome the arrival of the troopship SS Esperance Bay carrying former prisoners of war (POWs) of the 2/30th Battalion returning from Singapore. Chipps and his two daughters, Marjorie and Dorothy, displayed the banner while aboard a crowded motor launch that came alongside the troopship as it docked at Woolloomoloo in Sydney Harbour on 9 October 1945.

Roy Chipps' son, NX24742 Private Ronald Lawrence Chipps was a member of the 2/30th Battalion and had been a POW. He was suffering from beri-beri and had returned to Sydney 11 days earlier aboard the hospital ship Oranje.