Hohner diatonic single row button accordion : Corporal H E McCleary, 6 Division Australian Army Service Corps Ammunition Company

Hohner plywood framed diatonic accordion featuring a 12 button (10 treble and two bass) brown Bakelite playing board to one side and four treble stop buttons with a sliding selector button located on the other side. All buttons are white celluloid. The playing board is supplied with a thumb strap (broken), while the other side is fitted with a black leather arm strap,. There are two closing straps to top and bottom for securing the bellows - one has been replaced in brown leather. A decorative nickel-plated brass grille protects the reeds, with a pair of nine-hole sound holes, protected with an cloth grille, located on the opposite side.

The twelve-fold leather bellows feature nickel-plated brass reinforced corners, black tape strengthening strips, and yellow paper facing. Each corner of the wooden case is protected by a curved nickel plated metal plate. This model finished in black varnish, with overlaid gold transfer floral decoration to the body and Hohner's name and fouled anchor logo prominent, featuring the words 'Marca Registrada'. The transfer has been worn away in the region of the first treble stop and this button is also broken.

Hohner button accordion used and played by VX2110 Private Harry Everard McCleary, a driver with 6 Division Australian Army Service Corps (Ammunition Company). McCleary, was born 19 April 1907 at Talbot, Victoria, and enlisted on 28 October 1939 at Melbourne, aged 32. He served with 6 Division in the Middle East and Greece and was captured by the Germans on Crete. His niece relates: 'he was driving an ammunition truck along a road in Crete when five German paratroopers drooped out of the sky and captured him as a POW.' This implies that McCleary was captured in the first two days of the German airborne invasion. Along with over 2,000 other Australian prisoners, he was sent to Europe where he was imprisoned in Stalag 18A (Wolfsberg, Austria), and assigned prisoner number 5157. Due to his age relative to the much younger men in the camp, McCleary was nicknamed 'Pops', and was known for his musical repetoire. He is thought to have acquired this accordion while he was a prisoner.

After release, McCleary stayed with an Austrian family 'who treated him very well. He met a fraulein named Fanny and promised to marry her.' He returned to Australia and after discharge from the Army, on 29 September 1945, 'established himself as a wealthy Mallee farmer. He later returned to Austria to marry Fanny but found that as she had not heard from him, she had married someone else.' Harry McCleary died on 27 November 1991 aged 84. He never married.