Lloyd Gehrke, received these artefacts. His uncle Archie Mann and his wife Grace (the sister of Lloyd’s mother)had a horse-riding business in Kalinga, Brisbane. This city was, after General Douglas MacArthur established his WWII head office here in 1942, an important military centre. The horse riding business mentioned above attracted lots of Australian and Allied servicemen during that period.
Archie mentioned to his visitors that his nephew (Lloyd) – who was 9 years old at the time – collected military souvenirs and in this way he received various badges, patches, caps, belt buckles, some smalls arms ammunition, and other pieces.
In the meantime Lloyd’s son Mark has taken over the collection. This is what mark has to say about this:
As my father got older and the war was over, like all kids their interest changes. The various artefacts were put away and forgotten about. His mother didn’t throw much out, so they remained in an old suitcase till I happened to find them while looking through it back in the mid 1960’s. I use to take them to school to show after kids, and they would also bring anything that their father’s might have had. As I got to my mid-teens I was interested in military history and so started to collect other items, helmets, uniforms, brass shell casings, etc. So the badges became part of the collection. My father also had much interest in what I was collecting and helped me very much in looking for and buying items.
Lloyd’s ID Tag
Dutch artefacts
The badge below is now part of the collection of Mark. and continued gathering more artefacts. This M41 helmet was later added to his collection. The interesting element of the helmet is the flap at the back, for protection against the hot sun in the tropics. There are not many helmets with such an original flap still attached.
American Artefacts
Australian Artefacts
Other WWII Memorabilia
War Savings Stamps
My mother was intensely patriotic and she would give my sister and me small amounts of money to take to school on a regular basis to buy War Savings Stamps. These were stuck on a special card provided and I believe a full card merited a War Savings Certificate. (The www tells me that War Savings Certificates were one way the Government raised additional funds for the war effort. Money was lent to the Government for a specified time period, documented by a certificate, and was payable upon maturation with a modest amount of interest.)
Recollection from Claire Wilson as published in the book World War II Stories from Brisbane’s South West, by Vicki Mynott
Below are rubber pegs.
Archie Mann
Archie Mann had a colourfully life behind him. He stowed away on a ship travelling to South Africa. He was only 16 at the time and wasn’t allowed to join the army, but he was with an Australian group there and saw some action. He technically wasn’t an enlisted soldier.
