A backyard archaeologist

Pte Vincent Clarke in North Africa in 1942. Pte Clarke was killed in the closing stages of the battle of El Alamein.

Pte Anna Florance with Ken Orford and Vincent’s reunited items. Photo by Cpl Cameron Jamieson, Army newspaper

A far cry from the simple wooden cross which once stood in this spot at the El Alamein war cemetery. Photo provided by Commonwealth War Graves

A seventeen-year-old school girl, Anna Florance, didn’t realise what she’d dug up until years later as Cpl Cameron Jamieson reports.

Herbert Vincent ‘Vince’ Clarke was one of thousands of Australians who had lived through the depression years and now sought to escape to the adventure of war.

His mundane job as a truck driver had no hold over him, and his reputation for being something of a lad who enjoyed a drink would easily be accommodated in the free-spirited Australian fighting force.

Before he left his hometown of Dalby in Queensland in mid 1941, the citizens of his community presented the 39 year-old with a leather notebook cover to commemorate his departure for active service.

Two months after enlisting, Clarke had boarded a troop ship in Melbourne and was off to the Middle East for further training and eventual service with the 2/15 Infantry Battalion, 2AIF.

Within five months of joining the battalion the leather notebook cover would begin its return to Dalby, but Vince would never see home again.

On November 1, 1942, during the closing stages of the Battle of El Alamein, the 2/15 Battalion was intermittently shelled by German artillery, and the sole battalion fatality that day was Vince Clarke – the battalion’s last soldier to be killed in action prior to the 2/15’s return to Australia to prepare for operations against the Japanese.

He was buried in the sands of the El Alamein War cemetery, while his personal effects and later his war medals were delivered to his grieving mother in Dalby.

Buried treasure

In 1987 Anna Florance was a 17 year-old schoolgirl, digging in the backyard garden of her Toowoomba home when she made a discovery that would lead her to the story of Vincent Clarke.

As she dug into the loose soil she came across a series of military badges that had clearly been buried for some time.

She was intrigued by her find, but did not understand the significance of the medal and three badges.

She decided to hold on to them as keepsakes, and for over 17 years she kept them in a little tin box.

“I never thought I’d find the person or a relative that they belonged to,” Anna said.

“So I just held onto them.”

The search begins

Anna went on to join the reserves and married an ARA soldier.

Early in 2004 they watched a television program about a man who had found some medals in the back of a computer.

“I said to my husband ‘hey, it looks like the medal we’ve got here at home’,” recalls Anna.

“My husband took a closer look at them, and realised there was an original medal – it had his name and regimental number on the edge of it.”

Anna then contacted Army newspaper to get assistance in identifying the items and tracing their owner.

The medal was identified as being an Australian Service Medal (ASM) 1939/45, awarded to Pte H.V. Clarke, while the three hat badges were identified as being WW1-vintage badges from the East Surrey Regt, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the crossed Vickers machinegun hat badge of the British Machine Gun Corps.

The problem of the WW2 medal was tackled first, and a quick internet search of the WW2 Nominal Role showed that Pte H.V. Clarke had been killed in action while a member of 2/15 Bn AIF in 1942.

A further search of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Debt of Honour register revealed the details of his burial location.

The 2/15 Bn’s war diary is available on-line via the Australian War Memorial’s WW2 Infantry Battalion War Diaries site and reading through it confirmed that Clarke was the battalion’s last battle fatality in North Africa, with four other soldiers wounded that same day by German shellfire.

A copy of his war service record was purchased via the internet from the National Archives of Australia, which provided some background to Clarke’s military life, and also provided a list of his war medals that were posted to his mother.

In addition to the ASM, Clarke had been awarded the 1939/45 Star, African Star, Defence Medal and War Medal.

Could these still be in the garden?

Digging for clues

The house where she made her find all those years ago now belongs to Anna and her brother, so access to the garden was no problem.

A mine-clearance team from 2CER volunteered for some extra training and made the journey to Toowoomba to carry out a meticulous search of the garden bed.

The four engineers toiled away, and amidst the metallic junk and rubbish that make their way into a garden they discovered a range of coins and, perhaps appropriately, a WW2-pattern South African Engineers hat badge, which had probably been collected by Clarke during his time in the Middle East.

But there were no more medals.

It seemed the trail had gone cold,

however, fate was about to deal Anna a piece of luck, which would prove that good deeds are eventually rewarded.

A good deed returned

Ken Orford has a reputation for being a boss who looks after his employees.

Anna’s father was one of Ken’s workers, and they got on so well that Ken sold him his Toowoomba house.

Even after his retirement, Ken continued to be a friend to Anna’s family, and Anna had no trouble in tracing him.

When asked about Herbert Vincent Clarke, Ken’s mind was taken back to the early war years, as he recalled his sport-enthusiast uncle who went to war and never returned.

“It brings back sad memories,” Ken says.

“He used to send a lot of photos over ... he didn’t tell us a lot about the war, but I distinctly remember when he was killed.”
Discussions with Ken revealed a number of things.

First, Ken’s father probably collected the three British hat badges when he was in hospital in England during WW1.

Secondly, his mother Lillian had inherited her brother’s medals and personal effects on the death of her parents.

During the 1970s Lillian was thought to be suffering from Parkinson’s disease, so Ken would regularly bring her to his old house in Toowoomba to visit.

It is believed that during one of these visits Lillian buried the medal, badges and coins in the garden – a not uncommon act by those suffering from the debilitating disease. Anna was able to return Ken’s good deeds to her family by giving him the medal and badges.

Re-appearing medals

It was at Orford’s new house that a strange thing occurred.

Anna paid a second visit to him to hand over the engineer’s hat badge.

Ken brought out the wooden box that he kept the medal and other hat badges in, but when he opened it the box also contained Clarke’s 1939/45 Star medal – no-one knew how it got there.

Searching other storage boxes uncovered Clarke’s Defence and War Medals, as well as a number of personal effects including the leather notebook cover. All that was missing was the African Star to complete the set, and again fate was kind to the memory of Vincent Clarke.

The kindness of others

Warwick Cary, of Cary Corporation in Sydney, heard of the find, and offered to replace the Star with an original un-named medal for free.

He also offered a free set of replica medals for Ken’s descendents to wear on Anzac Day. With the assistance of an anonymous financier he mounted and framed the medals and badges.

And so it was that on the 62nd anniversary of Vincent Clarke’s death that his medals were formally presented to Ken Orford, by CA Lt-Gen Peter Leahy, during a quiet ceremony in the CA’s office.

The return of the medals brought a mixture of emotions for Ken.

“When he was killed I didn’t really appreciate the fact that they gave him a handful of medals because it didn’t make up for him being killed over there,” says Ken.

“I certainly appreciate getting them now, and when you see them all together, it’s very impressive.”

For Anna, it was the end of an amazing odyssey, not just for herself, but for Ken Orford as well.

“I think it puts a sort of closure on everything,” says Anna.

“It’s brought up terrible memories of Vincent’s death, but I think Ken is happy with how it has all turned out.”

If, like Anna Florance, you are investigating medals or the war record of a relative, the following internet links can be extremely helpful: