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Anzac
Day marching banner of 2/10 Australian Field Ambulance with white fringe
along top and bottom edges. Guide ropes approximately 2 metres long
extend from each of the top corners. The banner is screen printed with
the colour patches of 8th Division Australian Army Medical Corps (brown
oval with grey border) and 8th Division Australian Army Service Corps
(blue over white oval with grey border).
2/10 Australian Field Ambulance was
formed in the Newcastle and Northern Rivers regions of New South Wales,
and became part of 27 Infantry Brigade, 8th Australian Division. After
training at Liverpool, Dubbo and Bathurst, the unit embarked for
overseas service in July 1941, under the command of NX34665 Lieutenant
Colonel E McArthur Sheppard. On 15 August, in company with other units
of the 8th Division, it arrived in Singapore and began to move up onto
the Malay peninsula. Following the Japanese invasion in December 1941,
the 2/10 Field Ambulance provided medical support to 2/30 Infantry
Battalion's ambush at Gemas, and various parts of the unit were then
involved in the withdrawal via Segamat, Yong Peng and Ayer Hitam through
Kluang and thence on to Singapore itself, where the surrender took place
on 15-16 February 1942.
The men of the unit were then split up
in Prisoner of War camps and working parties through such places as
Thailand, Burma, Japan and Borneo, many members being killed in the
Sandakan death marches. In early 1941, a small party from the unit,
known as: '2/10 Field Ambulance detached' was sent to Rabaul as part of
'Lark Force'. This group, numbering only about twenty men, were nearly
all killed by the Japanese in the infamous 'Tol Massacre' in February
1942. This unit association banner was produced about 1992, to replace
an older item which had become worn out. The new banner was carried at
Anzac Day services until there was an insufficient number of members
left to march with it. |
