The Soldier's Details

 

Height 5′ 5 1/2″

William Walter Tischler enlisted AIF 13 Aug 1941.  As a reinforcement he joined Headquarters Company No. 3 Platoon under Officers Capt Phelps and Lt. Bernie O’Sullivan.

He left Singapore as a POW with the first Australian Work Party – ‘A’ Force Burma, Green Force No. 3 Battalion to work on the Burma end of the Railway.  Please read further.

With the completion of the railway, POWs were moved south about end of 1943 to one of about 4 large camps or hospitals in Thailand.

In 1944 he was selected to work in Japan with the ‘Awa Maru’ Party.  Please read further. 

Soldier was transferred to Changi Gaol Camp Administration on 28/1/1945.  William Tischler did not depart on the Awa Maru from Singapore.   He remained behind.   Sailing home from there at the end of the war.

 

He returned to WA on the ‘Strathmore’.

 

We believe Claude (or Klab or Klohla) Tischler  arrived 29 July 1892 at Fremantle aged about 21 years.

He married in Port Pirie South Australia, in 1896 aged 25 years (in which case Claude travelled to SA from WA and then a year or two later, returned to Fremantle)

 

 

Below:  William Tischler’s grandmother Elizabeth Ann Tyack died 1921,Victoria.

We pick up the Claude Tischler and his family story when he and Alices’s first child Gladys was born in 1906.  They resided in Fremantle where Claude was employed as a Lumper at the Wharves.

William was born 1918 to parents Claude (Snr) Tischler and Alice Maude Tyack.  Her first husband Thomas Edward Brown died young.  It is believed she had one surviving son, Thomas (Brown) Tischler.

Alice and Claude Tischler married Fremantle in 1915.  On their marriage records is recorded that Claude was ‘presumed to be a widow’.

Alice and Claude had a family of six children, including two sons Claude (Jnr) who was 4 years older than William and four daughters – Gladys Letine, Evelyn, Alice and Eileen.  Their mother Alice, who was born in Victoria died in Oct 1923, Fremantle aged 42 years. William was about 5 years old.

It is not known who took care of the children.  The eldest child was daughter Gladys aged 17 years.  The following the family was hit by a further calamity when their father Claude died 5 April 1924.  He was 53 years old.

On his enlistment William recorded his older brother Claude (Jnr) as his NOK. William and Claude’s (Jnr) father Claude (Snr) was born 1871 Sankt-Peterburg, Saint Petersburg, Russia.   He died Fremantle in 1924 aged 53 years and was buried at Fremantle Cemetery.  It is believed his funeral was paid for and organised by the Lumpers Union.

 

Below:  William’s older sister Gladys died in 1932 aged 26 years.

 

After the war we find Tischler in the Electoral Rolls residing 1954 and 1958 in Wellington Street, Perth and working as a labourer.   In 1963 he was residing in Fremantle and 1968 he returned to reside in Wellington Street, Perth.

 

 

According to Marriage records Walter William Tischler married Perth 1950 to Noelene Ann Stacey.

William died 17 August 1981 at Osborne Park aged 64 years.

From Electoral Roll Records, it seems Walter and Noelene did not remain living together.  Noelene Tischler died March 2021 at Glendalough, WA.