The Soldier's Details

Harry Carter enlisted AIF Oct 1940 later joined 2/4th MGB’s ‘D’ Company, 13 Platoon with Commanding Officer Lt. Wankey.

Please read further about ‘D’ Company 13 Platoon

Read further about ‘A’ Force Burma,  Green Force No. 3 Battalion

Harry was selected as being fit to work in Japan in 1944.  He eventually sailed from Singapore with the ‘Rakuyo’ Maru Party.  He perished when this POW transport ship was torpedoed and sunk by American Submarines in the South China Sea 12 Sep 1944.

Please read further.

CARTER, Private, ALFRED HENRY, WX9326, A.I.F. 2/4 M.G. Bn., Australian Infantry. 12 September 1944. Age 24. Son of Lewis Basil and Mary Jane Carter, of Dangin, Western Australia. Panel 18.C.    Labuan Memorial, Malaysia.

 

 

 

 

 

Harry’s parents Lewis Basil Carter and Mary Jane Mead married 1905 Northam.  They had a family of 8 children, 5 girls and 3 sons.

The Carter family farmed at Dangin.

Harry’s father Lewis Basil served WW1 he was married and residing Tammin and already 33 years old.

 

Above:  Lewis Basil Carter enlisted WW2 July 1916 with 44th Battalion. When in France he became ill with Trachoma – a contagious bacterial infection of the eye.  He was embarked from England 1 Nov 1917 and discharged 23 Feb 1918 with Trachoma.

 

Above Lynn MacDonald, Harry Carter mentioned playing cricket.

 

 

Above: jack McCarthy is 2/4th.

 

Many of the above enlistees joined 2/4th MGB:

Fred and Jack Tregenza, Ron Anderson, Alec Minchin, Harry Carter, Peter Gardiner.

 

Harry Carter’s name is included on the WW2 Memorial at Quairading.

 

Mary Jane Carter died in 1961. Basil Lewis Carter died three years’ later, in 1964.

 

Carter Family History  – from York Residency Museum 

Lewis Basil Carter, known as Basil, was born at Northam in 1883 to Robert and Elizabeth Penn/Payne. He married Mary Jane Mead in Northam in 1905, and the couple had nine children, two of whom died at birth.

Basil enlisted on the 25th July 1917 and departed from Fremantle with the 44th Battalion aboard the Argyllshire on the 9th November. He arrived in the United Kingdom on the 10th January 1917 and, after basic training, departed for France on the 10th April. On the 13th April, Basil was Taken on Strength with the 44th Battalion in the Field. Three months’ later, he was sent to hospital suffering from conjunctivitis and a corneal ulcer.

Basil was returned to England and admitted to the 4th London General Hospital, where he was diagnosed with trachoma. On the 21st August, Basil transferred to the 1 st Auxiliary Hospital at Harefield and, on the 1st November, he embarked A68 Anchises for his return to Australia.

Basil was discharged from the armed forces on the 21st February 1918. After the War, his name appears in the Post Office Directory for Northam between 1918 and 1933, but the family were living in the Quairading area by 1925, when their youngest daughter, not yet two years of age, drowned in a post hole.

By 1934, Basil was listed as a farmer at Dangin, near Quairading, where he remained until, at least, 1949. In 1940, Basil’s son, Alfred Henry (known as Harry) enlisted in World War Two. He joined the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion.