My Dad - The Hero - World War II

I just watched another *West Wing* episode and boy are we addicted . Remember the episode where the university athletic team were playing and some rat bag bomber placed incendiary devices under the seating. Then some team members who were not playing at that game raced back into the grounds to help their fellow team members and in turn were blown up themselves.

The bit for me was when Jed Bartlett gave a speech and said that there far too many angels in heaven because the bravery of those young heros. Well that certainly bought tears to my eyes. In reality I am not a teary sort of person but it took me back to when I was about 5 years of age (so long ago) and my father dying at the young age of 42.

He had been in the Australian Navy during WWII serving his time on the gun carriers, minesweepers , destroyers,pot shotting mines (as you do) while  operating and working in his profession as a doctor. After the war he came back to his three doctor medical practice in Victoria where he found that his power of attorney had allowed it run into the ground due to the fact that taxes had allowed to accumulate for a greater portion of the war and he now faced financial ruin - this after serving for the best part of 6 years overseas. He and my mother decided that the best financial plan for the future of their family would be if he studied in England to become a heart specialist. So off to Bethnal Green Hospital they went to carry out the plan. We children were left in Melbourne with family and at boarding schools. However the downside was that he had a bad heart which no one knew about - including my mother. After a short period staying with my father ( October to April) my mother returned from England to her young family, 6 of us, the eldest of whom was 12 years of age.

By now it was May and my father with no wife or children around him suffered a severe coronary episode and was hospitalised in the Bethnal Green hospital, England.

About three weeks into the healing period (so the story goes) there was a huge train accident somewhere on the railway line between Guys Hospital and Bethnal Green Hospital and it was all hands on deck. Ambulances everywhere, people dying, dreadful situation to be in. On the mend but still in hospital, my father thought he would offer assistance (thought he was better), so got himself out of his hospital bed and went to train crash site to help the wounded.

And died the next day. In England. Still.

42 - way too young.

But a Hero in anyone's book

copyright a.a.gallagher 1995