Family’s bid to upgrade Queensland war hero to Victoria Cross
Davina Smith
If you had asked Stanley Walsh where he got the Distinguished Conduct Medal, our nation’s second-highest military honor after the Victoria Cross, he would have told you he found it in a cereal box.
The story is much more chilling than that.
Less luck. Lots more snatching.
In his defense, perhaps Walsh was a little weary of the much-vaunted military award, as DCMs were nothing new in his household.
Stan’s father Richard was also a recipient of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, making them the only father-son pair in Australian history to receive this honour.
Now, the descendants of the Walsh heroes are on a mission: to upgrade Stan’s medal to the Victoria Cross, while also trying to find the original DCM given to Richard, which was lost during the division of his estate decades ago.
Warrant Officer Stanley Walsh was a legendary Rat of Tobruk.
On 1 September 1942, the 24-year-old from Stanthorpe was deployed near Tel el Eisa, the critical railway ridge northwest of El Alamein in Egypt.
Under extreme artillery fire, behind enemy lines, he found an Australian runner from another company wounded, trapped and certain to die.
With no thought for his own safety, Walsh rushed to him, bandaged his wounds and carried him half a kilometer to safety as rockets and machine guns roared over their flesh all around them.
Decades later, Walsh was walking through Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall when a car broke down in front of a stranger.
This was the man he saved.
“I was stunned that this man had just received a DCM,” said military historian John Telfer, who helped make a formal request for Stan Walsh’s Victoria Cross upgrade.
“He was typical Anzac…it was all there – courage, determination, resourcefulness and, above all, friendship,” Telfer said.
Humility also seems to go hand in hand with heroes; That was certainly the case for Walsh.
He would go on to serve as mayor of Warwick in south-east Queensland for years after the war.
But even those who knew him best in this role knew few details about his past life and bravery.
Stan’s son John Walsh recalled how his father’s medals, including the DCM, were rolled loosely in a tin can at home.
“They would pin them [his medals] We occasionally wore safety pins on Anzac Day,” John recalls A Current Event.
“I placed them all in a bar…he was the mayor at the time, so I guess he had to straighten them out instead of scattering them all over the place,” John said.
John also sorted through many of his father’s photographs from the war; it was a treasure trove of black-and-white images that would rival any collection at the Australian War Memorial.
The photographs were taken with a camera thought to have originally belonged to a German soldier; Some old films contained photographs of enemy weapons and training camps.
“Someone at the RSL would always talk about the war and say it ended 70 years ago, but he left it at that, never talked about what he was doing,” John said.
“My father never sought medals. He never sought vanity. He was a working person.”
Stan’s grandchildren, Alana Hurse and Larissa Mack, along with Telfer, have made a formal application to the Department of Defense and the Australian government for Walsh, who died in 1998, to receive the Victoria Cross.
“I think that’s the most important thing, right? Knowing that you probably won’t come back from what you did,” thought Larissa.
“We don’t care if we are rejected or not rewarded [the VC] because I think in our hearts we know that he is worthy of it and we know what brave actions he has made,” Alana added.
Stan’s father, Richard Walsh, received the Distinguished Conduct Medal during his service in the Boer War.
“To our knowledge, they are the only father and son in Australian history to be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal,” Larissa said.
“Yes, DNA comes into play, but it also matters how you were raised…determination to help,” Alana said.
The original missing DCM had Richard’s name engraved on the edge and may still be attached to the iconic deep red and navy blue ribbon.
Anyone with information about the location of the medal is asked to contact us. A Current Event.
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