John Joseph Murray

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Rank: Lieutenant

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Source: National Archives of Australia

John Joseph Murray’s parents were living in Smith Street, Manly when he enlisted.

He was a remarkable man. He won the Military Cross as a company commander during the Battle of Fromelles, and added to that a Distinguished Service Order for bravery at Peronne. He was also Mentioned in Dispatches twice, and was awarded the Volunteer Decoration. This would have been action enough for anyone, but at the beginning of WWII he saw service again. He was given the job of raising the 20th Brigade, based at Ingleburn. The Brigade joined the 9th Division AIF in 1941 in North Africa, and Murray saw action at Tobruk against the Afrika Korps.

He won a Bar to his DSO for action in delaying the German advance. The Australian War Memorial has in its collection Brigadier Murray’s ‘Tobruk Rats 1941’ medal, one of a handful of unofficial medals made by soldiers at Tobruk from shell casings or other metal fragments, and supposedly conferred by ‘Lord Haw Haw’, the enemy propaganda broadcaster who came up with the ‘rats of Tobruk’ insult. No doubt it was his proudest possession.

His colourful memoir, I Confess, edited by his grandson Andrew Murray, appeared in 2011.