Australian centenarian
William Evan Crawford Allan
(24 July 1899 ? 18 October 2005) was, at the age of 106, one of Australia's last living veterans of the
First World War
, and the last remaining Australian who saw active service in both world wars.
[1]
Allan was a career sailor in the
Royal Australian Navy
(RAN), serving from 1914 to 1947.
Early life
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Allan was born in
Bega
in the then British colony of
New South Wales
, eighteen months before the
Commonwealth of Australia
came into being.
Naval career
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He joined the RAN in March 1914 at the age of fourteen as an ordinary seaman second class. When war was declared on 14 August 1914, he was 15 and serving aboard the training ship
HMAS
Tingira
, which was docked in
Rose Bay
,
Sydney
. He served on board
HMAS
Encounter
until the end of the war, and became an able seaman in 1915. When he was eighteen, he survived the
Spanish flu
pandemic, which killed over fifty of his shipmates on a transport voyage between
Cape Town
and
Sierra Leone
.
Between the world wars, Allan was rescued by his captain with the help of a life preserver and a rope ladder from almost drowning after falling overboard in the
North Atlantic
during a storm.
[
citation needed
]
In 1932, he was promoted to
chief petty officer
.
Allan went on to serve on
HMAS
Adelaide
in the Second World War, sailing in convoy with HM Ships
Repulse
and
Hood
. He retired from the Navy on 30 October 1947, after serving thirty-four years, being granted his war service rank of
lieutenant
prior to discharge.
He met his wife, Ita Blakely, while his ship was docked in
Vancouver, British Columbia
,
Canada
, in 1924, and he continued to write to her until his ship returned to Vancouver in 1941. They married on that return trip and sailed to Australia as newlyweds on SS
Mariposa
via
Hawaii
? only twelve days before the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor
.
Later life
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Allan was awarded the
80th Anniversary Armistice Remembrance Medal
by the
Government of Australia
in 1999, and lived in the
Melbourne
suburb of
Essendon, Victoria
, until his death at the age of 106.
References
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External links
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