REMEMBRANCE DAY 11/11/20

THREAD

1/ Leslie "Bull" Allen was an Australian Army stretcher bearer who served in World War 2. Though he is remembered for his exploits in the Pacific Theater of war, Bull Allen had already previously seen action......,

2/ Leslie "Bull" Allen joined the 2nd Australian Imperial Force in April 1940. Posted to 2/5th Infantry Battalion as a stretcher bearer, he saw action throughout the Middle East against Nazi & Axis forces. During this period he was hospitalized with what we now call PTSD

3/ Following the entry of Japan into WW2 in December 1941, Allen, along with large numbers of Australian forces serving in the Middle East, returned to Australia to be redeployed against Imperial Japanese forces. In Oct 1942 Bull Allen was sent to Papua New Guinea

4/ On the 7th and 8th of February 1943, Bull Allen was involved in an action at Crystal Creek in Papua New Guinea, rescuing wounded Australian soldiers while under fire. For this he was awarded the Military Medal.

5/ On 30th of July 1943, US Army 1/162nd was engaged in trying to take Mt Tambu in New Guinea from dug in Japanese troops. Bull Allen, who was in the general area at the time, heard that the US troops were taking heavy casualties. Two US medics had been KIA trying to save WIA

6/ Unarmed, & with complete disregard for his own safety, Leslie Bull Allen climbed the steep terrain of Mt Tambu, and under sniper, mortar and machine gun fire began to evacuate wounded US soldiers from the battlefield. Bull did this climb 12 times, until wounded, he collapsed

7/ By the end of the action, witnesses stated that Bull Allen's loose fitting uniform was peppered with bullet holes from near misses as he repeatedly entered the combat area. Allen was awarded the US Silver Star by the United States for his actions that day

8/ Soon after this, Bull was again hospitalized with "shell shock" which came to a head after he struck an officer. He was medically discharged in 1944, having seen 4yrs of war, and being one of a select few Allied soldiers to have seen action against German & Japanese Forces

9/ Following the war Bull Allen worked as a medical orderly in a hospital. Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of President Franklin Roosevelt, kept in touch with Bull many years after the war, in appreciation of his actions on Mt Tambu. Bull named his only daughter after the First Lady

10 / The after war years appear not to have been easy for Bull Allen. In 1982, at the relatively young age of 65, CPL Leslie "Bull" Allen died of a heart attack. The stress of his war service undoubtedly a factor in shortening his life

11/ In 2019, during a state visit to the US, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison offered to erect a statue of the famous photo of Bull Allen carrying a wounded US soldier in a location in Washington DC at a site chosen by the US, as a symbol of US Australian ties