Five: Lance-Corporal C. E. Culley, a medical orderly of the 2/2nd Australian Hospital Ship Wanganella and one of a handful of Australian military personnel awarded the Italy Star

1939-45 Star; Italy Star; Pacific Star; War Medal 1939-45; Australia Service Medal 1939-45, all officially inscribed, ‘TX 4917 C. E. Culley’, together with Hobart Motor Cycle Club life member’s lapel badge, 1946, gold and enamel, the reverse inscribed, ‘C. E. Culley’, and Federated Mining Employees’ Association of Victoria & Tasmania, gold watch fob, presented to the recipient’s father, C. Culley, in 1913, good very fine or better (7) £500-600

Charles Ernest Culley was born in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, in June 1913, and enlisted in the Australian Military Forces at Hobart in June 1941. Posted as a medical orderly to the 2/2nd Australian Hospital Ship Wanganella in July 1941, he remained similarly employed until taking his discharge in May 1946.

The Wanganella had a particularly distinguished wartime record, steaming over 250,000 miles and carrying a total of 13,385 passengers. Converted for use as a hospital ship in May 1941, she made her first voyage that July, when she transported 2/13th Australian General Hospital to Singapore.

She then made three trips to collect wounded from the Middle East, and experienced some near misses when Port Tewfik was bombed during the first voyage. Then in May 1942 she made her first run to New Guinea, thus setting in motion an alternate sailing programme to the two battlefronts over the coming months, in addition to repatriating wounded New Zealanders.

In March 1944, she was ordered to Bombay, and consequently found herself dealing with numerous casualties following a massive explosion in an ammunition ship - at one time three miles square of the port was ablaze and some 20 ships were damaged, resultant casualties keeping Wanganella’s medical teams at work for 36 hours without respite.

Next ordered to the Mediterranean, Wanganella undertook two trips to Taranto, where medical teams were landed to collect wounded New Zealanders in May 1944. Culley, clearly among them, subsequently qualified for the Italy Star, one of just 83 such awards to Australian military personnel.

His final wartime voyages in Wanganella were in respect of collecting ex-P.O.Ws from the Far East - ‘the condition of these unfortunate people was pitiable, and was eloquent of the brutalities of a barbaric enemy. The hearts of the whole ship’s company were touched by their plight, and everything possible was done to help them.’

Sold with an original H.M.A.H.S. Wanganella ‘Lost Property’ form, and a quantity of copied research.