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AWAS on Rottnest - WF56815 CURLEY (married BLANCHETT)

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1943

Subcollections

Australian Women's Army Service on Rottnest

Overview

Documentation relating to the AWAS service of WF56815 Private Elizabeth Anzac Lorraine Curley (married name Blanchett) of Cannington

Historical information

Elizabeth Anzac Lorraine Curley was born in Subiaco on Anzac Day 1925, the daughter of Horace John Bozal Curley and Margaret Louisa Maher. The significance of the date was not lost on her parents. They gave her the middle name Anzac in memory of those who had served during the First World War and had landed on Gallipoli in April 1915.Elizabeth grew up in Sandstone and in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia. Curley completed her high school years by correspondence because there was no high school in the area. She would study under a tree, collecting her work from the stations that her family stayed on while her father worked. In September 1943, aged 18, Elizabeth enlisted in the recently authorised Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS), becoming one of the thousands of Indigenous Australians who volunteered during the Second World War, despite laws that often prevented them from doing so

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-32-54-113

Inscriptions and markings

In 2013, "Gunner Curly" returned to Rottnest Island as a special guest to mark the 75th anniversary of the proof firing of the 9.2 inch coast artillery guns on Oliver Hill. Today, her name is one of more than 4,400 names list on the Australian War Memorial’s Second World War
ndigenous Service List.

Contextual Information

The Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS) was formed in late 1941, two years after the outbreak of World War 2. Australian women had been agitating for some time for the chance to join the War Effort. They wanted to do “real work, not knit sock for the men.” The primary aim of AWAS was to release men from some military duties so they could be deployed in fighting units.

Initial recruitment was for duties associated with “women’s work”, clerks, cooks and typists, still being done my male soldiers. Beginning in early 1942 as invading Japanese swept through the South West Pacific towards Australia, many more military trades were opened to women including signals, weapons plotting, drivers, which involved close contact with the coast defence systems on Rottnest.

This collection brings together the stories of women in the Australian Women’s Army Service who were deployed on Rottnest Island as part of the defences of Fortress Fremantle from 30 September 1942 onward. The content is based on a “Saluting Their Service” exhibition developed by the Rottnest Voluntary Guides on the 80th Anniversary of this deployment. The exhibition was presented at Kingstown Barracks, Rottnest Island from 8-9 October 2022 and at the Australian Army Museum of Western Australia from 9 – 17 November 2022

Year

1943

Geotag

-27.988000615893, 119.30060528542

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Links to additional resources

AWM Article

Army Museum Virtual Visit #82

DVA Nominal Roll

Service Records - Smith

Australian Army Museum of Western Australia

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