Princess Royal Fortress Military Museum > Records

Second World War Black and White Photograph of 2/3rd Field Regiment Hockey Team, Royal Australian Artillery

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c. 1940 - 1945

Overview

A black and white photograph of 11 soldiers in hockey uniforms consisting of shorts and long-sleeved sports shirts. Three (3) soldiers are sitting on the ground in the foreground of the photo, with two (2) men kneeling behind them and four (4) men standing at the rear. Each player is holding a hockey stick and one is wearing a set of goalkeeper’s pads.

Historical information

Raised in Wayville South Australia on 1 November 1939, the 2/3rd Field Regiment of the Royal Australian Artillery consisted of men from all Australian states and was assigned to the 6th Division. The majority of the officers and Non-Commissioned officers were previously members of the Militia. South Australian recruits were assigned to the 5th Battery while all other recruits comprised the 6th Battery. The Regiment sailed to the United Kingdom in 1940 after being diverted from the Middle East and then saw service in North Africa, Greece and Crete (1941). In 1942 the Regiment was back in Australia until the Aitape-Wewak Campaign in Papua New Guinea which took place between November 1944 and August 1945. It is here that the Japanese Land Army surrendered to Australian forces on 14 August.

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-12-2025.5.1

Item type

Photographs

Themes

War and Conflict > World War 2

Material

Photographic Paper

Width

58 mm

Height or length

84 mm

Weight

1 g

Inscriptions and markings

Handwritten details on the rear of the photo: "Hockey Team / 2/3 Fld Regt / RAA." with "Velox" inside an oval shape appears 3 times in black printers ink.

Contextual information

Two of the six (6) Harris brothers from Albany served in the 2/3 Australian Field Regiment; Reginald Frederick George Harris and Walter Ernest William Harris. It is possible that one of these two brothers appears in the photograph.

Keywords

2/3rd Field Regiment Second World War

Australian Army Second World War

Royal Australian Artillery

Year

c. 1940 - 1945

Primary significance criteria

Historic significance

Social or spiritual significance

Comparative significance criteria

Interpretive capacity

Well provenanced