Private Alfred King - 5/400008
Private King was a World War II
veteran who volunteered for the Australian ground force for Korea, (K-force),
in August 1950. King was quick to
volunteer for service in Korea despite spending several years as a Prisoner of
War (POW) after the fall of Singapore. As a POW he was sent to work on the
Burma Railway and was then transported to mainland Japan to provide labour for
the Japanese war effort.
Photo of Private King (Left) from the Western Mail Newspaper 17 August 1950
Alfred Victor King came to Western Australia in May 1932 as a Child Migrant. On the ship’s passenger list there are three King boys listed, Alfred who was about 10 years old and Herbert and Albert who were both about 12 years old.[1] Were Herbert and Albert King Alfred’s twin brothers or was Albert King from another family altogether?
Herbert King has an entry on
Fremantle’s Welcome Wall that says Herbert came to Australia with his brother
Alfred and joined their older brother George at Fairbridge Farm School in
Pinjarra, leaving his mother and three sisters behind in England. Herbert
married a lady named Bernice and had three children.[2]
Alfred King absconded from
Fairbridge when he was 17 years old to avoid staying as a Ward of the State
until he was 21.[3] By that age King would have been working as a
farm labourer or station hand and he changed his age and name to enlist for World
War II in August 1941. His World War II records give his date of birth as 22
February 1922. Possibly King was born as late as 1924. His gravestone shows his age at death as 26
years.
King enlisted as Albert John King. Why did King choose the name
Albert John? Was it because of the other
Albert King who was on the same ship as him from England to Fremantle? Did he
take his older brother’s name or the name of another child from an unconnected
family who travelled from England with King and his older brother?
King served in the 2/4th
Machine Gun Battalion during World War II alongside some other men who grew up
at Fairbridge. 70% of the Fairbridge Boys enlisted for World War II. [4]
King was taken prisoner by the Japanese and sent to work on the Burma Railway
with D force on the Thai side. After this death railway was completed in late
1943 (9500 Australian POWs worked on the Burma Railway and more than 2600 died)
the POWs were sent back to Singapore and in King was sent to Japan in early 1945
on the Rashin Maru. This was a horror 70-day
trip on a junk boat that got attacked by allied forces and was also hit by a
typhoon.[5]
King was released in October 1945 and on
his return to Australia went to work in Norseman, instead of going back to
Leonora where he was working prior to his enlistment.[6]
King was one of the World War II
soldiers whose enlistment into the K-force was processed quickly and he was on
the ground in Korea at the end of September 1950. King served with the Special Forces Unit of
the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, (3RAR), and was
killed in action on 8 November 1950 after only 42 days in Korea.[7]
After King’s death, his brother
Bert, (Herbert?), from Osborne Park inserted a death notice in the newspaper as
did Rene his sister-in-law. [8]
Whose wife was Rene? Herbert’s wife’s
name was Bernice, but a George King died suddenly in Bunbury in 1945 and his
wife’s name was Irene. [9]
King’s body was identified by an
ID board of review in Japan nearly five years after his death when his remains
were recovered from North Korea during Operation Glory and reinterned at the UN
Memorial Cemetery in Korea. [10] No clothing or personal effects were found
with his remains.
There are a lot of mysteries to
still be solved about Private King’s early life, his true date of birth and the
name he used to enlist in the Australian Army.
He deserves to be remembered as a brave West Australian soldier who
suffered many hardships during his service as a machine gunner in World War II
but volunteered to serve again in Korea and there paid the ultimate price.
Private King is remembered at the
Fairbridge War Memorial in Pinjarra as well as at the UN Memorial Cemetery in
Korea and on the State War Memorial in Kings Park, Perth.
[1] Fremantle,
Western Australia Passenger lists 1897-1963 Ancestry Library Edition. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com.au/.
Accessed 23 May 2023
[4]. Fairbridge Farm School, Pinjarra. https://2nd4thmgb.com.au/story/fairbridge-farm-school/. Accessed 23 May 2022
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