BADLY smashed up with two broken legs, a broken arm, three broken ribs and a broken jaw, Mark (Bud) Palmer was unconscious for 16 days.
He spent six months in a hospital in Cairo after a booby-trapped motor bike blew up on him after survived the Battle of El Alamein.
Yet this 'Rat of Tobruk' is the epitome of toughness.
With a spine of steel and a heart of gold, Bud said that he learnt the lesson of true mateship during his time in active service.
Turning 93 in June, Bud has a remarkable memory for dates and events and can 'take you back there' with his frank and vivid recollections of the Second World War.
Bud served with the famous Ninth Division with whom he saw active service in the Middle East, as a Rat of Tobruk, at the Battle of El Alamein, and also in New Guinea and Borneo.
Raised on a farm in Millaa Millaa, Bud was 20 years old when he and a friend Ernie Dunn joined the army.
He first wanted to be a pilot in the air force but because his education was only up to the Seventh Grade, he was told "Army for you mate!"
Bud enlisted on the May 24, 1940, and was discharged on Sept 26, 1945, after the war finished on Aug 14, 1945.
He was in the AIF. Engineers (Australian Imperial Forces) and was originally a sapper but became a Lance Corporal and then a Corporal.
While in the army he was dubbed with the nickname 'Bud'.
As an engineer with the Ninth Division, he travelled with the infantry in case they ran into mines.
Bud's job was to blow everything up bombs, water points, bridges, cuttings, anything that the Germans could use.
During his service he also had to open mine fields and blow paths through barbed wire entanglements.
At one stage he was a dispatch rider for his company on a captured Italian motorbike.
He would search for landmines and mines in the ground with his bayonet and then pull them out by hand.
"You had to be very, very careful," Bud said of this exercise. "The Germans had anti-personnel mines in amongst the actual mine fields as well.
"One wrong move and that's it," Bud said.
Bud tells of the time when they realised they were cut off and surrounded at Tobruk.
"Our general, Leslie Morshead, put the infantry down in the front line. I was in the second line and our artillery and captured Italian guns were way behind us. We were in shallow trenches that were old Italian defences and we were told to stay down as best we could and let the German tanks roll over us.
"I could hear our radio and it was saying, 2000 yards, 1000 yards, 500 yards, fire. The guns and the tanks were in battle and we looked to our front and coming out of the dust, shoulder to shoulder, were lines of German soldiers in blue uniforms and steel helmets and I thought, I won't be seeing Aussie again.
"This Army has never been defeated and haven't we just retreated from them in the Benghazi Handicap?
"Our machine guns opened up and we let go with everything we had. They turned and then 17 out of approximately 30 Panzers roared back over us."
Bud said that the greatest trouble in Tobruk was a shortage of food and water.
Flies, fleas and dust also exacerbated the appalling conditions.
At Tobruk, Bud recalls being sent out with a mate to observe what the Germans were doing for a period of one week. They would settle down before daylight and Bud and his mate would lie there all day to observe the Germans, before coming back at night.
There were 16 men in the section.
Bud and his mate thought, "What did we do to deserve this?"
When returning one night, they came back to find that all the other 14 men had been taken prisoner.
Planes would bomb the harbour and then machine gun the area.
Ships came in at night, unloaded supplies and took out the wounded.
"The Stuka dive bombers attacked nearly every day and they really screamed as they came down at us," Bud recalls.
The Aussie force was eventually withdrawn from Tobruk and later took part in the Battle of El Alamein.
"Our 1200 big guns lit up the sky from horizon to horizon during the battle which lasted from Oct 23 to Nov 6, and was fought night and day."
Finally the German General Rommel, gave the order to retreat. In two years of war he had never, ever given the order to retreat.
Ironically, it was after surviving the Battle of El Alamein that Bud got blown up. He was taken to an Advanced Dressing Station, which was located right on the front line with the doctor's orders being, "When he comes to, give him whatever he wants, he won't live for long."
Bud was then taken from El Alamein to Cairo which was 300 miles away, in a army hospital train.
Coming back to Australia in April, 1943 on a hospital ship, he spent several months at home in Ravenshoe before being sent back to rejoin his unit.
He was then sent to New Guinea and landed there in October 1943.
Bud recalls that, "Aussies always have a sense of humour."
Once, in New Guinea, Bud along with a group of the Ninth Division were climbing a muddy track to where they were to launch an attack.
The conditions were the most dangerous and atrocious imaginable, with explosions going off everywhere. For every step that they took, they would slide back more than three times as much.
As they were struggling in the mud, Bud noticed a soldier on the side of the track. When Bud got to where he was, the person asked him "Are you arsey?"(meaning are you lucky?).
To which Bud replied, "No but you would need to be to get out of this!" and the soldier then responded with a barrage of some very 'heavy duty' language to say the least!
A bit further up the track, Bud later asked a mate who the person was sitting on the side of the track 'slinging off' at him?
His mate replied that it had been Father O'Reilly, a priest, asking if soldiers were RC Roman Catholic so he could give them a quick prayer and a blessing!
Bud said that he looked just like one of them, a normal soldier and certainly didn't look like a priest at all!
The following is an extract from a special tribute to the men of the Ninth Australian Division by Major Bill Partridge in the UK and addressed to Quentin Bryce, the Governor of Queensland.
"Respectfully, I ask you to grant this request, that if and when you are able to attend the Annual Lunch of the Ninth Australian Division, you will tell those present of the great esteem that we soldiers of the UK feel for all the men of the Ninth Australian Division.
"When, in June 1942, our Division had retreated 300 miles from Gazala and arrived on July 1 at a place on the map now called El Alamein, it was obvious to us that the easiest route for Rommel to get 50 more miles to Alexandria would be along the coast road and the railway.
"The Ninth were given the job of stopping him. They stayed there until victory on November 3, 1942. I feel certain that no other division could have done that.
"The Battles for Tel el Lisa (The Hill of Jesus), the Orchard, and others were fought and won under their commander, General Morshead, in a way that we admired.
"Any other division would have been relieved for a rest, but not the Ninth. Without this resistance to Rommel, the Battle of El Alamein would have been lost, and with it, the war."
Bud attended a reunion of the 'Rats of Tobruk' Association at the Gold Coast a few years ago.
In a remarkable coincidence, a friend who was there introduced him to a German soldier who served at Tobruk.
It was mentioned that in Germany they have a 'Rats of Tobruk' Association who also have reunions.
Bud swapped 'Rats of Tobruk' pins with the former German soldier.
