Ernie still has what it takes to be a Rat

At 105 years of age, you could ­forgive Ernie Walker the odd lapse in memory. But this former Rat of Tobruk is as sharp as a tack.

Ernie Walker, one of the last living Rats of Tobruk and who turned 105 on Thursday, at home with his wife Bev. Picture: Britta Campion

At 105 years of age, you could ­forgive Ernie Walker the odd lapse in memory or even the ­occasional mental blank. But this former Rat of Tobruk — a man halfway through his eleventh ­decade — is as sharp as a tack.

“Memories do come and go,” he admits from his home in the NSW southern highlands, “but I still remember things from the war and North Africa — mostly bad things, but some good”.

Only 17 of the 14,000 original Aussie “Rats” are still with us.

After serving with distinction in the 2/1st Pioneer Battalion in North Africa and later in New Guinea along the Kokoda Track, Mr Walker is modest about his wartime achievements, as well as the historic events in which he played a part.

“I suppose I can look back on a career and be proud of my service and for being one of the last Rats of Tobruk still knocking about,” he says.

Born in inner Sydney’s Forest Lodge in 1916, Mr Walker enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces in Paddington on May 4, 1940, shortly before German troops ­entered Belgium. He was 24.

Before the war, Mr Walker worked making and restringing tennis rackets. “I decided to enlist in the army not so much for king and country,” he says, “but for the whole adventure of it.”

In early 1941, Mr Walker was part of the Allied coalition that stormed the Libyan coast, east of Benghazi, and seized the ancient city port of Tobruk, which was then controlled by the Italians.

“Being a private suited my temperament,” says Mr Walker, “I wasn’t giving big orders and I wasn’t in charge of people’s lives.”

For almost 250 days, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his elite Afrika Korps lay siege to the garrison at Tobruk in a desperate attempt to recapture the port. But the Australian defenders dug in for the long haul.

“We were given the name the Rats (of Tobruk) by the German propagandist Lord Haw Haw,” he says. “The name was meant to be a dig about us being trapped like rats and living in holes”, but the Australians soon embraced it as a badge of honour, a title which ­exemplified the courageous and resourceful virtues of the Digger.

“Lord Haw Haw used to get on the radio and taunt us … telling us that US soldiers in Australia had taken our wives and girlfriends.”

Ernie Walker as an army private. Picture: Supplied

Amid a fusillade of shells and tank attacks, the encircled Rats endured stifling heat and freezing nights, often seeking refuge in foxholes, dugouts and caves.

“It was very primitive living,” he says. “The place was hell. We crawled from one fox hole to ­another. You were awake for days. One day bled into another and it was hard to keep time”.

Asked what he feared most, he replies: “I was afraid my mates would see that I was afraid.”

Soldiers were given 900ml of water a day for drinking, cooking and bathing, says Mr Walker. “We were always thirsty in the heat and dust, and water supplies were very low … you were always looking for a drop of water wherever you could get it.”

Despite the hardships, this former soldier bears no animosity to the enemy: “They were doing their job and we were doing ours.

“I remember one night we and the Germans sang Lili Marlene (made famous by Marlene Dietrich). We could hear their singing over the fox holes and joined in.

“But in the end,” he adds, “they couldn’t get us. We wouldn’t surrender. We were fair dinkum”.

 

Reflecting on the campaign before his death, Rommel is purported to have said: “If ever I had to capture hell, I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold it.”

After almost a thousand days of overseas deployment in North Africa and the Pacific, Mr Walker returned home to begin a new life.

“Before the invention of the motor car, Sydney was full of carriages and horses and I that gave me a natural affinity for horses … I knew I wanted to work with them when I came back,” he says.

Mr Walker established a stud and training stables with his wife Bev in Penrose, where they bred Australian stock horses.

In 2016, he was awarded an OAM for services to veterans through the Rats of Tobruk Association of NSW, an award of which he remains deeply proud. He continues to attend anniversary commemorations and plays an active part in the RTA.

Speaking about the COVID restrictions on some Anzac Day marches across the country, he says: “I can’t reconcile that to limiting services … the marches are about meeting your mates who you served with, talking and reminiscing and having a few drinks.

“It is important to have a ­service to go to where you can ask what Jack, Joey and Harry are up to,” he says.