17 Anti Tank Battery
Born: 11 November 1905, Kalajaki, Finland
Died: 1 July 1942, on the Montevideo Maru, South China Sea
Information provided by Nola McCann (George’s daughter) & the Australian Govt WWII Nominal Roll
I never met my father, HRG (George) Bjorklof NX55339. I was born in May, 1942 and he went down with the Montevideo Maru on 1 July. I don’t have much that was his – just his violin, a few photos, some mother of pearl spoons he sent from PNG and a sailing boat he carved and rigged. I did have some letters he sent to my mum from Rabaul, but forty odd years ago I lost them when my flat was broken into. However, I remember the letters all began “My Darling Girl”.
My mother, Grace Henderson, was the youngest child of a Scottish family living in Sherwood, Brisbane, and as the youngest she was traditionally called on to leave work and stay at home to look after my grandmother when she became crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. This very much isolated her as she had no income and few opportunities of meeting new friends, including young men. So she became the “spinster sister”. Then she met my dad. He was a mining engineer from Mount Isa and they corresponded in between his trips down to Brisbane. When war broke out, he signed up and they were married in Sydney on 14 September, 1940 during his army training. He was the love of her life and to wait so long for someone who loved you so dearly and then to lose him so soon, was a cruel blow.
Mum said he was a happy, laughing person, full of energy and enthusiasm. Every morning he would greet her with “A lovely day and a lovely girl”. (As she got older I used this greeting each time mum and I met until the day she died at 93.) She told me that if she and my dad were going somewhere, he would be up early brushing the coat she was going to wear and polishing her shoes. I inherited this energy, she said, along with the green eyes, auburn hair and rather large nose – she said it looked like it “was put on hot”. He was a little jealous and she spoke of the time she and her sister had managed somehow to get a new watch for him (they were hard to come by at that time) but it was to be a surprise for his birthday. He heard them whispering about this secret and became so upset they had to tell him the secret – but still made him wait until his birthday! Not a perfect man by any means.
My father probably never knew I had arrived but he wanted a girl he had said, and they had picked the name “Nola”. He took a pair of booties of mine with him to Rabaul and was so hopeful about the future. My mum said when the Japanese invaded he stayed behind with the wounded and she never gave up hope that he would return to us even when she received the telegram that he was presumed dead. When the Montevideo Maru sank she thought he may have managed to get to one of the islands somehow and believed that, if he possibly could, he would find a way to come home.
It hurt her to hear people suggest that she and I had been abandoned but she never, ever considered this.
Times were very hard for her and she said that sometimes the only thing that got her up in the morning was that she had me to look after. However, we continued to live with my Aunt at Sherwood until we managed to build a small home of our own just across the road – no small feat on a war widow’s pension. However, I can only remember happy times so she must have done a good job as both mother and father.
My mother remarried years later but insisted I remain a Bjorklof – I had my own father, she said. She was very loyal to my stepfather but I was never adopted by him. Over the years she kept my father’s memory alive for me and although I was happy my two sons had a “live” grand-dad, I told them about Papa Bjorklof, their real grandfather and war hero.
– NOLA McCANN
Nola McCann still has the boat shown in this photo, which is believed to have been taken while in camp in Sydney prior to embarkation for New Guinea
George Bjorklof’s Army Unit – George is in the second row, far right
George Bjorklof’s Army Unit – location is almost certainly at the training camp in Australia prior to embarkation for New Guinea