Appendix I Part 2: Tom "Diver" Derrick, VC

As a compliment to my interview with David Milne, Senior Designer at Relic Entertainment, for the recent release of Company of Heroes 3 and as a companion piece to the game’s associated briefing room I have prepared a biography of perhaps the most famous Australian Soldier of all time; Lieutenant Tom “Diver” Derrick, VC. I don’t think I’m too far off the mark in describing him as the Australian Audy Murphy, a ranker who performed so many feats of derring do that he earned himself a commission, his nation’s highest award, and became a celebrity in the process. Unfortunately, unlike Murphy who survived the war, Derrick would not get to enjoy his status after hostilities had ceased. 

Diver Derrick was an Australian Soldier who fought in several campaigns of the second world war including the North Africa campaign, which is featured in the game, where he was present for the Battles of Tobruk and El Alamein, discussed back in Episode 14 if I’m not mistaken. Following the North African campaign he returned to Australia, received his commission and went back on campaign in the South Pacific, participating in the New Guinea Campaign where he earned his Victoria Cross. Later he participated in the battle for Borneo where he was killed by fire from a Japanese machine gun.

Diver Derrick was born Thomas Currie Derrick on March 20th, 1914 in Medindie South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide, to David and Ada Derrick. His parents were poor but he did not want for the necessities and grew into a strong, athletic child. Like any good Australian youth he had taken up boxing, cricket and Aussie Rules football by his teens and earned his nickname “Diver” for his frequent dips in the Port River. Unfortunately, due to the depression, he had to leave school early to begin working odd jobs and help his family make ends meet. He wound up taking a job at a bakery while fixing bicycles and selling newspapers on the side. 

As the depression worsened Diver lost his job at the bakery and so decided in 1931 to hit the road with some friends and search for work via bicycle, which is kind of the most depression era thing I have ever heard of. They traveled 140 miles east to the town of Berri where they ended up camping on the shores of the Murray River. While living what I can only assume was his best hobo life, the Royal Adelaide show came to Berri. Tom, being the rough and tumble sort to box and travel cross country by bicycle, decided to enter into a boxing match against the former Australian lightweight champion. The contest was to stay upright for three rounds against the champion. After getting knocked down in the first round he managed to hold his ground in the next two and win the contest, at the expense of some minor physical injuries. After a little over a year in Berri he managed to find regular work picking fruit and met his future wife, Violet Beryl Leslie. He stayed in Berri until the outbreak of the war. 

After the European war began in 1939 Australia eyed the war nervously.  The Government in Canberra placed a litany of limits on service and created competing services, an “overseas service” meaning in europe and north africa, and a home defense force, sometimes called a militia, that would be used to defend against Japan. The Fall of France in June of 1940 shocked Australia and the world however, and forced not only the Australian, but all of the British Empire to rapidly reevaluate their commitment to defeating the Axis powers. It was in the aftermath of June 1940 that Tom Derrick, along with thousands of other young, and sometimes not so young, Australian men volunteered for service. 48,000 of them volunteered in June 1940 alone, essentially making up all of the Army’s shortfalls in one month. 

Derrick enlisted as a private in the Second Australian Imperial Force, or simply the AIF, the body organized to serve as Australia’s overseas Army in Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific. The AIF consisted of five divisions, four infantry and one armored. After completing his initial training in Woodside South Australia, Derrick found himself in 2/48th battalion in the 9th Division. He was a bit of a trouble maker and was disciplined for absence without leave as well as for fighting but on November 17th 1940 he, along with the rest of the battalion, was aboard ship and bound for North Africa. 

After an uneventful passage through the Indian ocean and Suez canal they arrived in Palestine where they began training in desert warfare and engaging in sport. Derrick, the avid athlete since his youth, was one of the prime promoters and participants in the events, keeping both a record book and winning many of the cross country races they put on. They would not wait long to enter into actual combat however. In March they departed Palestine and traveled west through Alexandria to Libya and thence along the coast road to Gazala. After reaching the town they began digging in and preparing its defense but shortly thereafter they withdrew to Tobruk arriving on April 9th 1941.

There Derrick encountered the enemy, Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps, for the first time. Unfortunately for Derrick and the rest of his battalion the Allied position in Tobruk became cut off from ground lines of communication and the town was laid siege by the german and italian armies.The Australians would hold out in Tobruk for a grueling eight months, having to rely on resupply by sea. During the siege Derrick would receive his first promotion. He frequently participated in patrols beyond the defensive lines and distinguished himself during one of the Axis’ assaults on the town on April 30th. That night the german-italian force launched a significant offensive against Tobruk in which they took significant ground. The following morning the 2/48th counterattacked to regain the lost positions. What ensued was a brutal firefight in which the battalion was forced to withdraw, which Derrick referred to a “Bobby Dazzler of a firefight”. Despite the failure of the counterattack Derrick was recognized for his bravery and promoted to corporal. 

As a corporal he had achieved the first non-commissioned officer rank and led a squad of Soldiers. He would continue to distinguish himself for the duration of the siege, at one point identifying a German impersonating a British officer leading to the spy being captured. In September he was made platoon sergeant, the senior NCO in the platoon, despite only being a corporal. Their ordeal would come to an end in October, when the battalion was withdrawn on the 22nd via ship. They debarked in Tel Aviv where they were given a whopping three days leave, after just spending seven straight months under siege. 

They would enjoy a relatively easy spell for the remainder of 1941 and the first half of 1942 as they rested, trained, and resupplied in Syria. As the 2/48th lived the easy life of garrison duty Rommel was busy preparing another jab at Alexandria. In June his unit was reassigned to Egypt where it was to participate in the first battle of El-Alamein. On July 10th he took part in a major assault on German positions at Tel el Eisa. Leading elements of his platoon withstood withering german fire and assaulted multiple german machine gun positions resulting in the capture of over 100 enemy. After seizing the German positions the platoon dug in to withstand the coming German counterattack. When it finally came their positions were overrun by tanks. Rather than retreat they held their ground waiting for the follow on infantry force. When it came the Australians emerged and attacked the infantry and the tanks from behind. Derrick managed to destroy two tanks himself. For his outstanding performance during the engagement he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the second highest medal for commonwealth forces after the Victoria Cross. On July 28th he was promoted to full sergeant, the rank commensurate with his position as platoon sergeant.

Derrick would also be present for the Second Battle of El-Alamein. During that battle he engaged in what can only be described as daring exploits of military bravery. On October 23rd, while assaulting German positions he leapt on top of a gun carrier armed with a Thompson sub machine gun and cleared out three machine gun nests nearly single-handedly. After silencing the guns he ordered the driver to reverse up to each one to personally make sure each one was clear of living enemy. He then brought his platoon forward to occupy the positions. 

At the end of October, after well over a year on campaign in north Africa the whole of the 9th Division had suffered serious casualties among officers and men. Thus Derrick was named acting company commander when there weren't enough officers to go around. In January 1943 the 9th Division was reassigned from the North African theater and sailed back to Australia. They arrived in Melbourne in February and were granted leave while the unit was brought back up to full strength before being sent to follow-on training. He took this time to see his wife in Adelaide while the battalion was detached from the division headquarters and sent to Queensland to prepare for combat in the south pacific. 

They practiced jungle warfare in the Atherton Tablelands at the base of the Cape York peninsula. While there they also practiced amphibious landings near Cairns. The humid, tropical conditions must have aggravated old injuries to his right eye however as Derrick was hospitalized for part of July and most of August. Following his recovery he was returned to the 2/48th and embarked for operations in New Guinea. With the battalion plussed up was again acting in a position commensurate with his rank, serving as a platoon sergeant. 

Derrick, and the 2/48th would participate in Douglas MacArthur's attack on Lae. He and his unit landed at Red Beach 19 miles east of Lae and fought their way westward toward the town. The fighting was scant however, as the Japanese spent most of the battle withdrawing before action could be joined. The one real engagement he participated in was the capture of Mahlang Airfield on September 4th. Following the capture of Lae the allied force would turn its attention toward the capture of Finschhafen, 60 miles east on the Huon Peninsula. It was during the battle for Finschhafen that he would earn his Victoria Cross, the highest award available to commonwealth troops. 

As the allied force maneuvered against the Japanese forces defending Finschhafen they encountered stiff resistance. By October 2nd the Division had secured a foothold in the town but the troops were fixed, they needed to find a way to relieve the pressure. The 26th Brigade, of which Derrick was a member, was sent forward to reinforce the position then in November ordered to attack a ridgeline running east west north of Finschhafen known as the Sattelberg. The battle, which began on November 17th, would end up being a slog up steep slopes and through dense vegetation. The Australians tried to use armor and artillery as much as possible but the restricted terrain often meant that infantry had to advance unsupported. 

In the initial assault the 2/48th Battalion advanced in columns in an attempt to infiltrate japanese lines and bypass their strong points rather than conduct a frontal assault against prepared positons. They advanced in company columns led by infantry and followed by tanks and engineers to clear out any particularly tough positions. Due to the raor of the preparatory bombardment the Japanese had not heard the rumbling of the Matilda tanks that the Australians brought to bear and thus were startled out of their forward positions. This effect would not last long. After discovering the presence of tanks the Japanese defenders quickly adopted anti-tank tactics to remove the armor threat. The advance slowed as the Japanese would damage advancing tanks after the infantry had passed and then rush out with their infantry to finish the vehicle off. 

At the start of the battle Derrick was acting company sergeant major, the equivalent of an American First Sergeant, for Company B 2/48th Battalion, but after all the lieutenants had been killed he was once again made an acting platoon leader. It was while leading 11 Platoon on November 24th that the infamous events surrounding the award of his Victoria Cross occurred. 

That morning B Company was ordered to take a flanking position on a ridgeline with no good approaches. The only way to reach the crest line was to advance beneath a sheer cliff face through rolling slopes covered in nothing but highly flammable kunai grass. The company spent the entire day making painstaking progress up the hill but oppressive japanese machine gun fire and grenade attacks repulsed them several times. By dusk, they had only managed to make it part way up the hill to their objective. After a full day of hard fighting with little to show for it the company commander decided to retire for the evening and ordered his platoons to withdraw. Derrick was having none of it. When word reached him that the CO wanted him to fall back he replied “Bugger the CO. Just give me twenty more minutes and we’ll have this place. Tell him I’m pinned down and can’t get out.” 

With that he resumed his advance forward and aggressively assaulted ten Japanese positions. Supported by Bren machine gun fire Derrick attacked the defenders with grenades clearing out the first position single-handedly. Himself now pinned down by machine gun fire he ordered one of his sections to flank the japanese ro the right. Supported by enfilading fire he was able to resume his advance, this time up the cliff face behind the enemy machine gun pits. While holding on to the rock wall with one hand he lobbed grenades down on the Japanese with the other. True to his word, twenty minutes later he had personally cleared out seven machine gun pits with grenades and small arms fire and was on top of the ridge. 

With only three enemy positions remaining Derrick went back to pick up his platoon and finish the assault. He personally led the attacks on the remaining positions, conducting at least four separate close quarters grenade attacks to finish the job. Derrick and his platoon did not withdraw as their commander had ordered and instead seized the Japanese positions on the ridgeline and held them for the remainder of the night. At the behest of the 2/48th battalion commander, at 10:00 in the morning of November 25th, 1943 the Australian flag was raised over the Sattelberg ridge by Tom Derrick himself. 

The final assault on the Sattelberg ridge became known as “Derrick’s show” within the division where he was already something of a local celebrity but his actions that day would propel him to national war hero status. For his actions taht day he was nominated for the victoria cross and on March 23rd, 1944 the London Gazette published his citation. It read:

“The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the VICTORIA CROSS to:-

Sergeant Thomas Currie Derrick, D.C.M., Australian Military Forces.

For most conspicuous courage, outstanding leadership and devotion to duty during the final assault on Sattelberg in November, 1943.

On 24th November, 1943, a company of an Australian Infantry Battalion was ordered to outflank a strong enemy position sited on a precipitous cliff-face and then to attack a feature 150 yards from the township of Sattelberg. Sergeant Derrick was in command of his platoon of the company. Due to the nature of the country, the only possible approach to the town lay through an open kunai patch situated directly beneath the top of the cliffs. Over a period of two hours many attempts were made by our troops to clamber up the slopes to their objective, but on each occasion the enemy prevented success with intense machine-gun fire and grenades.

Shortly before last light it appeared that it would be impossible to reach the objective or even to hold the ground already occupied and the company was ordered to retire. On receipt of this order, Sergeant Derrick, displaying dogged tenacity, requested one last attempt to reach the objective. His request was granted.

Moving ahead of his forward section he personally destroyed, with grenades, an enemy post which had been holding up this section. He then ordered his second section around on the right flank. This section came under heavy fire from light machine-guns and grenades from, six enemy posts. Without regard for personal safety he clambered forward well ahead of the leading men of the section and hurled grenade after grenade, so completely demoralising the enemy that they fled leaving weapons and grenades. By this action alone the company was able to gain its first foothold on the precipitous ground.

Not content with the work already done, he returned to the first section, and together with the third section of his platoon advanced to deal with the three remaining posts in the area. On four separate occasions he dashed forward and threw grenades at a range of six to eight yards until these positions were finally silenced.

In all, Sergeant Derrick had reduced ten enemy posts. From the vital ground he had captured the remainder of the Battalion moved on to capture Sattelberg the following morning.

Undoubtedly Sergeant Derrick's fine leadership and refusal to admit defeat, in the face of a seemingly impossible situation, resulted in the capture of Sattelberg. His outstanding gallantry, thoroughness and devotion to duty were an inspiration not only to his platoon and company but to the whole Battalion.”

Following the battle for Finschafen Derrick spent his fourth Christmas in a row overseas. In February 1944 the unit would leave New guinea and return to Australia via Brisbane. Taking leave after arriving he returned home to Adelaide to visit Beryl one more time. Unfortunately, in April he became ill with malaria and was hospitalized. Thereafter he returned to the battalion garrison before entering into officer training in August. Completing the officer program in November he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and, despite Army policy, returned to 2/48th as a platoon commander. There he would rejoin the battalion for more training in the tablelands and came to befriend Reg Saunders, the first Aboriginal to receive an officer’s commission in the Australian army. 

On May 1st 1945 Derrick returned to combat for the first time in over a year, participating in the landing at Tarakan in Borneo. For several weeks the 2/48th battalion fought through tenacious and determined Japanese defenses. On May 22nd Derrick’s platoon participated in a company assault on a Japanese hill code named Freda. For two days already the battalion had attempted to size the hill but the defenders proved adamant about holding their positions. On the 21st, the battalion commander determined that a smaller, more agile force might better be able to utilize the restrictive terrain. Derrick’s company was chosen to conduct the assault. The next morning they launched their attack and managed to claw the Japanese fighting positions away from them. By evenfall they controlled Freda hill and dug in to hold out for the night. That night, at about 3:30 AM the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire burst through the Australian lines. After the initial burst Derrick raised his torso out of his fighting position to check on his men when the crack of machine gun bullets filled the humid jungle air once again. 

When echoes of gunfire fire faded Derrick lay bleeding profusely from five bullet wounds tracing a diagonal line from his left hip to his right shoulder. He didn’t die immediately. He carried on issuing orders and when the sun rose discovered to his horror that a Japanese pitbull-box directly overlooked the position they had spent the entire night. Unable to help, he was evacuated to the Brigade hospital. While on the operating table the surgeon discovered just how damaging the bullet wounds were, his liver had been torn to shreds and he had sustained serious internal injuries. He died during an operation to repair his wounds and was buried that afternoon at the Tarakan cemetery. He was later disinterred and reburied at the Labuan War Cemetery in Labuan Malaysia.

Derrick's legacy survives to this day and he is often touted as the greatest Australian Soldier to have ever served. He was not only a tactical genius, able to quickly determine the best means of assaulting a position, but also a natural leader and apparently very personable. He kept a diary throughout the war and continually wrote letters back to Beryl revealing a reflective and intelligent man. After his performance in North Africa he could well have found a way to sit out the rest of the war but he not only returned to combat but went back to the exact same unit where he had been an enlisted man. In the end it cost him his life in the very last days of the war but his honor, bravery, and selfless service live on today.