By Jim Fagan
It will be a happy time when Second World War veteran, Bill Hoskin of Tewantin, celebrates his 100th birthday with family and friends this Sunday but he admits it could be happier.
Bill who served in the Middle East and New Guinea would dearly love his son, Marc, daughter in law Jenny and grandson Michael to be there but Covid restrictions and the border closure between Victoria and Queensland means they are locked out.
“It’s disappointing,” Bill told Noosa Today.
“Marc, however, has arranged a special lunch at a Noosaville restaurant this Sunday. Friends are coming from Tin Can Bay, Tara and Brisbane and I have nieces in Cooroy and Sunshine Beach who will be there.
“It would perfect if Marc and his family were also there.”
Already, tributes and congratulations have come from Queen Elizabeth, the Governor-General David Hurley and his wife Linda, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the Federal Member for Wide Bay Llew O’Brien, State Member for Noosa, Sandy Bolton, and Noosa Mayor Clare Stewart.
Bill is the only surviving 100-year-old war veteran in Noosa and next Tuesday, the actual day of Bill’s birthday, the president of the Tewantin RSL sub branch Gino Amarrador and RSL Wellbeing team member Richard Murphy, will present a certificate of congratulations from Queensland RSL.
And the following Sunday, Bill, a former elder of the St Andrews Presbyterian Church at Tewantin, will be guest of honour at a celebration lunch at Noosa Care, Carramar, where he has just moved in.
Bill told me how he was milking a cow near Kingaroy in July 1940 when he decided he didn’t like hearing how Britain, as he describes it, was “getting thumped by the Germans so I said to myself, ‘Bill, knock off milking cows and go and give them a hand’.”
He went to Redbank Army camp near Ipswich, fibbed about his age and joined the army that same month.
“I told the enlistment officer I was 21 but I was really only 18. I was the second youngest in my outfit of 1200 men. The youngest was 15. I was six months there and then we were sent to the Middle East.”
Bill was a troop supply column driver and well remembers what became known to the troops as The Benghazi Handicap.
“We were in the middle of the Sinai Desert and taking a convoy to reinforce the 9th Division but we met them coming back down the desert. Rommel (General Erwin Rommel) was chasing the hell out of them back to Tobruk.
“Eventually, Monty (Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery) took control and we fought back and won at El Alamein.”
Bill also saw service in New Guinea.
“I was two years there before being pulled out with every skin disease known to man and some that weren’t. I was six months in a skin hospital before being discharged as medically unfit.”
And what was he doing when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945?
“I was driving a truck for the Navy in Brisbane and when I heard about the bomb I knew the war would soon be over.”
Bill and his wife, Nancy retired to Tewantin in 1996 from Tara where they had a stock and station agency. Nancy died in December last year after 61 years of marriage.
Was he often asked about the secret of his long life? He said: “Dozens of times. I tell them I don’t know. Just one of those lucky things, hard work, good living, the usual stuff.”
