Pte. John "Jock" Murphy
British Army 1st Btn. Gordon Highlanders
from:Portobello, Scotland
Jock Murphy, my Grandfather was a military man. t aged 15 he tried to enlist in the Royal Scots but his mother put a swift end to that. She was anti military having lost her husband in 1920 to war related injuries. Jock's father, John Murphy, was a KOSB and he served in the first and second Boer Wars and in France WW1. Jock was determined to be in the military and when his mother decided in 1928 to pack up and head for Australia Jock stayed behind and aged 17, he joined the Gordon Highlanders. He served in India at the Khyber pass, Peshawar and Palestine and he participated in the Parade at Gibraltar when the 1st and 2nd Battalions met up in 1934.
In 1939 he headed off to France and was back in Edinburgh briefly in 1940 before returning back to France. Jock had been injured in combat and was walking wounded when he was captured at St Valery-En-Caux on 12th of June 1940. He was a PoW in Stalag XXA & XXB for 5 years and survived the Death March before liberation. After returning home he was ready to head off to fight the Japanese but the war was over by then and his want to do this was driven by the knowledge that his best mate and brother in law Freddy Logan (Herbert) was in the second Battalion and was a PoW having been captured at the fall of Singapore.
After the war Jock was in the Military Police and he gathered his children from Inverness and they lived in the Tower of London. Jock served in the Suez conflict and by 1955 he decided it was time to pack the family up and head for Adelaide where his mother, sisters and some cousins lived. His eldest son, my Uncle Pat, at age 17 like his father, stayed behind and he served with the British Military as did my cousins and now their children serve. 5 generations. I am Australian but my heart is British when it comes to the Military.
