NX122705 Private Ross Davis, 2/3rd Battalion, Second AIF
Australian War MemorialBorn on 31 December 1920 in Cumnock, New South Wales, Ross Davis was the son of Lawson William George Davis and Ruth Davis.
Before enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force on 3 November 1941, Ross Davis worked as a station hand and wool presser in Orange, New South Wales. He trained with the 54th Battalion until July 1944 when he was posted to the 2/3rd Battalion.
At this time the battalion was in the midst of a long period of training in northern Queensland. Davis was joining a battalion that had served with distinction at Bardia and Tobruk, in Greece and Syria, and at Kokoda and in the Papuan beachhead battles of 1942 and 1943.
In October 1944, the 6th Division was sent to the north coast of New Guinea to destroy the Japanese forces remaining in the Aitape–Wewak area.
For several days in January 1945, torrential rain caused severe flooding along Danmap River. Rising floodwaters washed away bridges, boulders and trees.
On the night of 26 January, Private Davis’s machine-gun platoon found itself stranded on a newly formed island in the middle of a raging river.
As the night wore on, the river rapidly rose six metres above its banks, and the platoon was forced to clamber up into the treetops to escape the floodwaters.
Platoon Commander Lieutenant GH Fearnside, a veteran of Tobruk and El Alamein, said this night was the most terrifying experience of his life. He later recalled:
“Some were killed outright in that mad onslaught of frenzied water and green timber; others were swirled beneath the press of timber and drowned; others were knocked unconscious and their bodies snatched and sent racing downstream, turning over and over, like otters.”
The following day the survivors made their way to the safety of the banks gathered in the battalion area. Seven men of the machine-gun company failed to report, having drowned in the floodwaters. One of the seven was Private Davis. He was 24 years old.
His name is listed on the Lae Memorial in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Lae, Papua New Guinea and on the Australian War Memorial Honour Roll, among 40,000 other Australians who died while serving in the Second World War.
