Walter Peeler VC

9 August 1887 – 23 May 1968

Walter Peeler was born and lived the earlier part of his life in Barkers Creek near Castlemaine. 

He and his family were orchardists and he later worked at Thompson's Foundry, Castlemaine and in the Leongatha district. He married Kathleen Emma Hewitt, née McLeod, on 10 July 1907 at Castlemaine.

Peeler enlisted on 17 February 1916 in the machine-gun section of the 3rd Pioneer Battalion. He was promoted to Lance Corporal on 6 November and was slightly wounded during the battle of Messines on 7 June 1917.   

Peeler was one of 24 Lewis-gunners attached for anti-aircraft duties to the 37th Battalion for the assault on 4 October on Broodseinde Ridge, Belgium. He led an attack against three enemy groups who had been sniping at advancing Australians. He then turned on a machine-gun post. He accounted for 30 of the enemy and was awarded the Victoria Cross.   

Peeler remarked in 1966, 'I never saw the faces of those I killed. They were just men in an enemy uniform. It was simply them or me.'   

He was wounded in the right arm later that month. While recuperating in England he received his Victoria Cross from King George V at Buckingham Palace on 8 January 1918. He returned to his unit on 17 May and was promoted to Corporal two weeks later and Sergeant on 30 July.   

Peeler was one of 10 VC recipients recalled to Australia by Prime Minister Hughes to promote recruitment, arriving home on 11 October. He worked with the Victorian Department of Lands for six years and then took up an orchard but returned to Melbourne to work on the staff of the Sunshine Harvester Works. He was appointed custodian of Victoria's Shrine of Remembrance in 1934.

He enlisted in the 2nd AIF. in 1940 and saw service in the Syrian campaign as a Company Quartermaster Sergeant in the 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion. He was landed in Java in February 1942 to assist the Dutch against the rapid Japanese advance. After the island's surrender to the Japanese he survived a long period on the Burma Railway.   

He was one of only three World War I Victoria Cross recipients then serving overseas, the others being Walter Brown and Arthur Blackburn. He returned to Australia in October 1945 to learn that his son Donald had been killed on Bougainville in December 1944 while serving with the 15th Battalion.

Wally Peeler resumed duty as custodian of the Shrine of Remembrance – a position he maintained until he retired in 1964 - and was an early member of the Victorian Corps of Commissionaires. He was awarded the British Empire Medal (Civil Division) for his work at the Shrine of Remembrance. 

Survived by his wife (d.1969) and four of his children, Peeler died at South Caulfield on 23 May 1968 and was buried in Brighton cemetery.   

His medals are on display in the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial.

• Australian Dictionary of Biography & Harcourt Heritage https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/peeler-walter-8011