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LEFT : THE ILL-FATED CALYPSO ON THE BEACH IN MARACAS BAY , TRINIDAD IN 1956 . RIGHT : HUGO MASSEY ( LEFT ) AND JOHN TODD (’ 63 ) HOLD UP THEIR FISH .
man : ‘ He is youngish , one-armed and has an incurable disease called Parkinson ' s disease .’
One-armed ? That was an odd detail to write so summarily , I thought . The explanation was left hanging , unanswered . Then I wondered at the picture of the two boys : If someone found a picture of me 65-plus years after it had been taken , would I want to see it ? Of course I would .
Curiosity has an instant and easy ally . So I turned to Google . To my intrigue , John Bevan Todd ( born 3 July 1915 , died 21 March 1964 ) turned up in a 2015 edition of Great Scot in an obituary for his nephew . The entry said Todd attended Scotch between 1930 and 1931 .
I emailed Scotch ' s Archivist Paul Mishura and asked if he had a contact for any of Todd ' s children . Within an hour , Mishura came back with a name and an expired email address for Todd ' s son , Dr John Jeffrey Todd ( SC 1952-63 ).
Google told me John Todd had made a submission to a Tasmanian Government parliamentary committee on wood smoke in Launceston , some 15 years or so ago . His submission had a mobile number which I texted , hoping it was still current .
A few hours later , John Todd returned my text message , saying he was overseas but could chat . Next thing , he was looking at the slides over WhatsApp . ‘ That ' s me on the right ,’ Dr Todd said with considerable surprise . The other kid was a boy named Hugo Massey , he said . I showed him another colour slide of a fellow in shadow at the front of a boat . ‘ That ' s my dad ,’ he said , this time with delight , ‘ and that ' s boatman Willy in the foreground .’
Out spilled what John could tell me of the father he knew for precious few years . John Bevan ‘ Bev ’ Todd , like many of his generation , had a life scarred by war . Indeed , he was very lucky to survive the conflict at all .
Born in 1915 , he was 24 when Australia declared war on Germany in September 1939 . He was quick to enlist and by January 1940 Bev Todd was setting sail for the Middle East on the RMS Otranto as part of the first convoy of the 2nd Australian Infantry Force .
After six months ' training in Palestine and then a spell in Egypt , Todd found himself in Libya where , on 3 January 1941 , the battle of
Bardia began . It was the first major Australian battle of World War II , pitting battalions of the 6th Australian Division against an Italian stronghold in the small harbour town .
‘ On the third and final day of this battle , the vehicle my father was in was hit by a shell ,’ John Todd says . ‘ He was very seriously wounded and taken to the field hospital .’ Bev Todd lost his left arm in the explosion , as well as some of his left ear and shrapnel had punctured his legs and torso .
( This detail made me take another look at the shadowed photo of his dad on the boat . Sure enough , his left arm wasn ' t evident , although you needed to know what to look for .)
Bev Todd was in bad shape from the Italian shell . He was triaged into a medical tent reserved for other poor souls not expected to survive their injuries ( the Battle for Bardia cost 130 Australian lives and 320 men were wounded ).
But luck has fickle twists . Though Bev Todd had been unfortunate to be injured , he ' d been lucky to live . Luckier still was that his survival came on the third day of the Bardia battle , for of the 40,000 Italians taken prisoner that day , many were medical staff from the military hospital .
A captured Italian medic tasked with tending to the Australian wounded went into Bev Todd ' s tent . He looked over the Australian ' s injuries and made a fateful intervention . ‘ Family folklore says one of the Italian doctors said , “ No he will probably survive , you better put him in the other tent ”,’ John Todd says .
Bev Todd was saved by the intervention of an Italian doctor ' s unquestioning commitment to the Hippocratic Oath . About the same time , Todd ' s left arm had been found in the Libyan desert , still bearing his watch which was duly returned to him .
John Todd remembers his dad wearing that watch proudly – a reminder of the blast that had almost snatched his life in a distant desert and an unknown Italian doctor who ensured he lived longer .
Discharged , Bev Todd returned to Australia where he immediately re-enlisted , becoming the aide-de-camp to the Victorian Governor , Sir Winston Dugan , rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel . ‘ He was the military man who stood behind the
76 Great Scot Issue 171 – Edition 1 2024