People Australia

Walter Michael Murphy (1915-1972) prisoner of war, coalminer killed in mine explosion

Birth: 7 February 1915 at Ipswich, Queensland, son of native-born Arthur Murphy (1876-1964), coalminer, and Gwenllian (Gwendoline), née Jones (1881-1952), born in Wales, United Kingdom. Marriage: 11 July 1947 at Ipswich, Queensland, to native-born Beryl Monica Bell (1927-2017). They had two daughters and three sons. Death 31 July 1972 at Box Flat mine, near Ipswich, Queensland. 

• Walter was one of five brothers and two brothers-in-law who worked with his father at Caledonian Colliery, Walloon, Queensland, in the 1930s.
• Having served the 14th Light Horse Militia from 4 March 1939, he was a miner at Rosewood Colliery when, with his brother Ronald James — also a miner at Rosewood — he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 15 July 1940.
• They both embarked for Malay with the 26th Battalion on 30 July 1941 and were captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942. The two brothers spent three-and-a-half years as prisoners of war in Changi. They were recovered in September 1945 and returned to Australia the following month.
• A third brother, Lionel John Murphy (1907-1988), also served in the AIF in World War II.
• Demobilized on 21 November 1945, Wally returned to mining at Caledonian 3 mine, West Moreton, Queensland.
• He was a coalminer at Box Flat Colliery at Swanbank, near Ipswich, working underground early on 31 July 1972 when an explosion occurred. Believing that no one underground could have survived the blast, the Chief Inspector of Mines, Bill Roach, whose nephew was one of those killed, decided to seal off the mine permanently. Seventeen miners were killed. The bodies of fourteen of them, including that of Wally Murphy, were not recovered.
• The other miners who lost their lives were Kenneth Frank Cobbin, William Alexander Drewett, William Rae Drysdale, Andrew Charles Haywood, Robert Lloyd Jones, William Alfred Marshall, John James McNamara, Brian Henry Randolph, Brian Rasmussen, Daryl Trevor Reinhardt, Harold Charles Reinhardt, John Dudley Roach, Lenard Arthur Rogers, Maurice John Tait, Mervyn Verrenkamp and Walter Benjamin Williams. Clarence Edwin Wolski died in 1974, due to the injuries caused in the explosion.
• At the time of Wally’s death his brother Ron was Queensland district check inspector for the Miners’ Federation. 

Sources
Pete Thomas, The coalminers of Queensland: a narrative history of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union. Volume 1 Creating the traditions (Ipswich, 1986).