Private Eric Martyn ‘Tom’ Barker, 3rd Pioneer Battalion (later, Lieutenant, 38th Battalion)

Photo taken about November 1916

Tom Barker was born in Peppermint Grove to a coldly distant, Scottish father and a mother who openly preferred his younger brother. One day, when the two engaged in a childish lark throwing rotten eggs at each other, his brother was hit in the mouth. It made him very sick and for the next six months Tom was banished in disgrace to live with an aunt, nearby. 

He was 19, newly graduated from Scotch College and living at the Weld Club when he enlisted on 6 December 1915 as a private in the 3rd Pioneer Battalion. He had served 18 months in the 86th Infantry Machine Gun Section and was selected for further training at the school for non-commissioned officers in Melbourne. Before he left, this photo was taken at The Dease Studios. He was promoted to Sergeant in January 1916 and embarked from Melbourne in June for England.

After more training and a bout of mumps, Tom was deployed to France in January 1917. He proved himself, in training and in the field, as a natural soldier and was promoted to Lieutenant in March 1918.

Transferred to the 38th Battalion, in the early morning of 24 August he was walking on a narrow track near Albert with Captain Harold Dench (30) when he saw a sniper ahead of them, hiding in a shell hole. Despite Tom’s yelled warning, the sniper shot Captain Dench straight through the heart, the bullet coming out his back. Because Tom was right behind him and half-turned to get his .45 pistol out of the holster, the bullet continued on its trajectory through Tom’s sternum into his left lung and out into the top of his left arm. Most of the bullet was removed but the tip remained in Tom’s arm for the rest of his life.

Describing the incident in a letter home to his family on 2 September 1918, he wrote:

“I was pretty crook at first and they reckoned they’d need a Union Jack for the job when I reached the Casualty Clearing Station but I managed to live down first impressions! …they found the bullet just under the skin of the upper part of my left arm, and it didn’t take much cutting out. I’ve got it here now as a souvenir. It will be quite useful for making a wedding ring, watch key or some other useful article out of!”

He was left with a slow-healing “mouse hole” in his chest, through which he had been breathing after it happened. On 11 October he wrote: 

“I was in splendid ‘nick’ at the time I got hit, otherwise I would have been pushing up daisies now. I reckon there is nothing like keeping fit at this game…”

Considered extremely lucky to survive he was invalided home and discharged in December 1918 with a thousand yard stare and a mind filled with uneasy memories and vivid nightmares that came back to haunt him in later life. 

He focused on his education instead, studying accountancy and, fiercely intelligent, topped the national Financial Institute of Accounting exams. He started out as Secretary of Nicholson’s Ltd at 90 Barrack Street, and went on to be Managing Director.

He married Mary Saw in 1923 and had two children; a son and a daughter. As a father, he was cold and distant like his own and, crippled by his experiences about which he never spoke, was incapable of showing affection. 

Tom saw WWII as a chance to return to where he was most comfortable; within the confines of discipline and war. He tried to enlist for overseas service, but was rejected for his age (42) and his previous injuries. He enlisted instead for Home Service (colloquially known as “Dad’s Army”), and served up and down the coast of Western Australia.

Travelling in England in the late 1950s he suffered a complete breakdown. While doctors wanted him admitted to Heathcote, Mary was determined to care for him herself, at home, and she nursed him back to himself.

He died at home in Peppermint Grove in November 1967, aged 71.