The Saga of World War 2: a Casus Belli Project · Cassus Belli Guy

Appendix I Part 2: Tom Derrick VC

March 22, 2023·19 min·2 clips

Derrick's platoon withstood withering German fire and captured over 100 enemy soldiers during the assault on Tel El Issa.

Tom Diver Derrick first appears as a companion story to an interview about Company of Heroes 3 and the game's briefing room. Then the episode settles into his wartime record. Derrick was not a staff-room figure. He fought in North Africa, with Tobruk and El Alamein named in the earlier campaign record, and his reputation built the hard way: under fire. One section follows him clearing enemy positions himself, checking each one before bringing his platoon forward into occupied ground. Command came because the unit needed it. After heavy 9th Division casualties left too few officers, Derrick became Acting Company Commander. The war then pulled the division back toward home. In January 1943, it left North Africa, reached Melbourne in February, and went on leave before refitting. Derrick used the break well, seeing his wife in Adelaide while the battalion prepared in Queensland for South Pacific operations. The training sounds sweaty and practical. The battalion worked in the Atherton Tablelands and rehearsed amphibious landings near Cairns in humid tropical conditions. His right eye was still a problem, putting him in hospital for part of July and most of August, but he returned to the battalion. Back with the 2nd of the 48th, he served again as a platoon sergeant before New Guinea. The fighting near Ley was limited. His unit landed at Red Beach, 19 miles east of Ley, and pushed west as Japanese forces often withdrew. Ma Long Airfield is the clear action there, captured on September 4th. The episode then moves to Finchhaven, where Derrick earned the Victoria Cross. It closes on a grim note: his remains were reburied at the Labuan War Cemetery in Labuan, Malaysia. What stays in view is his leadership, his tactical sense, his warmth, his diaries, his letters to Beryl, and the decision to keep returning to combat until it killed him.

As heard by us

A grave, steady biography that maps one soldier's service across a wider war.

Tom Diver Derrick's wartime path is laid out with care, from Tobruk and El Alamein to New Guinea, the Victoria Cross, and Borneo. The episode treats him less as a legend than as a soldier shaped by rank, terrain, and exhaustion, which gives the account its force.

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Why you'd press play

You want one Australian soldier to carry you from North Africa to Borneo.

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