Historical Background

A brief photographic history

My grandfather’s parents, John and Maria Dobbyn. John Dobbyn, manager of The Irish Times newspaper compositing team, contracted typhoid fever while in England and died in Cork Street Hospital, Dublin in 1896 aged 37. Henry was 12 at the time. His mother died several years later aged 40 so that by 18 he was parentless.
Henry Dobbyn served with the Royal Munster Fusiliers in India from 1905 to the start of 1912. While in India, the young soldier had this miniature copy of his regimental colours crafted to bring back home. Henry’s grandson and War Spoils author, Paul Dobbyn, has this set in his possession.
Article in the Cork Examiner newspaper in 1915 features Henry Dobbyn, centre, by now a sergeant, sporting a captured German helmet. The photo was taken in the trenches at Neuve Chapelle, France. Several days later, Sgt Dobbyn was among the 2nd Royal Munster Fusilier regiments blessed by chaplain Fr Francis Gleeson before the Battle of Aubers Ridge. The event was immortalised in renowned war artist Fortunino Matania’s The Last General Absolution of the Munsters at Rue du Bois.
Fortunino Matania’s iconic 1916 painting The Last General Absolution of the Munsters at Rue du Bois.
A lifelong love: During his convalescence from a machine gun wound to the upper arm sustained during the Battle of the Somme, Henry Dobbyn married May Rollinson, the young woman who gave him the “glad eye” many years earlier. They were married on 19 June 1917 in St Gregory’s Church, Earlsfield.
A new life in Australia: The RMS Osterley aboard which Henry and May Dobbyn, together with two children Denis and Eileen, left London’s Tilbury Docks on 24 January 1920 arriving in Brisbane on 12 March 1920.
My father’s family in Toowoomba circa 1928: May Dobbyn, the grandmother I never met, with her children: baby Brian on her lap, Marion, left front and Bobbie right front. Back row: Eileen and Denis, the eldest (my father). Tragically, the following year May would die of heart failure. The family’s sole survivor, my uncle, Brian Dobbyn, who lives in Brisbane, is now 98.
Officers and brothers: my father, Lt Denis Dobbyn, Australian Intelligence Corps and uncle, Pilot Officer Robert Dobbyn, 83 Squadron, the Pathfinders of RAF 5 Group, circa 1943
Then Flight Sergeant Robert Dobbyn (marked with red cross) with 83 Squadron in April 1943 at RAF Wyton. At that time 83 was part of 8 Group and was one of two Pathfinder Squadrons in the Group. In April 1944, the squadron transferred to RAF Group 5 Coningsby and became the primary Pathfinder force.
Lt Denis Dobbyn, third from right back, with fellow officers at 5 Base Sub-Area’s new headquarters in Rabaul, 27 November 1945. The headquarters were relocated from Jacquinot Bay to Malaguna Road in September 1945 - AWM 099207.
Document from War Crimes Trials in PNG. This death sentence for a Japanese soldier was delivered on 20 May 1946 and carried out on 19 October 1946.
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