“It would be hard to imagine a young man of 24 years of age who has done more to place Manly on the map than Mr Ken McPhee, an outstanding hero of the Spanish War”, stated the Manly Daily (14 January 1938). Ken McPhee, whose mother, Mrs Winifred Measures, lived in Manly, left Australia in August 1936 with the express intention of fighting with the International Brigade. For nearly a year he was in the front line with the Republican troops at Aragon and Jarama. He was Mentioned in Despatches for bravery when he saved a section of Canadian troops by dashing through a hail of machine-gun fire to warn them that they were marching into a trap. A New Zealander, Mr T Spiller, who was with McPhee in Madrid, described McPhee as the most courageous man he had ever met. “At the height of shell-firing near Madrid he went out alone into No Man’s Land and brought in an injured man who would have died had been left there,” said Spiller. “He was fighting continuously at Madrid for four and a half months.”
At Jarama McPhee received two machine-gun wounds in the leg, and at Brunete he was wounded in the lung and bled for five days. He left Spain at Christmas 1937, weighing less than nine stone, and worked his passage home to Townsville, and then to Melbourne. On his return to Manly in January 1938 he was given a public welcome home by the Manly branch of the ALP “for his utmost bravery in upholding democracy.” According to an article about him published in the Melbourne Argus (19 August 1938 p8), of the 50 Australians he met fighting with the International Brigade, 25 had been killed in action before he left Spain. Amirah Inglis, in her book, Australians in the Spanish Civil War, briefly mentions McPhee’s involvement in the action at Belchite, in Aragon. McPhee gave an interview with the North Queensland Guardian (6 August 1938) in which he commented on instances of Fascist atrocities committed on the families of deserters.
Ken McPhee married Margaret Esther Zikman in Sydney in 1940 (which itself sounds as though there was a story to be told) and served in the Merchant Navy during WWII. After the war the couple lived at Brookvale Road, Brookvale. He died in 1968 and his wife died in 1978. I would be very interested to learn more about them.
At Jarama McPhee received two machine-gun wounds in the leg, and at Brunete he was wounded in the lung and bled for five days. He left Spain at Christmas 1937, weighing less than nine stone, and worked his passage home to Townsville, and then to Melbourne. On his return to Manly in January 1938 he was given a public welcome home by the Manly branch of the ALP “for his utmost bravery in upholding democracy.” According to an article about him published in the Melbourne Argus (19 August 1938 p8), of the 50 Australians he met fighting with the International Brigade, 25 had been killed in action before he left Spain. Amirah Inglis, in her book, Australians in the Spanish Civil War, briefly mentions McPhee’s involvement in the action at Belchite, in Aragon. McPhee gave an interview with the North Queensland Guardian (6 August 1938) in which he commented on instances of Fascist atrocities committed on the families of deserters.
Ken McPhee married Margaret Esther Zikman in Sydney in 1940 (which itself sounds as though there was a story to be told) and served in the Merchant Navy during WWII. After the war the couple lived at Brookvale Road, Brookvale. He died in 1968 and his wife died in 1978. I would be very interested to learn more about them.
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