Service Details
- Branch of Service
- Army
- Conflict
- World War II (1939-1945)
- Date of Enlistment
- 20/06/1940
- Date of Discharge
- 13/07/1944
- Place of Enlistment
- Caulfield, Victoria
Personal Details
- Gender
- Male
- Date of Birth
- 21/12/1907
- Place of Birth
- Korumburra, Victoria
- Address (at enlistment)
- Brunswick, Victoria (previously Bachelor Quarter's, Acton ACT)
- Occupation
- Priest
- Next of Kin
- Owen Cosgriff (father)
Unit and Rank Details
- Service Number
- VX29579
- Final Rank
- Major
- Final Unit
- 4 Australian General Hospital
Notes
Cosgriff arrived in Canberra in 1927 to work for the Department of Home And Territories. According to McGilvray, towards the end of the 1920s a young man from the Bachelor Quarter's at Acton sought the advice of his parish priest, Father Patrick Haydon. " 'It's this way, Father', the young man began, 'I feel I want to be a priest and go to China.' They discussed the matter at some length and half-an-hour later the interview ended with the pastor saying in effect, 'Good on you, Owen; but what in God's name moves you to want China? We need good priests right here in this very diocese.' The upshot of the affair was that Mr. Cosgriff, of Census and Statistics, decided for Goulburn Diocese, and left for Springwood Seminary to begin his training for the Priesthood in February, 1930."
Cosgriff enlisted with the 2/4th Australian General Hospital in Caulfield in June 1940 as a Catholic chaplain. In December 1940, he left Melbourne aboard the Maurentania bound for North Africa and went on to become one of the Rats of Tobruk. During the siege he conducted three Masses each Sunday at St. Anthony's in Tobruk despite the constant air raids by the German Stukas, only moving the services after the Engineers deemed the church unsafe. He was evacuated from Tobruk on a stretcher on 12 October. After the war he returned to Canberra and was the parish priest at St. Bede's in Red Hill during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Sources
WWII Nominal Roll http://www.ww2roll.gov.au
Alexander J. McGilvray, 'The Hallowed High Adventure', 1973 (p.118)
AWM - The Tobruk Diaries, 2011, https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2011/01/31/tobruk-diaries-the-adventure-begins-2-tobruk/
The Canberra Times - 20 September 1927, 22 March 1945, 26 March 1945