Anzac Day: From the home front to the frontline

Throughout the long six years of World War Two, CBA’s staff serving in the armed forces had increasingly come to rely on their colleagues on the home front for news and more practical support to get them through the tough times of the conflict.

With Anzac Day looming in 1945, the men and greatly expanded numbers of women who were keeping the bank running did all that they could to help their enlisted team members, the majority of whom were overseas in the European and Pacific theatres of combat.

At the same time, CommBank staff were also acutely aware of the needs of their colleagues working in war-scarred London and the hardships faced by less-well-heeled members of the community back home who were doing it tough as a consequence of rationing.

By March 1945, the bank was well versed in raising funds and donations for these three key groups and their efforts were hugely appreciated both in Australia and abroad.

Typical of that gratitude were the messages from individual staffers posted overseas that appeared in CBA’s then internal magazine Bank Notes, a quarterly publication that was published throughout the war years, never missing a “news” beat.

Just a few weeks away from Anzac Day, Adelaide branch staffer J. W. McAloney, serving in India with the Royal Australian Air Force as a Flying Officer as part of 159 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, extolled the virtues of the Christmas hamper he had received from the bank.

Its contents were “very welcome” he wrote in his letter to Bank Notes. “The camp food becomes very boring so, as you can imagine, the hamper didn’t last very long. Would you please thank those who were responsible for the parcel for me and assure them it received very prompt and rapid attention.”

An Adelaide colleague, J.N. Walker, an Able-Bodied Seaman in the Royal Australian Navy, was equally effusive. He had received a “swell” – pun probably not intended – parcel recently, packed with comforts “or should I say delicacies” which showed careful thought.

The contents had been consumed with relish he wrote.  “Being remembered by the ‘folks at home’ in such a practical way bucks us up no end and I want you to know that we certainly appreciate it.”

Throughout the war regular despatches from London branch, then the largest overseas office of CBA, had underscored the dangerous conditions the staff there had endured to keep the bank’s important work in the UK going.  As a result, money was raised constantly to maintain a supply of what was by then considered luxuries to supplement their meagre British diets.

Food parcels had recently been despatched from Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne offices on behalf of all Australian staff with “warmest thanks” received from London by way of reply. 

We can only imagine now the look on the faces of the team working and living in the heavily bombed British capital as “tea, sugar, jam, milk, powder, tongues, barley sugar, chocolate, beef extract, cheese, dried fruits, peanut butter, tinned fruit and cocoa malt” emerged from the parcels over the course of the war, especially as it dragged on into 1945.

But it wasn’t just serving CBA colleagues that the bank staff around Australia were supporting. In addition to donating cash and goods for food parcels, those at home continued to subscribe generously to the bank’s Cot and Charity Fund at head office in Sydney.

Dating back to 1918 just a few short years after the bank’s foundation, the fund’s primary purpose in its first few decades of existence was to support public hospitals and other charitable health bodies.

In its report to members for 1944 and published in Bank Notes in March 1945, the fund’s accounts underscored the generosity of staff members through their continued donations.

Almost £489 (dollars and cents wouldn’t be introduced for another 20 years in Australia) was subscribed that year with an additional sum of £74 making the total of £568.

Of that, £388 went in small donations to various hospitals and charities, £80 to the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children for the maintenance of cots and £30 to the Benevolent Society of NSW’s home for children for the same purpose.

A further £9 and 17 shillings was used to purchase “sixty yards of flannelette (cotton)” through the Crown Street Women’s Hospital which female CBA staff used to make 57 baby blankets. Thery also made 94 woollen vests and 28 pairs of bootees for babies.

And in keeping with the staff’s support for needy families, the fund also donated 60 food parcels – 20 each – to the Legacy Club, the Salvation Army and the Benevolent Society which they distributed to the community. Among the contents were cakes, puddings, tins of meat, milk, jam, custard powder, cocoa, golden syrup, biscuits and jellies.

“In acknowledging these parcels, the societies concerned have mentioned the many expressions of thanks and gratitude that they have received from the recipients,” wrote Ivy Litchfield, the Cot and Charity Fund’s secretary.

Such support was to continue long after the war years and the fund’s work was later subsumed and expanded through the creation of the Commonwealth Bank Staff Foundation, today’s primary channel for workplace giving whereby staff donations are distributed through community grants.

Its work embodies the bank’s modern-day values of care, courage and commitment - values which have their roots in the very donations that CBA’s staff made to help their colleagues and those members of the wider community when they needed it the most, the dark days of World War Two amongst them.

Editor’s Footnote

Both Flying Officer McAloney and Able-Bodied Seaman Walker survived the conflict and returned to work at CBA at war’s end.

They were among around 2,900 CBA staff to serve in WW2 across the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Army, as well as in units of the British Army, Air Force and Navy and other Commonwealth Forces. Of those, 307 were killed on active service or died as prisoners of war.

On this Anzac Day, we remember those on the home front, those who served their country and in particular those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Lest we forget.

Research: CBA archivists Juli Liddicoat and Steven Politzer.

Commonwealth Bank’s Group Archives have an exhibition gallery, The Vault, located at our South Eveleigh, Sydney office. To arrange a visit to The Vault please contact the Group Archives by email at archives@cba.com.au.

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