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special force known as the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. This was the first military force
to leave Australia in the First World War and its objective was to capture Rabaul and certain other German
possessions in the southwest Pacific area, where vital radio stations existed. By the time Major Strangman arrived
in Rabaul in December 1914, the fighting was over, but with the arrival of the wet season a new threat emerged,
that of malaria, which spread rapidly through the occupying troops. The arrival of Strangman with his expert
knowledge of tropical medicine and proven administrative ability was a godsend and he was made Principal
Medical Officer for the Territory and promoted to Brevet Colonel. What happened then is best described in the
official history of the campaign: ‘During those anxious months when the lives of the whole garrison were in his
hands, he delegated nothing of moment, but personally saw each patient every day; when not thus occupied,
he spent hour after hour examining blood slides under the microscope. Despite much cause for misgiving, he had
a cheery word for everyone and the troops, though they did not like his medicine, liked the man, with his brusque,
kindly manner and his trick of plain speaking. They recognised his solicitude for their welfare and felt that he
would pull them through.’ This he did and by February 1915, the crisis was over and Colonel Strangman could turn
his attention to the multitude of other health problems in the Territory under the control of the Australian Military
Administration.
In 1917, Strangman took a period of well-earned leave in Australia and was returning from Sydney in the Burns
Philp vessel Matunga in August when she was captured by the German raider Wolf under the command of Captain
Nerger. The attack was carried out at dawn with the aid of a seaplane and so complete was the surprise that Matunga
was unable to send off any radio message. For five months, nothing was known of the ship, its passengers, or crew.
Then, in January 1918, information was received in Australia from the British naval authorities in Hong Kong,
that it was assumed the passengers and crew were safe, although prisoners on Wolf. This information resulted from
the finding of a bottle containing a message thrown overboard by the prisoners when the ship was off the Celebes
in late August 1917. In the meantime, Strangman and some of the other prisoners had been transferred to another
ship captured by the Wolf, a Spanish collier named Igotz Mendi. After a harrowing voyage, which reached into the
coldest parts of the north Atlantic to avoid the British blockade, Igotz Mendi ran aground in the Kattegat, on the
Danish coast near Skagen, when making her final run for Kiel in Germany. The Danish authorities insisted on the
release of the prisoners, who reached London via Norway and the Shetland Islands on 10 March 1918.
Strangman was in poor physical condition when he reached England after the long ordeal of captivity. His fair
hair had turned completely white. He spent some time recuperating with his family in Ireland, where his interest
was sparked by the pioneer work of his sister, Dr Lucia Fitzgerald, and her husband, John, in the treatment
of shell-shocked soldiers by psychotherapy. Preparing to set off on this new direction in his medical career,
he undertook further studies in London. He returned to Australia in December 1918 and was discharged from the
army in February 1919. For the next two years, he treated patients at major military hospitals throughout Australia,
at the same time instructing classes in psychotherapeutic medicine.
He settled in Glenelg, South Australia, in medical practice, later retiring to the Adelaide Hills. He became ill
with pneumonia at the time the 2nd Australian Imperial Force returned from the Middle East and were billeted
with South Australian families. Staying at his home were five Western Australian soldiers and his niece, Sister
Elizabeth Hawkes, an army nurse who tended him in his last illness. He died at Stirling West on 21 April 1942 and
was cremated. His widow and son survived Dr Strangman.
Cecil Lucius Strangman traced his ancestry in direct line to William Peregrinus who landed with the Norman
Conqueror in 1066. Peregrinus means stranger or wanderer, hence the derivation, strange man to Strangman.
And so, the wanderer came to rest.
Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–18, vol 9; A W Jose, The Royal Australian Navy, vol 10, 1935; S S Mackenzie, The Australian
at Rabaul, 1934; Palmerston Local Board of Health Minute Book, AA Darwin; Report on Aborigines in the Northern Territory, State Library of
the NT, North Australia Collection; SA Government Gazette; SA Directory, Public Records Office of South Australia; Departmental Records,
Dept of Veterans Affairs; Family papers held by Mrs L A H Pelton, West Lakes, SA.
B J PELTON and L A H PELTON, Vol 1.
STREHLOW, CARL FREIDRICH THEODOR (1871–1922), Lutheran missionary, was born on
23 December 1871 at Fredersdorf in Uckermark, Brandenburg, Germany. He graduated from the seminary
at Neuendettelsau and shortly thereafter was betrothed to F J H (Frieda) Keyser. His initial appointment as a
missionary was, he thought, to America, so it was something of a surprise when, in mid-1892, he found himself
bound for South Australia. He was ordained at Light’s Pass and from 1892 to 1894 worked at Bethesda Mission,
Lake Killalpaninna, to the east of Lake Eyre. There he assisted Missionary J G Reuther in translating the
New Testament into Dieri (the local Aboriginal language).
In September 1894, Strehlow left Killalpaninna to take charge of Hermannsburg Mission, west of Alice Springs,
arriving on 8 October. He, fellow missionaries and a member of the Mission Committee found a rundown mission,
with no Aborigines initially in sight.
Strehlow immediately accepted the challenge. He dismissed workers who had caused problems, began
learning Aranda, encouraged the Aboriginal Christians to return and employed others to restore the garden,
ensured that buildings were renovated and cleaned, commenced a school and began regular devotions again.
In the first two months of his leadership Hermannsburg was restored to a positive mission force and, with heavy
rains in January 1895, the country as a whole flourished. It had been a brilliant start, made possible by Strehlow’s
‘no-nonsense’ hard-working attitude and example.