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sale on his personal chattels, which included netting, fencing wire, a chestnut mare and an iron and timber house,
10 x 8.5 metres, with a detached kitchen.
In October 1914, in serious debt and unable to cultivate his block, Borella discussed his position with the
administration in Darwin and was advanced 67 Pounds on his improvements. He wished to enlist, but the military
authorities were not taking volunteers from the Northern Territory and, when offered a job as cook with a survey
parry at Tennant Creek, he accepted. They went south from Warlock Ponds by camel. In January 1915 he set out
for Darwin to volunteer for active service and, with an Aboriginal boy, ‘Charlie’, walked 140 kilometres, crossed
flooded rivers, borrowed a horse at Powell’s Creek and rode to Katherine where he caught the mail coach to the
rail-head at Pine Creek.
In Darwin, Borella settled his known debts but the administration demanded a further 20 Pounds 17 Shillings
for deterioration to the horse, a cart and the loss of harness during his absence. He borrowed to pay off this sum and
was left without his fare south to the recruitment depot. Mr Walter Bell arranged his passage and he left Darwin by
SS Alderham on 8 March 1915, with the second contingent of five men who were among the first 15 volunteers for
active service from the Northern Territory. Borella’s Agricultural Lease 57, cancelled due to abandonment of the
holding, was included in Agricultural Lease 107 issued to James Felstead on 1 December 1916.
On 15 March 1915 Borella enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Townsville, Queensland, and, as Private
no 275, was drafted to B Company, 26th Infantry Battalion, 7th Infantry Brigade. Although he is on the nominal
roll as having embarked at Brisbane with this unit on HMAT Ascanius on 24 May 1915, he is also shown as having
embarked at Brisbane with his company on HMAT Aeneas on the following 29 June. After training in Egypt, he
served at Gallipoli from 12 September to November 1915. He was made a Corporal and, after a period in hospital,
rejoined the 26th Battalion, which left Alexandria for Marseilles and the Western Front on 15 March 1916. He was
wounded on 29 July in the Battle of Pozieres Heights.
Borella was mentioned in dispatches on 9 April 1917 and, on 11 May 1917, received the Military Medal
for conspicuous bravery in the field at Malt Trench near Warlencourt. He attended No 7 Training Battalion in
the United Kingdom, was promoted Lieutenant on 28 August and attached to the 7th Brigade Raiding Party in
France. He was awarded the Victoria Cross on 16 September 1918 and decorated in October by the King at York
Cottage. Borella and his party took the Jaffa Trench ‘in error’ and ‘his cool determination inspired his men to resist
heroically, and the enemy were repulsed with heavy losses’. His outstanding qualities were evident in boyhood.
Bitten on the finger by a snake during a shooting excursion and unable to scarify the wound after two attempts, he
placed the affected part on the muzzle of his gun and blew it off.
Broken in health, he was invalided home on 6 November by the Marathon, reaching Melbourne on 1 January 1919.
By 1920, Borella was farming on his soldier-settlement block, Fleurbaix, at Hensley Park near Hamilton, Victoria,
and, as National Party Candidate for Dundas, was narrowly defeated in the 1924 elections for the Victorian
Legislative Assembly. On 16 August 1928 he married Elsie Jane, daughter of Alice and George Frederick Love,
grocer, at Wesley Church, Hamilton, using the name of Albert Chalmers-Borella, although he did not change his
name to Albert Chalmers-Borella by deed poll until 7 September 1939.
Lieutenant Albert Chalmers-Borella (V81550) enlisted at Broadmeadows on 15 October 1939 and served with
the 12th Garrison Battalion, the 2/14th, 2/21st and 6th Training Battalions at Shepparton and Wangaratta, an the
3rd Garrison Brigade, Melbourne, before being posted, as Temporary Captain, to the 24th Garrison Battalion.
On 21 October 1941 he was posted to the 51st Australian Garrison Company, Prisoner of War Camp, Myrtleford,
promoted Captain on 2 January 1942 and retired on 2 May 1945. He then joined the Commonwealth Department
of Supply and Shipping at Albury, New South Wales, as inspector of dangerous cargoes until retiring in 1956.
Borella died on 7 February 1968 and was buried with full military honours in the Presbyterian portion of
the Albury Cemetery. His widow and two sons, Maxwell and Rowan, survived him. His other two sons died
tragically—Mervyn, on 15 August 1954, after a glider crash at Albury, and Neville who was trapped in reeds and
drowned while duck-shooting at Benning Billabong on the Daly River, at Claravale Station, 96 kilometres from
Pine Creek, on 4 December 1960. He and his brother Maxwell had gone to work in the Northern Territory in
1959.
Borella’s memory is honoured in Jingili, Darwin, with Borella Circuit, named by the Place Names Committee
in early 1968, and by a plaque which was unveiled in Borella Park, Jingili, ‘in memory of Lt A C Borella, VC, MM,
26th Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF’ on 30 September 1980. Street names in Canberra and Albury also help to
keep fresh the memory of this ‘true gentleman’, good-natured, of quiet determination and outstanding courage, his
‘Duty Nobly Done’.
C E W Bean, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, vol 6, 1941; K R Cramp, Australian Winners of the Victoria Cross,
1914–1919, 1919; H E Elliott, The Battle of Fleurbaix, 1930; L Wigmore & B Harding, They Dared Mightily: Australian Winners of the
Victoria Cross, 1963; C Francis, ‘Oldest Australian to win VC. Lieutenant Albert C Borella, VC, MM’, Reveille, 2 January 1967; G Park,
‘Territory Victoria Cross Winner’, Despatch, vol 11, no 12, January 1976; Argus, 17 September 1918, 1 January 1919; Border Morning Mail,
16–18 August 1954, 6–8 December 1960, 8–10 February 1968; Brisbane Courier, 27 February 1919; Northern Territory News, 6 December
1960; Hamilton Spectator, 3 June 1924; The Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 15 & 22 January 1914, 18 & 25 February 1915, 4–
18 March 1915; Pastoral Times, 30 June 1917, 18 January 1919; The Times, 17 September & 8 October 1918; AIF and AMF Lists or Officers;
AA: CA1080, Lands Department; CA1085, Advances to Settlers Board; CA1087, Land Classification Board; File A1976/ 366; NT/1138, CRS
A3; NT 14/2189; NT 13/ 10842; NT 15/2405; A/75/1ANBR17; CRS F 12; Advances to Settlers Board; CRS F 13; Advances to Settlers Board;
AWM Manuscripts.
JEAN P FIELDING, Vol 1.