Albert Charles Borella, awarded a Victoria Cross in World War 1 ,was determined to join up and fight on the other side of the world. Territory historian,Glenville Pike , currently stoically battling cancer, detailed the long and difficult journey Borella made to enlist .
Borella was employed as a camp cook with a line party at Tennant Creek Telegraph Station in February 1915 when he decided to enlist at Townsville , 1500 miles away. It being the Wet , he set out for Katherine on a borrowed horse. There he caught the mail coach to the Pine Creek railhead after battling across flooding rivers. From Darwin he went by ship to Townsville and enlisted in the Australian Light Horse. Later he left the Light Horse and became an infantryman on 80c a day. He fought at Gallipoli and Pozieres, France , where half his battalion was wiped out.
Promoted on the battlefield to Lieutenant,he was later, on the Somme, awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous bravery. One of the few survivors at the bloody battle of Bullecourt,he was then involved in the thick of action on July 17 and 18,1918,which resulted in him receiving the Victoria Cross.
The citation to Borella’s Victoria Cross reads: “For most conspicuous bravery in attack. Whilst leading his platoon with the first wave ,Lieutenant Borella marked an enemy machine- gun firing through our barrage . He ran out ahead of his men into the barrage, shot two German machine- gunners with his revolver and captured the gun. He then led his party , now reduced to 10 men and two Lewis guns, against a very strongly held trench, using his revolver , and later a rifle,with great effect,causing many enemy casualties. His leading and splendid example resulted in the garrison being quickly shot or captured. Two large dugouts were also bombed and 30 prisoners taken. Subsequently the enemy twice counterattacked in strong force,on the second occasion outnumbering Lieutenant Borella’s platoon by 10 to one , but his cool determination inspired his men to resist heroically, and the enemy was repulsed with heavy losses .”
Pike wrote that because Territorians were used to a hard pioneering life, they were already expert riflemen and horsemen,especially the Aboriginal members, at the time called halfcastes .
FOOTNOTE: Borella was invalided back to Australia,farmed a soldier settlement block at Hensley Park, Victoria, unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for the National Party in the Victorian Legislative Assembly,enlisted in WW11 ,with the rank of Captain, serving in Australia. He died February 7,1968 and a road in Albury is named after him.
