Lieutenant Albert Chowne V.C.Print Page

The hall commemorates Lieutenant Albert Chowne who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. 

The hall was opened on 3 July 1954 to honour the Victoria Cross winner Albert Chowne who died on active service in New Guinea. Eric Nicholls, an honorary architect of Willoughby Council and a former partner of Walter Burley Griffin, designed the hall. Due to war shortages its construction was delayed from 1945 to 1950, and even then a modified version was built. The hall was extended and refurbished several times in 1958, 1970 and again in 1981.

On 25 March 1945 in the hills south-west of Dagua in New Guinea, Chowne rushed a Japanese-held knoll, later to bear his name. Ascending a steep, narrow track, he hurled grenades and silenced two machine-guns. Although mortally wounded, he reached the enemy`s fox-holes and killed two more soldiers before he died. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

The Governor of N.S.W., Lieutenant-General Sir John Northcott, will officially open the Lieutenant Albert Chowne, V.C., M.M., Memorial Hall in Willoughby Park next Saturday at 3 p.m. This was announced yesterday by the secretary of the East Willoughby Youth Welfare Committee, Mr. K. Anderson. Lieutenant Chowne was killed at Dagua, New Guinea, in 1945.
Sydney Morning Herald (NSW ), 1 July 1954.

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