Evan Allan; Australia's last active World War I serviceman
Born: July 24, 1899, Bega
Died: October 17, 2005, Flemington, Vic

Had his ship not turned back for him, seaman Evan Allan would have drowned in the icy wastes of the North Atlantic in the late 1920s.

"But, thank God, the captain turned the ship around, dropped a rope ladder and hauled me back on board," the grateful sailor recalled recently.

It was 1928 and the 29-year-old Allan was a petty officer with the Royal Australian Navy on board the recently commissioned HMAS Australia, which, having just completed a series of training exercises off the remote Greenland coast in the cold, grey seas south of the Arctic Circle, was bound for Canada.

"We ran into very bad weather," he said. "I'd gone clean over the side and thought I was done for."

Allan, who was standing "up forrard" on the heaving deck just aft of the bow near the breakwater, said he had heard the watch officer call out "Look out!" and ducked down with his hands over his head "because I thought I was going to be bashed onto the breakwater, but that didn't happen".

But when the ship dropped down into a trough "a big sea hit me and I found myself washed overboard as the ship sailed away through the heaving sea, weighed down by my oilskins and sea boots and thinking, 'This is going to kill my mother.' "

However, a shipmate had thrown a lifebuoy immediately he went overboard, Allan said. Despite his heavy wet-weather gear pulling him down Allan managed to grab it.

"I managed to hang on and kick my boots off to give me more buoyancy," he said, "and then I noticed the ship coming back towards me."

When the towering vessel got close enough his shipmates threw a line over the side "from the port quarter" which Allan grabbed, "pulling myself in alongside the ship". Somebody then opened the rubbish hatch, which was just above the water line in the ship's hull, and lowered a rope ladder. He was able to grab the bottom rung and hang on even though the lifebuoy fell off him.

"But I was getting smashed against the hull all the time, losing the skin off my legs, knees and shins, with blood everywhere which I hoped the sharks wouldn't see."

Too exhausted from hanging on as the waves smashed him against the hull, Allan could not pull himself up the ladder. But, in the nick of time, an officer called out: "If you can just hold on, Allan, we'll have you on board in a second."

A group of sailors then "hauled me in on board like a fish and carried me to sick bay, where I recuperated for two days".

The captain visited Allan during his stay there and "commended me for my bravery and apologised for not being able to lower a ship's boat due to the rough seas".

But Allan was very lucky indeed to be plucked from a watery grave. Frequently a captain would not waste time or fuel turning back, because in most cases he could never find the man overboard whose head alone protrudes over the rapidly moving waves. Usually, as the old naval saying goes, "Man overboard stays overboard".

Allan was Australia's last active serviceman from World War I - out of more than 330,000 who served in conflicts overseas. As the last living link with the Great War, his death in a Flemington hostel marks the end of an era. At 106 he was also one of the oldest men in Australia.

The second of six siblings and christened William Evan Crawford, Allan was born in Bega, on July 24, 1899, 18 months before the colonies federated. He dropped his first name and called himself Evan as soon as he was able.

As it turned out he would also become the last living link between the great age of sail and modern powered ships, having been lured to sea by the square-rigged tall ships still plying the oceans during his childhood.

In fact it was America's majestic "Great White Fleet" visiting Sydney as part of a world tour in 1908 that later inspired him to sign on as a ship's Boy, aged 14, in March 1914, five months before the outbreak of World War I.

Allen trained on the tall ship HMAS Tingira in Rose Bay before joining HMAS Encounter, which soon after chased a German raider, the Wolfe, that had been laying mines in Australian waters.

During the war he started rising through the ranks from seaman to able-bodied seaman. Eventually he became a petty officer, then chief petty officer, and finally, by the time he retired, lieutenant.

In 1918 he joined the famous HMAS Sydney which, under the command of the brilliant Captain John Glossop, had gunned down Germany's Emden near the Cocos Islands, winning an early prize for Australia soon after the outbreak of war. Not only was it the first decisive action of the war but Glossop had also succeeded in taking the bulk of the German crew prisoners.

Although nearly 40 of his fellow crew subsequently died on the Sydney from the 1919 Spanish flu epidemic, Allan, nicknamed "Darby" by his shipmates, survived to sail on between the wars on a variety of ships. He served with Captain Joseph Burnett before the latter took command of the ill-fated Sydney, which was sunk by Germany's Kormoran in 1941 off Western Australia, going down with all her 645 crew. "But I won't have a word said against Captain Burnett," Allan said. "He was the best captain I sailed under. You could not fault him."

Allan was still in the navy when World War II broke out and he served on different ships during the conflict. These included HMS Moreton Bay, which sailed in convoy with HMS Repulse and HMS Hood, which was later sunk by enemy fire in the North Atlantic (where it was found six decades later after a high-profile search with technology pioneered by the team that discovered the Titanic).

Fond of saying he had been "as lucky as a ship's cat with nine lives", Allan seemed to sail on, decade after decade, leading a charmed life. But after surviving the Great War, floating German mines, being washed overboard, the Spanish flu, and World War II with its U-boat attacks and kamikazes diving towards his ship, he finally retired in 1948 after 34 years in the navy. He then "swallowed the anchor" and came ashore. He may not have been piped down the gangplank the way a retiring admiral would have been, but his captain gave him a glowing report.

Lieutenant Allan then returned to Australia to join his wife, Ida Blakely. They had met in Vancouver in 1924 when she visited his ship and he had written to her until his ship returned in 1941, when they married.

The honeymooners sailed to Australia on SS Mariposa via Hawaii, fortunately leaving 12 days before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour.

They bought a farm at Tyabb, on Westernport Bay in Victoria, where they started a family, grew fruit, and raised cattle and chickens.

"After I had been at sea for so long, we both had to work very hard to establish ourselves in civilian life," Allan said.

He also worked very hard for the local branch of the Liberal Party, of which he was a dedicated member for decades. He was also a fanatical supporter of the Essendon AFL team, whose games he watched on television to the last.

Allan's last contact with senior naval officers was in 2002, when Vice-Admiral David Shackleton visited him in his Mount Alexander retirement home to ask him about the early days of the Australian Navy.

Allan was always very proud of his service decorations, including medals from the Great War and World War II, and the 80th Anniversary Armistice Medal.

A loving husband - his wife died 25 years ago - father and grandfather, he is survived by his daughter, Judith, and grandchildren Philippa and Duncan.

Allan attributed his longevity to abstinence from alcohol (apart from "Nelson's blood" - the mandatory tot of rum issued on ships to the night watch during storms at sea).

His death leaves only one serviceman from World War I, John Ross, 106, who never left Australia nor saw active service but who enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and was in training when the Armistice was declared on November 11, 1918.

Sources: The Herald wishes to thank the historian Frank MacDonough, the Australian War Memorial, the Department of Defence Information Service, the National Archives of Australia and the Navy History Section.

AUSTRALIA AND WWI: 1914-18

Australia committed more than 421,809 defence force personnel to World War I, also known as the Great War and "the war to end all wars". More than 330,000 service personnel served overseas, mainly in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). The soldiers and airmen fought mainly at Gallipoli, Palestine and on the Western Front (Flanders, and the Somme) with minor skirmishes in New Guinea. Thousands of their comrades sailed on the Australia's seven serving ships. More than 61,720 Australians died (nearly twice the number killed in World War II).

THE LAST DIGGER

Peter Casserly was the last digger to serve on the Western Front. He died on June 24 last year. Born in Perth in 1899, he served as a sapper in the Somme and survived some of the worst battles of the war. He rode shotgun on troop trains to and from the front in France. By the time he died aged 107, he had enjoyed the longest known marriage in Australian history - 80 years - and was the country's oldest man.

… THEN THERE WAS ONE

The one remaining member of the Australian Imperial Force is (John) Jack Ross, 106, of Bendigo, who enlisted on February 19, 1918, aged 18. He trained as a wireless operator, but the war ended before he could embark for the front. Instead he joined the Victorian Railways, married and had a family.