FOR 240 days, Australians were holed in the desert sands of north-west Libya refusing to surrender to the might of Rommel’s Afrika Corp.
It was the darkest of days in World War Two as British and Allied forces from Commonwealth countries were on the frontline in a battle for democracy and freedom.
From April 1941, Australian soldiers would be part of the siege at Tobruk. Throughout the campaign, there would be a total of 14,000 diggers who spent part of the war in the garrison city.
Among them, 17 soldiers with a connection to the Pyramid Hill district who on Monday, Remembrance Day 2024, will be honoured with the unveiling of portraits commissioned by the Descendants of Rats of Tobruk Australia Association,
Men who gave rise to an Australian military legend akin to the feats at Gallipoli and on the Western Front in World War One and in the jungles of New Guinea and along the Kokoda Track in later years of World War Two that saw the sons of original Anzacs again thrown into battle.
The very men who accepted a snide German propaganda tag as a badge of honour. The Australian War memorial says Tobruk was vital for the Allies’ defence of Egypt and the Suez Canal. “Tobruk was subject to repeated ground assaults and almost constant shelling and bombing. The Nazi propagandist Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) derided the tenacious defenders as ‘rats’, a term that the Australian soldiers embraced as an ironic compliment.”
Pyramid Hill men like Malcolm McGillivray and Stuart McIntosh. Some of the 17 would be wounded, Doug McAlister and Gordon Moss made the supreme sacrifice.
The 17 portraits carrying the service records will be unveiled in Pyramid Hill’s RSL Hall.
For association member Ray Windlow, honouring the Rats is a project of passion and one that next week reconnects him with the district where his grandparents lived.
Walter and Annie Ogilvie were from Yarrawalla, Ray’s mother and sisters were born in the district.
And the ceremony will come three months after the last of those 14,000 young Australians to serve at Tobruk, Victorian-born Tom Pritchard, died in Adelaide just shy of his 103rd birthday.
Tom’s death has meant that most state Rats of Tobruk associations have disbanded. According to Ray, that was the wish of the ex-servicemen.
It’s now up to descendants to see their legacy and memory are forever cherished and the stories of those men shared with today’s generations.
Ray has also assisted in the production of more than 3500 portraits of the Rats. “Some are now being made into plaques like the 17 for Pyramid Hill. Each plaque has a photograph of the soldier and their war record,” he said.
“These records are also in a series of books called Faces of Rats - 500 in each volume and I’m now working on volume eight.”
Ray said his interest in exploring soldiers from Pyramid Hill stemmed from a Queensland researcher who contacted him with questions.
“That triggered the interest, I thought about Pyramid Hill and spoke with historical society secretary Cheryl McKinnon and it’s taken off from there,” Ray said.
His own research had helped some local families fill gaps in their knowledge of service by fathers and grandfathers.
“That’s intensely satisfying being able to help families,” he said.
“It was a tough campaign. Running the docks in Tobruk was far from being in a holiday resort for any of the Australians who found themselves there in World War Two.
“I had an uncle there ... that’s my connection. But what I found remarkable was for a rural town the size of Pyramid Hill to have so many leave the farms, their families and enlist was a huge sacrifice in the first place.
“Being at Tobruk must have been a real eye-opener for these guys coming off the land and suddenly being on the other side of the world, in a foreign country.
“What we are doing is a way of repaying these servicemen for what they did ... never forgotten,” Ray said of his association that has more than 3000 members across Australia.
The Aussie Rats in Libya were backed over those 240 days by the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy who provided the garrison’s link to the outside world, the so-called ‘Tobruk ferry’. 
According to the Australian War Memorial, those ships included the Australian destroyers Napier, Nizam, Stuart, Vendetta and Voyager. Losses comprised two destroyers, including HMAS Waterhen, three sloops, including HMAS Parramatta, and 21 smaller vessels.
AWM says half the Australian garrison was relieved in August, the rest in September-October. However, 2/13 Battalion could not be evacuated and was still there when the siege was lifted on December10 , the only unit present for the entire siege.
Australian casualties from the 9th Division from April 8 to October 25 numbered 749 killed, 1996 wounded and 604 prisoners. 
The total losses in the 9th Division and attached troops from March to December were 832 killed, 2,177 wounded and 941 prisoners.
All of the 14,000 were happy to be called Rats - 17 of them from Pyramid Hill who will be honoured on Remembrance Day.
- CHRIS EARL