Captain Douglas Murray McWhae

Douglas Murray McWhae was born in Victoria on thew 28th of May, 1884. He moved to Western Australia after obtaining his MD in 1908. He worked in a general practice in Ninth Avenue, Maylands. He intended to specialise in surgery, however when World War I began in 1914, he travelled to Egypt with the First Division of the AIF as Captain in the Third Field Ambulance. Having obtained his MRCP in 1919 he become an honorary physician to the Perth Hospital and the Children's Hospital. He was chairman of the Visiting Board of the Claremont Mental Hospital and of the Board of Lemnos Mental Hospital. He was a member of the Medical Board of Western Australia and the Council of the Medical Defence Association. He was also a Foundation Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and The Royal College of Physicians in London. In 1919, he married Gwynnyth Muriel and had two sons, Douglas and Ross. In 1915 at ANZAC Cove Mr McWhae was struck in the head by flying shrapnel causing his right eye to be removed. With the loss of his eye his aspirations of specialising in surgery ended. During the course of the war he was appointed SMO in charge of Convalescent Units, promoted to colonel and made ADMS of headquarters of AIF Command Units in the United Kingdom. He returned to Australia in 1919 and was discharged from the AIF a year later. At the outbreak of World War II he was placed in charge of a field ambulance, a casualty clearing station (including an Ambulance train), a convalescent depot at Narrogin and the camp hospitals at Karrakatta, Point Walter, Rottnest Naval Base and Northam. He was raised to the rank of Brigadier in 1942 and was placed in charge of making all arrangements for possible casualties from Japanese attacks. He retired from the army in 1943, returning to his specialist physician practice. Douglas McWhae died on the 22nd of September, 1969.