On the evening of 15 August 1944, beside a creek in northern Queensland, a figure strode up to a young, sleeping soldier and swung a blacksmith’s hammer three times into his skull. The first two blows punctured the twenty-year-old’s brain, spraying blood onto a nearby fence. The third blow created a deep gash across his face. The attacker kicked his victim in the crotch and face, too; a tooth rolled onto the ground. The soldier was left for dead on the cold grass.

His mates soon found his broken body, his mouth choked with blood, and rushed to find help. Medical staff at a nearby army hospital monitored his condition for two days but he didn’t once stir from his coma. With head injuries so severe, there was next to no hope of recovery. At 8.30am on 17 August 1944, thirty-six hours after the bludgeoning, he was declared dead.