Background
Allan was born in Bega in the then British colony of New South Wales, eighteen months before the Commonwealth of Australia came into being.
Allan was born in Bega in the then British colony of New South Wales, eighteen months before the Commonwealth of Australia came into being.
Allan was a career sailor in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), serving from 1914 to 1947. He joined the RAN in March 1914 at the age of fourteen as an ordinary seaman second class. When war was declared on 14 August 1914, he was 15 and serving aboard the training ship HMAS Tingira, which was docked in Rose Bay, Sydney.
He served on board HMAS Encounter until the end of the war, and became an able seaman in 1915.
When he was eighteen, he survived the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed over fifty of his shipmates on a transport voyage between Cape Town and Sierra Leone. Between the world wars, Allan almost drowned after falling overboard in the North Atlantic — and would have done so had his captain not braved the precipitous storm, turned the ship around, and rescued him with the help of a life preserver and a rope ladder.
In 1932 he was promoted to chief petty officer Allan went on to serve on HMAS Adelaide in the Second World War, sailing in convoy with Her Majesty Ships Repulse and Hood.
He retired from the Navy on 30 October 1947, after serving thirty-four years, being granted his war service rank of lieutenant prior to discharge.
