2/12 Field Ambulance banner : Lieutenant Colonel N H Morgan, 2/12 Australian Field Ambulance

A unit banner for the 2/12 Australian Field Ambulance. The banner is made of unbleached calico and is painted at the centre with the Red Cross, on top of which is painted the colour patch of 2/12 Field Ambulance; a horizontal brown oval divided vertically by a grey strip and with a grey border. Painted in blue and silver lettering across the top is, '2/12 AUSTRALIAN FIELD AMBULANCE'. Painted around the colour patch in green with red and yellow highlights are the words, 'DARWIN, TARAKAN, AMBON, LUTONG, TIMOR, LABUAN, MOROTAI, KUCHING and HMAHS CENTAUR'. The side seams of the banner are open at the bottom, forming pockets to accept the carrying poles.

Associated with the service of Lieutenant Colonel N H Morgan, 2/12 Australian Field Ambulance (AFA). Born in Brisbane on 9 December 1910, Neville Howard Morgan completed his medical training at Sydney University and was in England at the outbreak of the Second World War. There he enlisted in the AIF. Morgan was seriously wounded during his service in North Africa and was later transferred to the command of 2/12 AFA in the South West Pacific. At the end of the war Morgan was awarded the Order of the British Empire and went on to become a prominent orthopaedic surgeon in England and then Australia. He died in 1973 after a long illness. More than 30% of the members of 2/12 AFA lost their lives on active service, the highest ratio of any Australian military medical unit. Parts of this unit served with Gull Force on Ambon and Sparrow Force on Timor. Only fourteen of the two hundred 2/12 AFA personnel aboard HMAHS Centaur survived the sinking of that vessel off the coast of Queensland in May 1943.