Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Staff Sergeant Edwin Cecil Dival (Service Nos:W40205/WX36598) served with Australiam Army Ordnance Corps (AAOC), enlisting initially in the ACMF as a Private attached to 7 and 12 Ordnance Depots. Staff Sergeant Dival transferred to the AIF on 5 July 1943 and was attached to 15 Ordnance Stores Coy, serving in New Guinea from 20 August 1943 to 13 January 1944. Staff Sergeant Dival was attached to Western Command Ordnance Depot Coy at Discharge on 8 April 1944 (Medically Unfit). He had applied to enlist in the AIF in 1918, but was rejected as Medially Unfit for Service.

Cecil was born in Hampshire, England in 1900, third of four children of Edwin Dival (b1869 in Somerset, England) and Mary Parsons (b1868 in Sussex, England). Edwin (a Grocer's Assistant) and Mary (a Domestic Servant) married in 1894 in Sussex, where they lived until the late 1890s - Edwin was a Provision Dealer's Manager. In 1911, Edwin and Mary were living in Hampshire, where Edwin was a Salesman and Manager, when they immigrated with their family to Fremantle Western Australia on board the Omrah (Edwin had listed his occupation as Carpenter). The family settled in Woodanilling via Katanning, where Edwin was a Shop Assistant, and was appointed a Justice of the Peace, served on the Health Board and was President of the Roads Board. Edwin and Mary retired to Perth in the mid 1930s.

Cecil worked as a Storeman in Woodanilling, and in Katanning in 1925 married Edna Mary Irina Bell (b1899 in Katanning, Western Australia). Cecil and Edna lived in Woodanilling - where Cecil was a Store Assistant - until 1936 when he and Edna moved to Perth. Cecil and Edna lived in Balcatta, Nedlands, Melville and Applecross, where they raised their family and Cecil was a Storekeeper/Manager (in his WWII Attestation Papers he gave his occupation as Clerk). Edna died in 1967 and Cecil in 1979.