Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

NAME: JOHN HAMILTON STACE

QUALIFICATIONS:
DA, MELB, 1949

DATE OF BIRTH: 10 MAY 1921
DATE OF DEATH: 8 MAY 2003
John Hamilton Stace interrupted in his third year of medical training at the University of Adelaide to enlist for service during World War II. Toward the end of the war he joined the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, reporting for duty in 1945.

Following the war, Stace took up postgraduate studies, graduating from the Diploma of Anaesthesia in 1949. Within a few years he established Stace Anaesthetists, which was the first private practice in South Australia.

SOURCES
Website, Stace Anaesthetists; Form of Proposal for Nomination to Fellowship, 1956.

STACE John Hamilton RAN DA MB BS FANZCA

1921-2003

John Hamilton Stace was born, on the 10th May 1921, at Wakefield Street Hospital. He was the son of Leslie William Stace and Dorothy Alice, nee, Jones, of 36 Lynton Ave, Millswood. Stace was educated at Westbourne Park school until 1933, and then Prince Alfred College, where he gained the Mathematics Prize and a Bursary for the University of Adelaide. He studied medicine at the University of Adelaide and, as his course was accelerated due to WW2, he graduated in December 1943.  He did his residency at the RAH, during which he undertook locum positions in Port Lincoln and Kadina, in country SA, with a general duties’ appointment for one month at Parkside Mental Hospital. Stace married Lois Weymouth Burpee, before his commission as surgeon lieutenant, on 5th April 1944. She was the twin daughter of Mr Ernest William Burpee and the late Mrs Anne Burpee of Clarence Park, SA. Her mother had sadly died the previous year.

Stace enlisted, in April 1945, and he was mobilised for postings to shore bases, HMAS Cerberus, in Victoria, the Flinders Naval Depot, and HMAS Melville in Darwin.  He joined HMAS Arunta, a recently refitted Tribal Class destroyer, in October 1945. While on Arunta he went to Japan to serve with the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force until March 1946. Stace recalls; “We visited Tokyo, Nagoya, Shimizu, Atami, Yokosuka, Kure, and Hiroshima. Shortly after arriving in Japan some of us were flown over some of the devastated regions…I took many aerial photographs from the bomb-aimers position". He returned in mid-December after a cruise through Papua New Guinea and the Philippines for a second deployment with the BPF. His active service in the RAN concluded in March 1947. Stace reverted to the RANR on his return Adelaide and finally to the RANVR with the rank of surgeon lieutenant commander. Stace then transferred to the Army Reserve at the rank of major. Following WW2, he served in 104 AGH which was re-established as 3rd General Hospital which was a medical holding unit capable of providing medical services for exercises and deployments. Stace was appointed to this unit as an anaesthetist and remained in the Army Reserve until placed on the Reserve of Officers in the early 1960s. He was reactivated in 1974 at the rank of colonel, as a Consultant Anaesthetist to the Department of Defence (Army), until 1978.

Following WW2, Stace accepted an appointment as anaesthetic registrar at the RAH and continued his anaesthetic career and gained a doctorate of anaesthesia (DA) at Melbourne University. He left the Adelaide Hospital, in June 1949, for full-time private practice, but maintained an honorary position.  His work covered most surgical specialities however he anaesthetised for the early cases of cardiac surgery and thoracic surgery which lasted until his retirement in 1983. He established the first private anaesthetic practice in South Australia, in 1953, when he was joined by Dr Jim Ferris, and this continues to be one of Adelaide's largest and leading anaesthetic practices' today.  He retired from the group and ceased practice in 1987. Stace eventually lived at 30 Commercial Rd, Hyde Park. John Hamilton Stace died, on 5th May 2003, survived by his wife Lois, his three daughters and seven grandchildren.

Blood Sweat and Fears 111. Medical Practitioners who served in WW2. Open Books Howden, Adelaide. 2019

Swain, Jelly, Verco, Summers.

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Annette Summers AO RFD