Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Youngest of five brothers serving in WWII, Petty Officer Stoker Mechanic Colin Ivan Morris (Service Nos:32382/PA3287) enlisted in the RAN at Port Adelaide on 3 November 1942 as a Stoker on board HMAS Cerberus. Stoker Morris served on HMAS Melville, Platypus, Leeuwin, Geelong, Kuttabul and Penguin, and was a Petty Officer Stoker Mechanic attached to HMAS Lonsdale at Discharge on 12 December 1956. Two older brothers also served in the RAN - Raymond (KiA on board HMAS Sydney in 1941) and Ernest.

Colin was born in Nailsworth, Adelaide, South Australia in 1924, youngest of eleven children of Edmund (George) Henry George Morris (b1869 in Modbury, South Australia) and Elizabeth Sabina Kempster (b1879 in Keilli, South Australia). George and Elizabeth married in Kadina in 1897, and lived in Keith, Wallaroo, Medindie, Port Lincoln and Adelaide, where they raised their family and George was a Stonemason.

Colin was working in Adelaide as a Factory Hand in 1942 when he enlisted in the Navy, and in 1946 was in Sydney NSW when he married his first wife Hazel Elaine Seaman (b1927 in Crookwell, NSW) - Hazel was working in Sydney as a Canteen Assistant. Following his Divorce in 1949, Colin remarried that year in Melbourne to Melody Flora Adamson (b1929 in Shepparton, Victoria). Colin and Flora settled in Melbourne, where they raised their family and Colin served with the Naval Reserve and worked as a Postal Officer and Clerk with the Postmaster General's Department. Colin died in 1974.