Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

WADDY John Archibald MB BS

1913-1979

John Archibald Waddy was born in Glenelg, SA, on 14th February 1913. He was the son of Ernest Winthrop Waddy and Eva May, nee Drake. Waddy had seven siblings, three sisters; Thelma Alicia, Charmian Dousland and Mary; four brothers Colin Taylor, Alton Francis Drake, Lionel Ernest and Brian Cadwallader. His mother felt strongly about animals kept in zoos and wrote to the Adelaide Advertiser, in 1934, supporting the abolition of the Adelaide Zoo. Waddy was educated at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. took and studied medicine at Sydney University, NSW, in March 1937. Waddy is recorded in the electoral rolls as living, as a student, in Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, East Sydney, NSW, in 1937. He returned to SA and lived in Strathalbyn, then moved to Tasmania to work at the Royal Hobart Hospital, in 1943.

Waddy enlisted in Hobart, Tasmania on 10th July 1942, and volunteered for the 2/AIF on 5th April 1943.  He gave his next of kin as his mother later changing it to his wife, Marjorie Alice Waddy. Initially posted to 41 ACH, in Tasmania, he was attached as MO to 110 Aust Convalescent Depot. He attended several training courses during 1943, and was posted as a MO to 2/6th AGH in February 1944, followed by a posting to 67 ACH. Waddy married Marjorie Alice on the 9th August 1944. Waddy, remaining with 2/6th AGH, embarked from Cairns QLD for PNG and then to British North Borneo, in July 1945. He had two hospital admissions while serving in Borneo.  Waddy returned to Tasmania, on 17th January 1946, and was discharged on 30th January 1946 and placed on the Reserve of Officers.

Following the war, in 1946, Waddy lived at Penguin, Waratah a small town on the edge of the Tarkine wilderness in Tasmania. He gave medical evidence at a coroner’s hearing into the suicide death of a prospector in December 1946.  He and his wife are recorded as living at Whitemark on Flinders Island, Tasmania, in 1949, however, by 1958, they were living in Terrigal, NSW, and in Warringah, NSW in 1963. He and his wife travelled to England in 1960. John Archibald Waddy died on 3rd August 1979, in Warwick, Queensland and is interred in the Toowoomba Garden of Remembrance.  Survived by his two sons Michael and John. His wife had predeceased him.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears III: Medical Practitioners South Australia, who Served in World War 2. 

Swain, Jelly, Verco, Summers. Open Books Howden, Adelaide 2019. 

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD