Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William Maurice Hunt was born at Laura 14 May 1923, the second of eleven children of William Edwin Melrose and Catherine Annie (nee Sutter) Hunt. Three of William’s brothers also served in the armed forces, Sam and John (Jack) in the AIF and Ronald in the RAAF.

Bill enlisted with the Militia at Melrose on 19 January 1942, aged 18 years, listing his occupation as farm hand. He was allotted SN 59959 and assigned to 18 Garrison Battalion (Grn Bn), whose role was to defend the Adelaide sector north of Fort Glanville, and guarding vulnerable points around the city. In March he attended a snipers course at Victoria Park. 18 Grn Bn left for Sydney in June 1942, where they patrolled the beaches north and south of the harbour from Mona Vale to Cronulla.

He was reposted on 22 August to 2 Army Tank Battalion (2 Tank Btn) at Greta where on the 7th of September he transferred to the AIF as 18 Grn Bn was disbanding. He was to be trained as a driver/mechanic and subsequently attended the Armed Corps Training Centre at Puckapunyal in June/July of that year, but failed to pass the examinations. 2 Tank Btn was disbanded in April 1944 and Bill then transferred to General Reinforcements moving to Queensland. 22 May 1944 he was posted to 4 Ordnance Vehicle Park at Mt Gravatt, before transferring on 22 July to 2/4 Armoured Regiment Ordnance Field Park (2/4 Armd Regt Ord Fd Pk) at Southport, where he underwent training as a technical storeman, achieving the qualification in September of that year. Australian Army Ordnance Corps (AAOC) units handled everything that a unit was accountable for and they had to hand back when they had finished using it (guns, clothing, camp stores). The ordnance field park moved with its client unit to facilitate the flow of ordnance items from the depots to the unit and they carried a stock of ‘fast moving’ items. They usually moved with a similarly named workshop unit and kept it supplied with spare parts etc.

The regiment and their support units left for New Guinea and Bill embarked at Brisbane 25 August 1944, aboard the MV ‘Duntroon’, disembarking at Madang on the North Coast of New Guinea where he was based until 16 December 1944. B Squadron of 2/4 Armoured Regiment moved to Bougainville in December 1944 and Bill arrived at Torokina on 30 December with the section of 2/4 Armd Regt Ord Fd Pk that was attached to B Sqn. Bill wrote home home but like many service personnel was limited by the censors as to what he could talk about, so he developed a code to let his mother Catherine know of his whereabouts. In one letter he enquired about the health of his beloved purple flowering plant out in the garden, the bush he referred to was a bougainvillea. Unfortunately the trunk containing all the letters sent by the four brothers went missing shortly after Catherine passed away.

In mid-November 1945 he moved to Rabual to join 130 Brigade Ordnance Field Park which had moved their with 4 Infantry Brigade to supervise the Japanese surrender but on 6 December 1945 he boarded the HMAS ‘Katoomba’ to return to Australia, disembarking at Townsville.

He was discharged 8 February 1946. Bill’s younger sister Cathy Searle recalls the day he came home to Melrose. “ The excitement from my parents and brothers and I still have this vision of him coming down the road in his uniform and being picked up, my twin brother Trevor and myself, one in each arm. It was like a distant dream to me but a lasting impression still is stamped in my memory. As he neared his father, he reaches into a pocket and produces a tiny little pup, which he then gives to him.” Cathy remembered the tremendous pride that she felt for her brothers and said that Bill was always her hero. She also recalls that Bill suffered from severe shell shock as a result of his army service, which affected him all his life. Consequently he found it hard to settle in any one place for a length of time.

What work he did immediately after the war is uncertain but he did have a variety of jobs before his retirement. He worked as a barman at the O.G Hotel, was at GM Holden for 14 years, and was employed at Bon Bon Station in the far North West of South Australia. He also trained and drove trotters.

William married Jessie Florence Wollaston at the Adelaide Registry office 17 July 1969. They had three children, a girl and two boys.  

He passed away 22 July 2004 and is interred near the WW1 Memorial at Melrose, South Australia.

Excerpt taken from "Diggers From the Dust" (2018) Di Barrie & Andrew Barrie.