Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Melville was born in Moonta, SA on 11/9/1919 and was educated there.

On leaving school, he worked in the family fishing business with his father and brothers.

Mel was a frequent visitor to Cowell in his fishing days before the war as many of his relatives had moved there and Moonta is not far from Cowell across Spencer Gulf. This is where he met Shirley.

He was expected to work for his father until the age of 21 when his father promised to give him a boat.

That plan was interrupted by Mel’s enlistment in the army in June 1940 when he was 19 years old. He served in theatres of war in Syria, New Guinea and Borneo. He was involved in the invasion at Gona in Borneo, a particularly dreadful battle. He is pictured in a photo at Gona in the book “Those Rugged Bloody Heroes” and also the book “Marks of War”

He contracted various illnesses whilst overseas such as Hepatitis, Malaria, Pneumonia and “scrub typhus” in New Guinea when he was named in the casualty lists as “seriously ill” and later “dangerously ill”. Other than a few weeks of sick leave in Australia, Mel was overseas for a very long time but his marriage to Shirley during the war lasted all his life even though there wasn’t much time to get to know each other well before they married.

He was lucky too, to have a job held open for him for his return from the war. He took over the waterworks job from his father after training at Cummins. Also Mel had a wife and baby to come home to which he believed saved him from psychological trauma. Some of the returned soldiers had no employment or family on their return and the rest of their lives seemed unhappy .

It is wonderful that his wife Shirley could tell a good news account of one of our servicemen, though sadly he’s not with us any more.