Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Frank Alfred Ernest Redhead was the son of the Reverend Theodore John Redhead and Eliza Redhead. His father was previously Captain Chaplain T. J. Redhead and was a chaplain attached to the 3rd Tunnelling Company during the Great War, having enlisted in New South Wales. 

Frank Redhead attended Ivanhoe Grammar and was a very good Rugby Union player, he played A grade Rugby Union with Power House 1936-40, representing Victoria at the age of 18. He played for Australia versus ‘The Rest’ in 1939 and after enlisting was later the AIF Heavyweight Boxing Champion in Darwin during 1941.

He first joined the Militia in December 1938 before he joined the RAAF as a physical instructor during March 1940 as a 19 year old. He quit the RAAF in March 1941 and joined up with the 2/21st Battalion. The battalion began arriving in Darwin on 9 April 1941 and spent the next nine months training there. The unit was sent to defend Ambon Island as part of Gull Force  to defend the strategic island's harbour and air strip.

The 1130 men of Gull force were overwhelmed by 20,000 Japanese attackers. 229 Australians were massacred at the airfield on the island. The rest were made POW.

Frank Redhead escaped from captivity with three other 2/21st Battalion soldiers. They somehow made it back to Darwin in small boats. Frank was first reported as missing then as a POW in February 1942, before arriving back in Australia in June 1942. 

Frank Redhead was made a Lieutenant on the 21 January 1943 and joined the 2/5th Commando Squadron soon after. After intensive jungle warfare training mostly on the Atherton Tablelands of Queensland the 2/5th was embarked to invade Balikpapan in Borneo during June 1945. 

He was killed in action at a hill feature called 'the Gate' on 6 July 1945, about 3 miles inland from where they landed. It was said was shot trying to recover the body of one his mates VX79445 Lance Corporal Paul Bell 2/5th Commando Squadron who had been killed in a Japanese ambush 2 days prior.

In an "Australians at War" film achive VX50379 Jack Lawrence McMahon, who was also a survivor of Gull Force and later a member of Z Force, is recorded as saying,

"This air force fellow, he had resigned his commission in the air force and he enlisted the same day we did, and he was on his own, a wonderful bloke. He cottoned on to us, so the four of us travelled from Bonegilla right through, we stuck together, the four of us, to Darwin. And any time we could get a beer we would go to the pub. I drank, never smoked, didn’t have a cigarette and he didn’t and every glass of beer we had he had a glass of sarsaparilla. Frank Redhead was his name, he was killed in Borneo. Tried to rescue – he was an officer then, he retained officer rank and he was killed trying to rescue one of his men."

Frank Redhead also got engaged in late 1944, before he went to Borneo.