Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

John Francis McLeod was born 14 Dec 1916 at Inglewood Pocket, Gympie, one of 8 children of John & Grace McLeod. His father was a hairdresser at Gympie & Tewantin and was accidently shot at Tewantin in 1929 and died at Cooroy Hospital when John was 13 years old.
In 1939 John was playing football at Wooroolin per an article in the Maryborough Chronicle. Other Wooroolin men mentioned in the same article were: Alick Cavanagh, H Blythmann, P Coyne, G Phillips & W Tootell.
On 30 May 1941 John enlisted in the Australian Army ay Kingaroy. His records are not yet available on the NAA website but the WW11 nominal roll shows he served in the 8 Australia Motor Ambulance Convoy. Interesting fact is that his youngest brother Claude also joined the same unit but not until 1943.
I found an 11 page document online entitled “THE ORGANIZATION AND USES OF A MOTOR AMBULANCE CONVOY”, By MAJOR P. J. S. O'GRADY, Royal Army Medical Corps and usewd a few sentences from it.
A Motor Ambulance Convoy (M.A.C.) is a mobile medical unit, commanded by a R.A.M.C. officer of field rank. It comprises a medical wing and a transport wing. The MAC units are utilized for clearing the sick and wounded from field ambulances to casualty clearing stations, and very often from casualty clearing stations to ambulance trains. I am guessing that John was part of the Transport section and that he would have either been a driver or on maintenance duties.
Without access to his army records it is impossible to know where John served but I did find a photo of some of his unit up at the Atherton Tablelands in 1943.
John was discharged from the Army on 22 Nov 1945. It seems he did not return to Wooroolin as the electoral rolls show he lived in Brisbane and married Eileen Byrnes in 1947. He was a Telephone Technician!
John died in 2000 and is remembered at Pinaroo Lawn Cemetery with his wife.
Lest We Forget