Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

David Neil Body joined the CMF in an engineer unit from the Sydney Water Board in 1951. With the
introduction of National Service later that year he entered into his fourteen weeks full-time training in
January 1952. After the completion of this training he was posted back to a field artillery regiment.
He was appointed to a commission in 1954, the first National Serviceman to be commissioned in
RAA, and he continued to serve in Sydney and Melbourne until transferring to the RofO after he
moved to Canberra in 1973. During his career in the CMF he served with field regiments and locating
batteries as well as having some periods in staff postings. He commanded three of the four
Melbourne metropolitan field batteries at various times and was 2IC of both metropolitan field
regiments before being appointed to command 2 Fd Regt RAA at the end of 1970.

In March 1969 he undertook a two week familiarisation tour with the field regiment then serving in
Vietnam.

At his course for promotion to Lt. Col in 1967 he was placed second in Australia and received the
Blamey Award. He was awarded the ED and the RFD.

In civilian life he was a civil engineer working in the field of water resources and hydrology. During
his career he worked at the Sydney Water Board, University of NSW, the Bureau of Meteorology and
CSIRO. He was a member of numerous specialist committees both nationally and internationally with
the World Meteorological Organisation and UNESCO, acting as chairman of many.