Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Leading Aircraftman Thomas Edward Mountford (Service No:85265) enlisted in the RAAF on 18 August 1941. Mustered as a Guard, he served in Perth, Busselton, Shepparton, Boulder and the Northern Territory (54 Mile and Nightcliffe). LAC Mountford was attached to Security Guards Unit when he was Discharged on 3 August 1945. LAC Mountford's father, two brothers, a brother-in-law and his wife served in WWII. Younger brother Stanley served with the BCOF in Japan (1946 - 1948).

Born in 1924 in Hay Wales, Tom was the third of eight children of Alfred (Sid Snr) Sidney Mountford (b1901 in Clyro, Wales) and Margaret Kathleen Eleanor Pugh (b1902 in Swansea, Wales). Sid (a Farm Hand) and Margaret married in 1920 in Wales and in 1926 immigrated with their four children to Albany WA on board the Herminius. The family was one of the Group Settlers (Group 62) at Cowarumup in Margaret River WA, settling a block at Great Hope Valley. Like many others, after sustained hardship the family walked off the block and lived in Picton Junction near Bunbury before moving to Collie WA where Sid was a Labourer and Orchardist. In the early 1950s Sid and Margaret moved to Chidlow where they ran a store before retiring to Perth WA.

Tom was a Junior Miner (Horsekeeper) and member of Collie Flight Air Transport Corps when he enlisted in the RAAF. In 1945 in Swan WA he married Doris Rosemary Ambrose (b1925 in Fremantle, WA) - Doris was an Aircraftwoman with the RAAF. Tom and Doris lived in Collie where Tom worked as a Plaster Fixer, then moved to Bassendean in Perth where he was a Postal Employee and then to the Kalgoorlie region in the 1950s where Tom was a Miner. Tom and his family moved back to Perth in 1959 and he worked as a Powder Monkey and Groundsman before he and Doris separated in the mid 1960s.Tom relocated to Tasmania where he died in 1996.