Roderick Duncan (Rod) MCRAE

Roderick Duncan (Rod) MCRAE Update Details

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MCRAE, Roderick Duncan

Service Number:	PM6814
Enlisted:	3 August 1943
Last Rank:	Able Seaman
Last Unit:	Not yet discovered
Born:	Warracknabeal, Victoria, Australia , 13 November 1925
Home Town:	Port Melbourne, Port Phillip, Victoria
Schooling:	Not yet discovered
Occupation:	Not yet discovered
Died:	Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, 12 October 2009, aged 83 years, cause of death not yet discovered
Cemetery:	Bendigo Public Cemetery, Victoria
Memorials:

World War 2 Service

3 Aug 1943:	Enlisted Royal Australian Navy, Able Seaman, PM6814
11 Sep 1946:	Discharged Royal Australian Navy, Able Seaman, PM6814

Help us honour Roderick Duncan Mcrae's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Chris Buckley

Youngest of four siblings who served in WWII (Dardanella, Ernest, Margaret and Roderick), Telegraphist Roderick Duncan McRae (Service No:Pm6814) enlisted in the RAN as an Ordinary Seaman on 3 August 1943 on HMAS Cerberus, and was appointed Telegraphist on 29 March 1944. Able Seaman McRae was attached to HMAS Lonsdale at Discharge on 11 September 1946.

Rod was born in Warracknabeal, Victoria in 1925, youngest of eight children of Roderick (William) Seaman McRae (b1883 in Ararat, Victoria) and Florence (Flora) Myrtle Millstead (b1891 in Geelong, Victoria). William and Flora married in 1908 in Warracknabeal, where they settled and raised their family. William served in the Army WWI (Private; Service No:1660), and was WiA at Gallipoli (GSW resulting in amputation of leg). William and Flora lived in Warracknabeal, where William worked as a Labourer until his death in 1926. Flora died in 1929.

Rod was a Telegraph Messenger with the Postmaster General's (PMG) Department when he enlisted in the Navy in 1943. Following his Discharge in 1946, he moved to Ararat, and was working as a Postal Clerk with the PMG in 1948 when he married Elsie (Dawn) Yolande Fitzgerald (b1924 in Ararat, Victoria) - Dawn was working as a Typist in Ararat. Rod and Dawn lived in Ararat before moving in the 1950s to Bendigo, where they raised their family and Rod worked for the PMGs Deoartment as a Clerk until retirement. In 1977 Rod was awarded a Silver Jubilee Medal. Rod died in 2009 and Dawn died in 2020.

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