Month: June 2022

1-MARCH-1942. While serving within the Royal Australian Navy as a Signals Officer, Captain Hector MacDonald Laws Waller served with distinction aboard several warships of the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Navy during both the First World War and the Second World War. 

Having graduated from the fledgling Royal Australian Naval College during the First World War, his posting would be to the Royal Navy Battleship HMS Agincourt, and would predominately perform escort duties for the duration of the war. 

As a career sailor, he would progress through the ranks until he was in command of the 19th Destroyer Division at the start of the Second World War. He would be in direct command of two vessels during the Second World war, the Destroyer HMAS Stuart I where he led the ‘Scrap Iron Flotilla’ and the Cruiser HMAS Perth I. He would go down with the HMAS Perth when it was sunk during the one-sided Battle of Sunda Strait alongside 356 fellow personnel of Perth.

Summary 24-MAY-1966. While serving with B Company 5th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, Australian Regular Army, National Serviceman Private Errol Wayne Noack served as a section machine gunner during the Vietnam War. He was killed during his first military operation two weeks after arriving in-country and would go into the history books as the first Australian … Read More “The First Conscript is Dead: Pte Errol Wayne “Flex” Noack” »