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Note: H00001
Note: His ashes are scattered in the Goonoo State Forest (now a National Park), north east of Dubbo, near the intersection of Mendooran road and Mogroguy Forest road.
He left school in 1931 or 1932. He joined the New South Wales Forestry Commission in 1936 and worked as a forester until the outbreak of the Second World War.
Jack enlisted in the RAAF in June 1940 and was sent to Southern Rhodesia, for flight training. After crashing two training planes, he was classified as medically unfit for aircrew (apparently due to poor eye site, even though he was in in fifties before he had to use reading glasses) and discharged from the RAAF. He made his own way back to Australia, as crew on the "Evening Star". He enlisted in the AIF (Australian Imperial Forces - the Australian expeditionary army) soon after his return in 1941 and was assigned to the Second/Fourth Light Anti Aircraft Regiment and sent to the Middle East as part of the Ninth Australian Division. This was a front line unit of the British Eight Army, that was formed in Egypt to stop Rommel's Africa Corpse. He saw action in Palestine and the Libyan desert at the battle of El Alemain. The Ninth Australian Division was withdrawn from Africa and returned to Australia in early 1943 for defence against the Japanese. It was during this time Mom and Dad were married. The Ninth Division was then sent to New Guinea to fight the Japanese. He spent the next two years catching various tropical diseases including Malaria, Scrub Typhus and Yellow Fever.
After he was demobilised from the army, in October 1945, he recommenced his career with the NSW Forestry Commission and was appointed as a Forester to Narrabri, where he was based from 1946 to 1953. In that year he was transferred to the Baradine district as Senior Forester. In about 1954, he was appointed "acting" District Forester and soon after his position was made permanent. At that time he was the youngest District Forester ever appointed. He was also the last to be appointed without tertiary qualifications.
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