Department of Veterans' Affairs
Transcript
Bob's near escape
You often hear that young men, especially brothers, they enlisted together, they wanted to serve together, they wanted to take care of one another but it's so, it's random.
They could be standing beside one another and one would be blown to pieces and the other one would survive and what a horrible thing for not only the survivor but for the parents realising that that was the sort of thing that could happen and Bob had an experience, not with a brother but three of them were at the battle of the Seine and they'd been called to get out of there and move away to a safer area and Bob and one chap, they rushed back to the shell hole, to the bunker, and the third one he had his eyes shot out.
He was blown up and his eyes were shot out and he died the next day.
AWL
He dared. He dared. He stretched himself and the war had ended and his job, with some of the other armourer sergeants was to account for all the arms of the battalion and then they had to be returned or disarmed or whatever the thing was.
And so one day Jack (?) from Inverell and Bob Melloy from Brisbane gathered together, somehow, a set of leave passes and endorsed them with their own names and they took off, they got on the train and ended up in Germany and they had a marvellous time and every time the Military Police came along 'What are you doing here boys?'
'Oh Sir, we've been assigned to look after two chaps who have, you know, they've absconded, and we've been sent to find them. We haven't had any luck so far but we're working on it, Sir, we're trying our hardest.'
And so, when they went back, they realised they'd have to front up and they might be in severe trouble and the CO was, he was just amazed, amazed, he said 'I wished I'd have had your experience.'
Refugees
Another thing that impressed Bob in the First World War and impressed him all his life was seeing the refugees absolutely fleeing because, and they were old women, sometimes in their beds being pushed along the roads and even dogs carrying parcels on their backs, strapped on their backs and little children dragging along something.
That stood Bob in very good stead in World War Two when he was in the army and detailed to requisition properties, especially in North Queensland, in Townsville when the Battle of the Coral Sea was going to have a lot of casualties come in.
American, General MacArthur and his staff could not come in and say we want that property, it had to go through an American officer then a counterpart, Bob, and then the requisitions were made and he always remembered the refugees, the status of those people and he was telling the people in Townsville to get out of their houses and to get out quickly.
When some of them put up a great protest he said, 'Well we'll call a public meeting and you can tell the public why you don't want to do this.'
And Bob made sure that he listened, he was very good at listening and considering and then he said 'If you don't let me take over your properties that the government needs for the prosecution of the war then the Japanese will arrive and they will take them over.'
And having said that, skilled negotiator he was. He could see very clearly and they said 'Alright Major Melloy, we'll go.'
Post-war RSL
Unlike many returned men he would speak about it. I don't know, I can't know that he would speak to everyone about it, certainly other returned men, I know he did because he was very active in Nambour after World War One when he lived there.
He was honorary secretary of the RSL and I know that the diggers then, once again they were a coterie of men, they were comrades, they had the same, similar experiences but I asked Bob.
I think it's a flow on from my grandfather, we always had a wonderful, and I still have a copy of it, and my mother has the original, a large photograph of my grandfather in his Boer War uniform and it was always prominently on our wall as many families have that and my father also.
So, to have this ready source of history when that was my great love, history, right beside me as my husband, what an opportunity. It would have been a frightful waste if I hadn't asked him, and I did, and he told me.
