Arthur Raymond Styles

Submitted by wollongongcityl... on Thu, 12/03/2015 - 15:01

First Name:

Arthur

Middle Name:

Raymond

Last Name:

Styles

Date of Birth:

Saturday, September 5, 1891

Mother's Name:

Elizabeth Mary Potter

Father's Name:

William Styles

Date Enlisted:

Wednesday, March 6, 1918

Rank at Enlistment:

Private

Date of Death:

Wednesday, December 21, 1983

Place of Death:

Wollongong

Cause of Death:

age

Details:

Arthur (Ray) Raymond Styles (Service No. 1390) enlisted after being taken prisoner in New Guinea. His daughter Peggy recalls her father telling her that one morning when he was a manager at a German Rubber factory in New Guinea, he was woken up by men with guns and taken away to an island off New Guinea. Sometime later a ship came along and he and other prisoners were exhanged for food. Ray then returned to Melbourne and enlisted with the A.I.F, on 6 May 1918, serving with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Reinforcements.

Ray left Sydney on the SS Melusia on 13 June 1918, arriving in Rabual, New Guinea on 24 June 1918. He returned to Australia and was discharged from the SS Melusia, on 16/ 18 August 1919, in Brisbane.

Ray, a self-taught painter, married Eva Melville Graham and they had 2 children. In the 1940s the family moved to Lake Illawarra and operated a shop there. Later Eva and Ray operated a shop in Corrimal.

Ray was a Barracks Officer in the Air Force before World War II broke out, and his daughter says he helped set up Richmond Airbase.

Ray was awarded the MBE (Military) on 8 June 1939.

Sources:

NAA: B2455 STYLES ARTHUR RAYMOND