Commissioning Crew HMAS Perth I
OFFICERS COOK JACK ARTHUR MITCHELL 21712 RAN
Jack Mitchell was born in Geraldton WA in April 1916 and he enlisted in the RAN in Fremantle in November 1937. He was a qualified baker which almost certainly led him to be rated an Assistant Cook and ten months later as an Assistant Cook (Officers). He was the only child of George and Ida Mitchell of Cottesloe.
Jack completed his Cook’s Training at HMAS Cerberus remaining there until March 1939 when he was selected to travel to the UK on the SS Autolyeus as part of the commissioning crew of the Light Cruiser HMAS Perth, ex HMS Amphion. He was rated as a Cook (Officers) in May 1939. Two weeks later Perth commissioned, however the outbreak of World War Two resulted in Perth being deployed to the Caribbean on patrols and she did not reach Australia until the 31st of March 1940. The next six months Perth was employed on convoy escort duties on the Australian Station. Jack would post off Perth to HMAS Penguin, the base ship in Sydney in August 1940 with Tuberculosis.
The wheels moved quickly, as TB was a disease that would spread rapidly in a ship. By the beginning of October Jack was in the Repatriation Department’s facility, Lady Davison Home, at North Turramurra in Sydney and on the 26th of October Jack had been discharged Permanently Unfit for Naval service, on a war pension.
In August 1941 Jack married Jean Owler in Armadale Victoria and the couple moved to Western Australia, where their son Alan was born in 1952. By 19054 Jack was well enough to return to his pre-war trade of baker and the family was living in Cottesloe in Perth. In the late 1960s Jack worked as a camp manager at Finucane Island near Port Headland, housing workers for Goldsworthy Mining. In 1972 they were living in Victoria, Jack as a chef, however by 1977 they had relocated to Clybucca near Kempsey NSW, Jack having now changed career to Grazier.
Jean passed away in Kempsey in 1977 and Jack in Macksville, NSW on the 5th of July 2004 aged 88. His body was cremated and his ashes interred in a memorial wall at Lavertys’ Funeral Home, Macksville NSW.
Sources
Service Record - Australian National Archives
Nominal Roll - Department of Veterans Affairs
