War Heroes

No. 3: Len Sellars (1911-1943)

Leonard (Len) Gerrard Sellars (1911-1943) was born at Brisbane in September 1911. The family moved to Melbourne  sometime  in the late twenties and settled in Brighton. Young Len worked initially as a warehouseman and later in sales. 

It is not known when he joined Riversdale but he soon made his mark as a  low handicap golfer and as member of the Senior Pennant team. In December 1936 he had a hole-in-one on the tenth hole. Playing off 2, he shot a 69 off the stick in a Club event in April 1939. That was in the morning competition. In the afternoon one, the legendary Tom Staude also went round in 69.

In February 1940, the Sporting Globe carried a story about Sellars golfing prowess. It noted that he had played six consecutive rounds in the low 70s and predicating that he would soon be down to scratch.

In February 1941  Sellars married Mollie Victoria Sayce at the Irving Memorial Presbyterian Church, East Malvern, followed by a reception at the Oriental Hotel in the City.

Like so many golfers, war service interrupted, and in his case, ended Sellars’ golfing career.  Having already served for six months in the 5th Division Victorian Scottish Regiment, he enlisted in the RAAF in

April 1941. As part of the Empire Training Scheme, he went to England and was attached as a Pilot Officer to the No.1657 Heavy Conversion Unit, based at RAF Stradishall in  Suffolk.

On 22 July 1943, Sellars took off in a Stirling aircraft detailed to carry out three engine flying practice circuit and landings. In the early evening, his aircraft, suffering from engine problems, crashed into the ground while attempting to land and burst into flames resulting in the loss of all seven crew members.

It was the only the second flight Sellars was piloting without an instructor.

His epitaph on his gravestone reads:

       LOST HIS LIFE THROUGH HIS UNSHAKEN FIDELITY TO DUTY

If it had not been for the war, Len Sellars name might be on the Club Championship winner board or even that of the Riversdale Cup winners. As it is, his name lives in via the bench seat on the tenth tee, the hole he aced in 1936, donated by his wife and parents in his memory.

No. 4 Bruce Hislop (1915 – 1941)

Bruce Elwell Hislop (1915-1941) was born in Melbourne in September 1915.  Educated at Scotch College, he joined  the city based chartered accountancy firm Cleveland Sons and Hislop  in 1932.

His father, Arthur Hislop, was a partner in the firm and  a prominent resident of Canterbury. He was a local councillor and Mayor of Camberwell in 1934/35. His name lives on through the Hislop Entrance Gates at the Canterbury Gardens and Hislop Reserve in North Balwyn.

Bruce Hislop was admitted as an associate of the Institute of Accountants in 1935 and joined his father as a partner in Cleveland Sons and Hislop in July 1939.

Wednesday 18 September 1940 was an auspicious one for  Hislop. On this day he  joined the RAAF and announced his engagement to Noel Edith Davies.

In June 1940, he, along with others including the author’s uncle,* was granted a commission with the rank of Pilot Officer. Following further training in Australia and Canada under the Empire Training Scheme, he was posted to a bomber squadron in Britain.

A year to the day of his enlistment, 18 September 1941, Bruce Hislop was killed when flying as an observer on an anti-shipping operation. Approaching the Belgian coast,  the plane, a  Bristol 142 Blenheim, was shot down by a German fighter and crashed into the sea off Blankenberge, a coastal town in Belgium.  All three crew members were killed.

Little is known of Bruce Hislop’s golfing time at Riversdale. A report  in the Argus of the first round of the 1939 Club Championship  notes that he was playing off seven. He is remembered today by the bench seat on the first hole donated to the Club by his parents and sisters in honour of their son and brother.

Bruce Hislop was one of the many engaged or recently married servicemen killed in WWII who left a grieving fiancée or young widow and, sometimes, a child who never knew their father.

* Harry Kingwell Keck, killed when his plane he was piloting was shot down over the Middle East on 30 March 1942. He would have certainly known Bruce Hislop as they enlisted on the same day (18 September 1940), both trained at Somers and both received their commissions on the same day (28 June 1940)

No. 5 John Lander (1916 – 1945)

John Mervyn Lander (1916-1945)* was born in December 1916. He attended Melbourne Grammar (1926-1934) where he was a fine all-round athlete. He won the 120 yard hurtles and shot put at the Combined Public School sports and played in both the School first football and cricket teams. He was also a House Prefect.

Upon leaving school he joined the staff of Makower McBeath Ltd, a textile, clothing and footwear wholesaler. He  continued his athlete career with the Old Melburnians Athletics Club and was considered one of Australia’s outstanding hurdlers, being pre-selected for the 1940 Olympic Games, soon cancelled due to the war.

Little is known of his golfing time at Riversdale. He possibly joined the club about the same time as Bruce Hislop (Riversdale WW II Hero no. 4). The Landers lived nearby to the Hislops in Canterbury. A  September 1936 newspaper report noted that Lander was playing off 13.

His older brother, Hartwell George ‘Chick’ Lander, was also a top athlete, representing  Australian at the 1934  Empire Game in London. A long-time golfer at Royal Melbourne, he was later Honorary Solicitor to both the Hawthorn Football Club and the Professional Golfers’ Association (Vic.) for many years.

Soon after the outbreak of the war in September 1939, John Lander,  already a member of the RAAF Volunteer Reserve, sailed to England as a deck-hand on the S.S. ‘Sussex’. He arrived in London in January 1940 and immediately joined the RAF. Commissioned in November 1940, he was attached to  22 Squadron, Coastal Command, as a Beaufort torpedo bomber pilot.  

His operations against German shipping included strikes against the  pocket battleships ‘Scharnhorst’ and ‘Gneisenau’ and numerous torpedo attacks and mine laying trips in Norwegian and Baltic Waters. He was promoted to Flight Lieutenant in December 1941.

Transferred with his squadron to the Middle East early in 1942, Lander was awarded the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) ‘for outstanding bravery in an attack on a German convoy in the Sicilian narrows’.  Two troop laden German transports were sunk and Lander was the only survivor of his crew after his plane crashed in Malta after being badly shot-up. 

After further operations in the Middle East, his squadron was redeployed to Ceylon in December 1942. The following October he was given command of the squadron and promoted to Wing Commander.

22 Squadron moved to India in December 1944. Commander Lander led a raid on Mandalay on 18 January 1945 but two days later he was killed when the jeep he was driving overturned. He was pinned underneath the vehicle and drowned in a shallow pool of water.

John ‘Jack’ Lander was buried at Chittagong War Cemetery, Chattogram, now part of Bangladesh.

The irony of the circumstances of Lander’s tragic death  would not have been lost on his family and friends. Having flown continually since 1940 and completed 2 tours of operations,  he had amassed the greatest number of operational hours on torpedo bombing of any pilot in the R.A.F. His promotion to Group Captain and ground duties was to have taken effect in March 1945, just six weeks after his death from drowning in shallow pool of water trapped under his jeep.

* This biography has been prepared with the assistance of Luisa Moscato, Archivist at Melbourne Grammar School.