Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

01/01/1918

Date of Discharge

20/10/1919

Place of Enlistment

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

01/06/1897

Place of Birth

Malvern, Victoria

Address (at enlistment)

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Occupation

Soldier

Next of Kin

William Crellin (father), East Camberwell, Victoria

Final Rank

Lieutenant

Final Unit

14 Battalion AIF

Crellin entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon in February 1915 and graduated at the end of 1917 when he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in a Special Draft of RMC graduates which arrived in England in April 1918. He joined the 14th Battalion in July 1918 and finished the war on detachment to the 4th Division Compound. In March 1919 he was charged with allowing three prisoners to escape from the compound but he was found not guilty at the subsequent court martial. Crellin enlisted in World War 2 at Duntroon and was commanding officer of the 2/43 Battalion when it arrived in the Middle East in 1941. He led his battalion during the siege of Tobruk, between its beginning in April 1941 and its evacuation in October 1941, until relinquishing command at the end of the year. He also served in New Guinea.  Crellin died on 23 September 1968 and is buried at Mount Gravatt Cemetery in Brisbane, Queensland.

Description - height 5 feet 7.75 inches, weight 147 pounds, chest 39 inches, Presbyterian.

Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
WWII Nominal Roll http://www.ww2roll.gov.au
AWM www.awm.gov.au/units/people_1080740.asp (viewed 22 October 2014)
AWM Collections Record: 020708, C05028