Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

RICE John David  MB BS

1907- 1981

John David Rice was born on 2nd December 1907, in Adelaide.  He was the fourth son of Thomas Francis Rice and Mary, nee Hyland.  He was educated at Christian Brothers’ College, Adelaide, and studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, graduating MB BS, in 1930.  After his year as an RMO at the Adelaide Hospital in 1931, he moved to Meekatharra, outback WA.  He returned to the Adelaide Hospital, in 1933, and undertook training in general surgery and anaesthesia before commencing general practice in Adelaide, and at Mile End.  He married Mary (Mollie) Scollin on 14th January 1935. She was the elder daughter of James Hugh Scollin and Florence Josephine, nee Dowdy, of Kensington Road, Toorak Gardens, SA.

Rice enlisted in the AIF in July 1940, and was posted as RMO 2/43rd Bn, 9 Div, and went to the Middle East in December 1940.  He served in the Cyrenaica campaign and then in the siege of Tobruk, moving out to the Medauur Salient, where there was intense fighting over some weeks.  He supplemented the lack of medical supplies with excellent captured Italian equipment.  His RAP was moved to the famous Fig Tree Cave, in September 1941; a medical facility and gave the name to the Australians of “the Rats of Tobruk”, originally intended to be an insult by the Germans.  Ultimately 2/43rd Bn was evacuated by sea on 17th October 1941 and moved to Syria.  It returned to the Western Desert in July 1942.  Rice, however, was transferred to A Coy 2/8th FdAmb, dug in near the coast, for the defensive first Battle of El Alamein.  In the third battle of El Alamein, (the 2nd was the Battle of Alam Halfa), 2/8th FdAmb treated many casualties beginning on the night 23 Oct 1942.  Many blood transfusions were initiated out in the front line.  Rice returned to Adelaide with 2/8th FdAmb in January 1943.  Rice was posted anaesthetist 2/12th AGH on 31st May 1943 and then 2/11th AGH, in Warwick, QLD.  Promoted to major in June 1943 he was sent to Buna, PNG, in July 1943. Rice became OC Med Div 2/11th AGH.  The local environmental conditions were so bad because of poor siting and endemic disease, it required an intense engineering effort to establish the hospital. The hospital moved to Madang, in late May 1944, with mostly medical patients.  He was given three months leave, from June to September 1944. 2/11th AGH moved to Aitape on the north-west coast of PNG.  Rice returned from leave to undertake anaesthesia, at 2/11th AGH. He left PNG, in July 1945, and was discharged from 2/AIF on his return to Australia.  Rice transferred to the CMF and was posted as RMO 29 Cadet Bn from April 1951.  He was appointed, in January 1952, as Surgeon 1 CCS and, in December 1952, was promoted lieutenant-colonel and appointed CO 1 CCS.  He was ADMS HQ C Comd Keswick, Adelaide, from June 1955 to May 1957.  He was promoted colonel and posted CO 104th General Hospital Adelaide, later 3rd General Hospital, from 1st October 1959 to late 1960, and then posted as Honorary Colonel RAAMC, SA, from 1968 to 1974.

After the war, Rice renewed his general practice at Mile End and later, in 1948, in the Adelaide, CBD.  He had a particular interest in anaesthesia and also in obstetrics. He delivered approximately 4,000 babies up to the late 1970s.  He advised on the foundation of the Lyell McEwin Hospital in the newly developed town of Elizabeth.  The main access road is John Rice Avenue.  For his service to the Catholic Church, he was awarded a Papal Knighthood of the Order of St Gregory the Great in 1965.  John David Rice died after a short illness on 18th October 1981 in his beloved Calvary Hospital, North Adelaide. He left three sons; two were specialist physicians and one a lawyer.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears III: Medical Practitioners South Australia, who Served in World War 2. 

Swain, Jelly, Verco, Summers. Open Books Howden, Adelaide 2019. 

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD

Biography written by Oscar Rice, St Ignatius College, SA attached as a document. Winning entry for 2020 Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize.