Tom Starcevich
(1918–1989) Australian soldier
Leslie Thomas Starcevich, VC (5 September 1918 – 17 November 1989) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of British and Commonwealth armed forces. He received the award as member of the 2/43rd Battalion, during the Borneo campaign of the Second World War.
Early life
Leslie Thomas "Tom" Starcevich was born on 5 September 1918 at Subiaco, Western Australia, the son of immigrants: Gertrude May Starcevich (née Waters; born c. 1897, Dunkirk, Kent, England) and Josip Starčević (born 13 February 1892, in Lic, Croatia-Slavonia, Austro-Hungarian Empire). The couple were married in 1915 at Mount Magnet, Western Australia. Starcevich and his older brother, Joseph Frederick "Joe" Starcevich (20 August 1915 – 27 May 2007), grew up on a farm at Grass Patch, north of Esperance. Tom and Joe were two out of ten siblings.
Military service
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Tom and Joe Starcevich enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force: Joe on 23 October 1940, after which he was assigned to the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion; and Tom on 9 April 1941 (service number WX11519), becoming a member of the 2/43rd Infantry Battalion. Joe Starcevich became a prisoner of war following the surrender of Singapore on 15 February 1942. He endured harsh conditions in captivity, including forced labour at Japanese prisoner of war camps at Changi Prison, the Burma-Thailand Railway and Nagasaki, Japan but survived the war.
Tom Starcevich served with the 2/43rd Battalion in the North African campaign and was wounded in the thigh on 17 July 1942 at Ruin Ridge, Egypt during the First Battle of El Alamein.
The public source identifies “Tom Starcevich” as (1918–1989) Australian soldier. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Starcevich, Australian and soldier.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tom Starcevich” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.