Alec Hill

Alec Jeffrey Hill AM, MBE, ED (2 July 1916 – 27 August 2008) was an Australian military historian and academic best known for his biography of General Sir Harry Chauvel and his work on the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Biography

Alec Jeffrey Hill was born in Sydney, New South Wales on 2 July 1916. His father, who served in the Great War, died while Alec was a boy. Alec was educated at Sydney Grammar, the University of Sydney and Balliol College, Oxford. He became a schoolteacher. He was commissioned in the New South Wales Scottish Regiment of the Militia in 1936.

Hill joined the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, receiving the service number NX380. He commanded a company of the 2/13th Infantry Battalion during the retreat to Tobruk in 1941, and in the subsequent Siege of Tobruk. He was a staff officer (GSO3) at 9th Division headquarters during the Second Battle of El Alamein. After the 9th Division returned to Australia, he fought in the New Guinea and Borneo campaigns as brigade major of the 20th Infantry Brigade. For his war service, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1947.