Devon Minchin (28 May 1919 – 30 May 2014) was an Australian fighter pilot, entrepreneur, security industry pioneer and author.
Early life
Minchin was born at home in Flood St, Bondi to Alfred Hugh Minchin (1884–1954) and Dora Muriel "Bo" Minchin (née Donaldson) (1883–1985). He was the youngest of the couple's three children, the others being Helen Patricia (1910–2002) and Lester Hugh St Clair (1915–1993). The family was raised in various Sydney suburbs and Minchin attended Lane Cove Public School, Cammeray Public School, Chatswood High School, and Knox Grammar School.
Minchin left school in 1934 aged 15 and became an office boy at the George Patterson Agency where he worked for two years. In 1936 he took a job on a ship and worked his way to England. In London he briefly worked for the advertising agency Samson Clark Price-Berry as an assistant on the Aspro account before landing a job with the Vick Chemical Company. As a trainee salesman, Minchin sold Vicks products in Ireland and the UK before being selected for further sales training in New York City. After success in a nationwide sales contest, from 1938 to 1939 he sold wholesale Vicks products throughout Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana as well as New York State.
In 1939 Minchin was sent to Australia to conduct market research for Vicks. He sailed to Sydney on the SS Monterey. When war was declared in September 1939 he resigned from Vicks to join the Royal Australian Air Force.
WW2
Minchin enlisted at the RAAF office in Erskine St Sydney and was told that he would soon be contacted. In the meantime he took a job with Sheldon Drug Company selling fly spray in regional Queensland. By May 1940 he had not heard back from the RAAF and after making enquiries discovered that his enlistment records were lost. He signed up again in Rockhampton and was sent to No. 7 Course RAAF Bradfield Park. There he passed enough exams to be mustered as a pilot in the Empire Air Training Scheme.
He was posted to No. 26 E.A.T.S. Guinea Fowl, Rhodesia to learn to fly on the Tiger Moth. He then went to 22 Central Flying Training School at Thornhill, Bulawayo to train on the Harvard MkI. Following flight training Minchin transited in Kasfareet, Egypt before being sent to defend Aden where he flew the Hawker Hurricane MkI. While in Aden, Minchin wrote his first novel The Potato Man, published by Frank Johnson in 1944. In 1942 Minchin returned to Egypt where he converted to the Curtiss P-40 (Kittyhawk) and joined No. 450 Squadron RAAF ("The Desert Harassers"). He flew 123 operational sorties and was mentioned in dispatches as part of the North African campaign in 1942–1943 and shot down a Messerschmitt Bf109 during operations over Cape Bon in Tunisia.
Pilot Officer Minchin was also 450 Squadron's unofficial entertainment officer, penning poems and songs and leading the troops at the piano or on the ukelele at any given opportunity. He wrote Marlene's Boyfriend, a parody of the German propaganda song Lili Marlene which became one of the most popular Desert Air Force songs.
After the July 1943 invasion of Sicily, Minchin contracted malaria and was stood down from operations. He became the lessee of The Grand Albergo dell'Etna and with fellow PO Harry Gregory turned the hotel into a respite for Allied officers. In late 1943 Minchin was assigned to production aircraft test pilot duties at No. 7 Maintenance Unit, RAF Kasfareet. He tested 19 different operational types of aircraft until he was returned to Australia in late 1944 due to the ongoing effects of malaria.
Following a six-month stint training Army Air Liaison Officers at the School of Army Air Co-operation in Canberra, Minchin transferred to the Australian Army to join the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit. There he worked on the rehabilitation of Sandakan following the Japanese surrender.
Post WW2
In 1946 Minchin, his brother Lester and business partner Jack Bartle (former Commanding Officer, 450 Squadron RAAF) purchased a 110-foot, 85 ton ship called The Bellbird and loaded it with goods to sell in Borneo. They sailed from Sydney on 13 April but on their first night at sea they were struck by a big storm and had to scuttle the ship near Barrenjoey, New South Wales.
In 1946 the Minchin brothers and Bartle organised a syndicate that was granted timber milling concessions in Sarawak. The following year they established Colonial Timber Company Limited (CTC) in Kuching. By the time of its sale in 1963 the company had the largest timber concession in the colony. The Minchin brothers along with John Cullity of Cullity Timbers of Western Australia then established Allardyce Lumber Company in the Solomon Islands.