Alvan Roy Kemp (known as Roy) had some experience in the medical field before he joined the Army. He had begun his working life at the Macleay River Dairy Co-operative Ltd at Kempsey, and then went to the Bodington Red Cross Hospital at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. He had a period at Kurri Kurri before enlisting in the A.I.F. on September 17, 1941. He was sent to Tamworth for training in the Medical Corps, and his first posting was to 113 AGH at Concord.
On December 22 he was on his way to Darwin with reinforcements for the 2/12th Field Ambulance, which had sent ninety members to Ambon and Timor with Gull and Sparrow Forces. He arrived in Darwin on December 31, just six weeks before the surrender of Singapore.
Roy was on duty when the first Japanese raid on Darwin took place on February 19 1942. On that day 243 civilians and defence personnel lost their lives. He would have endured, along with the civilian and military personnel, harrowing bombing and strafing from the Japanese raiders and, in the early stages, total confusion and poor leadership. The panic during these frightening days and the lack of preparedness from the outset led to a blanket censorship on the entire Darwin operation. It was 35 years later that the attacks on Darwin and the events that followed were released for public scrutiny.
Roy remained through something like 70 raids for nearly a year. His unit was not relieved until January 1943, and following a long overland journey they reached Sydney on February 6. Roy was detached to 114 AGH Goulburn for a month before rejoining his unit at Corrimal for final preparations to embark on Centaur.
Roy Kemp was born in Kempsey on March 19 1922, the second son of Alvan Amos and Elsie May (Washington) Kemp. He had an older brother, Cecil.
Alvan senior (Alf) was a telegraphist at the Kempsey Post Office. The family lived first in Clyde Street then Bissett Street and finally Betts Street. From here Roy had little distance to walk to his first school, East Kempsey, where he enrolled in 1928. Later the family moved to Murwillumbah, then to Mudgee, and to Tweed Heads as Alf was transferred around.
Roy was fourteen in 1936 when his mother died at Tweed Heads. The brothers were sent down to Macksville to live with their aunt, Vera Adelaide Bylund who was their mother’s sister. The Bylunds owned a bakery in Matilda Street.
Later the Bylunds moved to Kempsey and the boys went with them. Alf joined them soon after.
Both boys were keen road cyclists, spending many hours in training and the careful maintenance of their bikes to keep them in racing order. Roy won the Speedwell Cup (donated by Bennett and Wood Pty Ltd)
on 14 October 1939 when he was seventeen.
The following year the world was at war. Cecil enlisted in May 1940 at age 21; Roy followed a year later aged 19.
Roy’s last leave was spent with his family in Kempsey where a surprise party was held at the Bylund residence to celebrate the return of his brother Cecil from two and a half years overseas.
The last contact Roy had with his family was the night before his departure when his cousin Rita Bylund gave him a night out at Luna Park on Milsons Point and supper at her flat at Kirribilli. Her last sight of him was a ‘goodbye’ as he boarded the city-bound train at Milsons Point to rejoin his unit.
Roy became one of the 268 non combatant medical and merchant marine personnel who lost their lives on the Centaur. He was just 21 years of age.
