Timothy Patton and Mackay RSL to memorialise a father’s wartime sacrifice

Wartime patriarch John Patton raised eight children on Mackay’s Peel St before he was buried in an unmarked grave. Now, his grandson is working with a legendary Vietnam vet to honour his legacy.

When Mackay Digger Cyril Patton passed away in 2018, he asked just one thing of his son Timothy: that a slouch hat should be placed on the coffin.

“That really struck me, this is a man who held his war service very dear and also his brothers’ war service,” Timothy said.

Cyril fought in Papua New Guinea, one of five brothers who stood up for Australia in the horror years of 1939-1945.

Now, Timothy wants to memorialise the patriarch at the root of his family’s remarkable legacy of service, his grandfather John Patton.

Mr Patton fathered eight children, six sons and two daughters, and raised them all at 19 Peel St, which is now a motel.

Cyril Patton, the father of Timothy Patton, served Australia in the Pacific Theatre in World War Two. Picture: Contributed

Of those six sons, five fought in the war, the sixth only staying home because he was too young to enlist.

“My father spoke a little bit about getting off the landing craft, storming the beaches, carrying the equipment they needed,” Timothy said.

“It is not like what you see in the movies.

“I remember him distinctly saying that to me.

“It is bloody scary, let’s be honest.

“But he never talked disrespectfully of the enemy.

“He used to use the words, ‘we were there to chase them away, chase them in the jungle’.”

Timothy Patton, the son of serviceman Cyril Patton and the grandson of John Patton, is proud of his family's service to Australia. Picture: Duncan Evans

Cyril made it back home, but his brother John Crockett Patton was killed in action while serving with the RAAF as a radio operator and gunner.

He was shot down over Milne Bay in PNG and Timothy said he had come to understand the meaning of sacrifice as a family man himself.

“My father (Cyril) had nine children, dozens of grandchildren, dozens of great grandchildren, so it continues on,” he said.

“With John Crockett, that all stopped in 1942, so he never had the opportunity to marry, to love, to have children.”

Mr Patton senior died in 1947 and lies in an unmarked grave at the Mackay Town Cemetery on Cemetery Rd.

Mackay's John Patton fathered six sons and two daughters. Five of his sons served Australia in World War Two. He lies at present in an unmarked grave in Mackay Town Cemetery on Cemetery Rd. Picture: Contributed

Timothy suspects financial difficulties prevented the family from honouring the gravesite with a tombstone.

Mr Patton worked as a labourer and with eight children to feed during the depression years of the 1930s and 1940s and Timothy said it would have been a “hand-to-mouth existence”.

Two months ago, he reached out to Mackay RSL sub-branch president Ken Higgins OAM to see if the unmarked grave could become a fitting memorial to a man who gave five sons to the war effort.

Mr Higgins readily accepted the project.

“What a massive sacrifice that family has made,” Mr Higgins said.

“The scars of that sacrifice would have lived with them until they died.

“We will make sure that gravesite is in keeping with the respect it deserves.”

Timothy Patton (right) connected with Mackay RSL sub-branch president Ken Higgins OAM (left) to organise a tombstone to mark the grave of John Patton, the Mackay patriarch who fathered six sons and two daughters. Five of his sons served Australia in World War Two. Picture: Duncan Evans

The pair are now on the lookout for a monumental mason to be a part of Australian war history.

The RSL’s embrace of the Patton family is part of a broader mission to support the region’s veterans and their families.

For Timothy, it is about honouring those who came before him and ensuring those who come next keep alive the fire of memory.

“It is about my children and my grandkids,” he said.

“I want to ensure that my grandchild knows of the sacrifice those people made, and still make today.”