Nation loses another Rat of Tobruk

The nation has lost another Rat of Tobruk with the death of Hilton King snr.Mr King, a former prominent Wollongong car salesman and real estate agent, of Mount St Thomas, died on June 4, aged 89.He was one of the 14,000 Australians who served at Tobruk during World War II and was a member of the 2/13 Battalion that stayed the full 242 days of the siege from April 10 to December 7, 1941.Today, only about 300 remain, according to NSW Rats of Tobruk Association president Joe Madeley, who served with Mr King and became a friend after the war.Mr King was born at Kogarah on February 10, 1920, before being brought home to the family's dairy farm at Kiama.The family moved to West Wollongong in 1930, and his father, Jim, leased a service station on the site of today's Piccadilly Centre.In his memoirs, Mr King said the multi-use building included a section for servicing farm machinery and tractors, a fruit and vegetable outlet and a real estate office that would later become King's Real Estate.Mr King joined the 2nd AIF in 1940, later signing up with the 2/13 Battalion when he was promoted to corporal.The extent of his war service included the infamous siege of Tobruk, together with service in Palestine, Libya and Greece, before a tour in the Pacific. He returned home for Christmas in 1944.His son, Hilton jnr, said Mr King conducted a successful used car business on the corner of Bourke and Flinders streets, Wollongong, until 1965, when he joined his brothers, Neville and Ron, in the family real estate business."Dad was a very good auctioneer ... he was still selling real estate up until he was 78."Mr King was founding secretary of the now-defunct Illawarra branch of the Rats of Tobruk Association.He was also a long-serving member of West Wollongong Rotary and a recipient of the Paul Harris Fellowship.Mr Madeley, 89, said the greatest enemy at Tobruk was not so much the advancing German army as the boredom of spending eight months holed up in trenches."Our biggest enemy was boredom ... looking back now, you wonder how ... we held out."