A schoolboy sensation, conqueror of Bradman and one of the best young batters of his era, Ross Gregory was primed to take on the world - until war intervened

Had he been born of more temperate times, Ross Gregory's name would be immediately recognisable to cricket followers wherever the game is played or celebrated.

A prodigy whose talent was pure and rare, Gregory rose from schoolboy sensation to Melbourne's first-grade ranks then Victoria's Sheffield Shield team while still a teenager and, within a further year, was catapulted into Don Bradman's vaunted Test team.

The elfin-like batting allrounder forged an immediate bond with the similarly diminutive Bradman, and the pair were integral to Australia's 3-2 Ashes triumph in 1936-37 after the hosts lost the first two Tests to England, a series feat not witnessed before or since.

As the first Victorian batter to post a century against England prior to turning 21, and one of fewer than 20 Australia Test players to have represented their country more than once and finish their career with a batting average above 50, Gregory demonstrably delivered on his adolescent promise.

Tests: M 2 | Runs 153 | HS 80 | Ave 51.00

First Class: M 33 | Runs 1874 | HS 124 | Ave 38.24 | W 50 | BB 5-69 | Ave 35.34 

And given his looping leg-spinners also claimed Bradman's priceless wicket three times in the space of nine innings when the Test teammates turned domestic opponents, he might have vied with fellow Victorian Keith Miller for the era's honour of Australia's great allrounder.

But, like Miller, Gregory belonged to a time of warmongering and senseless slaughter.

Born just days after Germany laid siege to Verdun – what would become the longest battle of World War I – in February 1916, Gregory pledged himself immediately to the cause of (England's) king and country within days of the next global conflict breaking out in 1939.

Consequently, his place in cricket's voluminous history is too often distilled down to "the only Australian Test player to be killed on active service in World War II".

Instead of Test venue honour boards, Ross Gregory's name is immortalised on Singapore's Kranji War Memorial along with almost 25,000 Allied soldiers and airmen who – like the cricket prodigy whose tragic and mysterious death came 80 years ago this week (June 10, 1942) – have no known final resting place. 

Olive and Arthur Gregory learned early that cricket was their only child's abiding passion.

Young Ross began playing the game aged nine while attending Gardenvale Primary School in Melbourne's inner south-east and, when his dad was unavailable as a practice partner, he would co-opt passers-by outside the family's Kooyong Road home and have them bowl at him.

When that option wasn't viable, Ross would tether a ball to the backyard clothesline and rehearse his strokes, which cost the woman who did the Gregory's laundry countless extra hours as she painstakingly unpicked rows of knots before being able to hang clothes.

Out of necessity, Arthur Gregory fashioned a home-made pitch where Ross and his schoolfriends could engage in spirited afternoon and weekend matches.

By age 12, Ross was not only devouring the steady supply of cricket books his family procured for him but was gorging on opposition bowlers to build a reputation as one of the brightest young talents on the competitive Melbourne school sports scene.

Gregory was part of the Victoria schoolboys team at national carnivals in 1929 and 1930, and the 123 he scored against New South Wales in the latter of those tournaments in Brisbane stood alongside the century he plundered for Gardenvale in the local final against East Kew as portents of his promise.

Victoria schools team coach Rod McGregor also likened the boy's floating leg-breaks to Test spinner Arthur Mailey in style, but it was with bat in hand that he drew notice upon being enrolled at Melbourne's prestigious Wesley College in 1931.

Wesley's legendary cricket coach P. L. Williams immediately saw potential in Gregory, and even though he was deemed too small at age 15 for a place in the school's first XI, he would become integral to the team that went undefeated in Victoria's public schools competition in 1933 and 1934.

Also in that still-eulogised outfit was future Australia Test captain Ian Johnson (almost two years Gregory's junior) but it was not just the latter's 978 runs (at 40.8) and 81 wickets (at 17.1) across those two golden campaigns that earned him respect as well as rave reviews.

"His school life was not just a pursuit of cricket," Williams wrote upon Gregory's death, less than a decade after his pupil graduated from Wesley.

"He won tennis trophies. He got football colours. He was prefect. He was on the job in the classroom.

"But, above all, he was proving himself this early a gentleman in all things.

"One sought in vain for flaws in his character.

"He had a natural courtesy, kindliness and friendliness towards all ...

"He could have been spoiled. Worship was thrust upon him. He was immensely popular, but it was not a cheap popularity of his own seeking.

"He remained always the same lovable character.

"With men he was at home, for he was a man's man. With elderly people he was the soul of consideration: with children he became a kid again.

"He was a Christian in the truest sense; but he did not thrust his Christianity at you."

Gregory was still at Wesley when he won selection in the Victoria Cricket Association Colts team, as well as a state second XI, for whom he took 5-73 against Western Australia.

Having played for Elsternwick Cricket Club in sub-district second grade before being elevated to Wesley's first XI, Gregory began his post-school cricket career with St Kilda, where he debuted as a 19-year-old against Fitzroy in October 1935.

After opening the batting on a lively early-season pitch that saw his team crash to 5-30 in the first hour, Gregory's assured 83 prompted one St Kilda official to remark the teenager "had the makings of another Ponsford" in reference to Australia's recently retired Test opener.

The similarity was seemingly not lost on Victoria's selectors who named Gregory – no relation to the famed pioneering cricket family from NSW – in the Sheffield Shield team to tackle Queensland at the MCG barely a month after he had graduated to grade cricket.

Even though his fast-track was aided by the absence of six Shield regulars (including top-order batter Len Darling and spinner Chuck Fleetwood-Smith) who were touring South Africa with Vic Richardson's Test team, Gregory impressed in scoring 60 at number six in the order.

He was forced to miss Victoria's next Shield match due to work commitments with Queen St auditing and accounting firm Holmes and McCrindle, where he had gained employment upon leaving school, but returned for the summer's final four games in which his cricket education increased exponentially.

In his second Shield outing against South Australia in Melbourne, Gregory watched in awe as Bradman (who had opted out of the South Africa tour) peeled off 357 in just seven hours of batting, which left the young leg spinner to note "he is a heartbreaker to bowl against".

A month later, Gregory was at the Gabba facing Queensland tearaway Eddie Gilbert – one of the few domestic bowlers to reputedly terrorise Bradman – and the Victorian's 59 in the face of a fiery short-pitched attack led newspapers to suggest he was a future Test player.

Gregory began the next season – an Ashes summer – by scoring 85 and snaring Bradman's wicket (albeit after he made 192) against SA, which led former Victoria batter Dr Roy Park to reiterate the Bill Ponsford comparison in Sporting Globe.

"His sure back play, precise and correct methods with a dash of individualism, and his courageous concentration on the ball and how to score off it are Ponsford characteristics that stamp him as a player who definitely should develop into a Test-calibre batsman," wrote Park, whose son Roy Jr attended Wesley with Gregory.

"In fact, I think he is in Test class now."

If Bradman (newly installed as Test captain and selector) had failed to recognise Gregory's credentials, a further reminder came from Victoria's game against the touring England team in which the 20-year-old completed his maiden first-class century (128).

It drew praise from former England great Jack Hobbs, who was covering the Ashes series as a correspondent and was notably impressed by Gregory's ability to vigorously hook despite his small (168cm, 66kg) stature.

When a groin complaint forced Australia’s incumbent Stan McCabe out of a pre-Test warm-up game against the tourists in Sydney weeks later, Gregory was named as a late replacement which heightened speculation of a meteoric rise to international ranks.

And after Bradman's captaincy tenure began in ignominy with Ashes losses in Brisbane and Sydney, not even a dramatic turnaround at the MCG – where the skipper's decision to reverse Australia's batting order on a 'sticky' wicket brought victory – could stem the call for change come the fourth Test.

Gregory was in the field on the final morning of Victoria's Shield match against Queensland at the Gabba when news of his Test call-up filtered through, and he was swamped by delighted teammates then cheered by the Brisbane crowd when he came on to bowl shortly after.

Approached by a journalist as he combed his hair in Victoria's dressing room during the subsequent lunch break, Gregory politely parried questions about the impending Test in Adelaide by saying, "do you mind if I don't say anything, sir?".

Darling was among the casualties from the third Test team, and Gregory's elevation was welcomed by Ponsford himself, who expressed his "high opinion" of the 20-year-old.

On Test eve, Arthur and Olive Gregory made an impromptu dash to Adelaide to witness their son's international debut, although they clearly believed cricket would not be their son's life.

"Ross loves cricket for its own sake, and he agrees with us that it will not be his career," they reportedly said when interviewed among the Adelaide Oval crowd.

"He has already passed his first two chartered accountant examinations and hopes to be able to dovetail his studies with his cricket."

Batting first, Australia were wobbling at 4-136 when the novice replaced the master upon Bradman's dismissal for 26, but he fashioned a crucial 70-run stand for the fifth with McCabe (Australia's top-scorer) before falling lbw for 23.

Come the second innings, Gregory and Bradman put on 135 as the skipper set up his team's series-levelling win by scoring 212 and his junior partner posted his first Test 50, at which point he was run out responding to Bradman's call for a third to get the captain back on strike.

Despite the premature end to his innings, Gregory assessed his debut by saying: "This Test cricket is the best of good fun. I wish the game had lasted a month."

Even greater thrills awaited in the Ashes decider on his home patch a fortnight later when he went to the wicket with Australia 4-346 batting first, and departed with the total 6-544 and 80 against his name.

But while Gregory (who had turned 21 during his second Test) fell frustratingly short of a century in what would prove his final international innings, it was the details of his dismissal – c Verity b Farnes – that proved sadly memorable.

All three of those men would lose their lives in the war that descended barely two years later.

Essex pace bowler Ken Farnes was killed on 20 October 1941 (aged 30) when the Vickers Wellington plane he was flying on night training crashed soon after take-off at Chipping Warden RAF base in Oxfordshire.

Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire left-arm spinner who dismissed Bradman more times in Tests (10) than any other bowler, was 38 when wounded during the Allied invasion of Sicily in mid-1943 and died of his injuries in hospital on July 31 that year.

In the immediate aftermath of Australia's thumping innings win to secure the Ashes at the MCG in 1937, Gregory was being hailed as a future mainstay of Australia's Test line-up.

Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, former Test captain Charlie McCartney opined: "Ross Gregory, the young Victorian allrounder, came suddenly into the international limelight during the cricket season now closing, but has come to stay."

"There is about his batting a significance which marks the studious cricketer, who makes a lesson out of every innings."

But Gregory was also learning celebrity carried a double-edged sword.

A month after his triumphant Test efforts, he became the subject of newspaper rumours he had been approached to shift to SA to play alongside Bradman, such was the Test skipper's faith in the youngster.

Gregory dismissed the speculation, saying he was happy living and working in Melbourne and had no reason to move.

Soon after, when he was with the Victoria Shield team in Adelaide and his parents were out of the family home, thieves broke in and ransacked the house, stealing valuables including gifts Ross had received for his 21st birthday weeks earlier.

Arthur Gregory told police that during the 10 days prior to the burglary, he had received "a large number of telephone calls" he believed were suspicious because no reply was forthcoming upon answering the phone.

Then, in July 1937, cricket fans were aghast to read Gregory had suffered potentially serious eye damage when a hot water unit he and his father were repairing at home exploded in his face as Arthur struck a match.

Early reports expressed fear the batting prodigy might have sustained permanent eye damage, but Ross offered reassurance he would be out of hospital and back at his accounting job within days, and ready for cricket come the start of the 1937-38 season.

Promoted to number three in Victoria's strong batting line-up that now included another talented youngster, Lindsay Hassett, Gregory began that summer with scores of 71, 84 and 61 in his first three innings and was regarded a near-certainty for the looming 1938 Ashes tour.

His stocks soared further when he dismissed Bradman (for 54 and 35) in both innings of Victoria's Shield encounter with SA at the MCG over New Year 1938, with the game's greatest-ever player twice edging catches to slip.

But after returning scores of 1 and 4 and just two wickets in his next two Shield appearances, and with no home Tests played that summer, Gregory's name was conspicuously absent when Bradman and his fellow selectors Bill Johnson and E. A. 'Chappie' Dwyer named the 16-man Ashes touring party in late January.

Even though he was but one of the selection trio, the squad was labelled 'Bradman's team' by its chorus of critics, most volubly Ponsford, who described the decision to overlook Gregory and dump veterans Clarrie Grimmett (then 45) and Bert Oldfield (40) as "sheer lunacy".

Former Test opener Warren Bardsley was just as scathing, noting: "It must be one of the worst selections of an Australian team ever made".

In addressing 'selectorship' in his instructional book The Art of Cricket published in 1958, Bradman admitted the most vexing decision of his 35-year tenure as a national selector was opting for experienced NSW spin-bowling allrounder Arthur Chipperfield ahead of Gregory for the 1938 Ashes campaign.

"It came to a decision between two players from different states ... The boy omitted was a great personal friend of mine and a magnificent character and I was very grieved in casting my vote against him because my conscience so dictated," Bradman wrote.

"I scarcely slept a wink for two nights after that decision.

"However, I consoled myself with the thought that he was young and would go later. Alas, he never did."

While conceding he was disappointed by his non-selection, Gregory didn't view it as catastrophic as he shared Bradman's view that an England tour remained a future prospect.

As such, he turned down an offer fielded by ex-Australia Test player Alan Fairfax in early 1938 to join the professional troupe bankrolled by eccentric British furniture magnate Sir Julien Cahn, whose obsession with cricket was matched by neither personal aptitude nor fortitude.

Despite insisting he be part of his eponymous touring teams, Cahn was so fearful of sustaining injury during his invariably brief visits to the batting crease he would don inflatable pads from which the ball would ricochet faster and further than anything that might hit his bat.

Gregory did make it to England, but was clad in the uniform of the Royal Australian Air Force and not the blazer of the national cricket team as events in Europe dictated the fifth Test of the 1938 Ashes series was Australia's last international game for more than seven years.

Gregory had begun the 1938-39 Australia summer with a century for St Kilda in the second round of grade cricket, and ended the season – which again featured no home Test fixtures – as Victoria's second-highest Shield run-scorer behind Hassett despite missing the last two games due to employment obligations.

Then, prior to the start of the next season, he announced he would not be available to play for Victoria citing work commitments (with several of his fellow employees already serving in military training camps) and his looming final round of accountancy exams.

What wasn't known at the time was Gregory – newly engaged to fiancee, Barbara Thompson – had listed his name as being available for service with either the naval reserve or air force within days of Britain's declaration of war against Germany in September 1939.

It was Australia Day 1940, and with his final round of accountancy exams still unfinished, when he formally applied to join the RAAF.

On his application he answered the question relating to proficiency at sports and games by listing cricket, football, tennis, squash and golf, while confirming later in the document his experience of flying aircraft was "nil".

He undertook initial training at the RAAF's base in Cootamundra (almost 200km north-west of Canberra) from October 1940, and embarked from Sydney on 13 June 1941.

He would never again see Australia, or his family.

Although the first leg of his maiden overseas sojourn brought adventure – a stopover in Canada where he swam with Hollywood starlets Judy Garland and Myrna Loy at Banff springs, and a brush with an iceberg struck by the troop carrier transporting him across the Atlantic – he soon found the UK underwhelming.

Stationed in Lossiemouth near Scotland's northern tip, Gregory spent much of his early war service visiting pubs and reading in his barracks bunk before being transferred to the RAF's Waterbeach base near Cambridge.

That was where he honed his skills as an aircraft observer and navigator aboard the same cumbersome Wellington bombers that had would claim Ken Farnes's life.

In addition to a couple of close calls during training, including an operation in which a pilot passed out in the cockpit and Gregory was pinned to the ceiling of the free-falling aircraft until the second pilot wrought control, he flew sorties over occupied France and Germany from November 1941 and into the following year.

However, Singapore's fall to Japanese forces in February 1942 meant Gregory became anxious to leave the UK and return closer to Australia, where his own homeland was suddenly under threat.

In April, he departed with the RAF's 215 squadron for India with stops in Gibraltar, Malta (then under heavy bombardment) and Cairo before arriving at Pandaveswar air base in West Bengal from where Allied aircraft flew regular missions to supply troops fighting the Japanese in Burma (now Myanmar).

One of Gregory's last letters home advised his parents that he had been promoted to pilot officer, a rank he held for eight weeks before embarking on his final mission on June 10, 1942.

He was the only officer among the six-man crew in the Wellington bomber which, according to military records, "was destroyed by an explosion whilst on an operational flight four miles south-east of Ghaffagaon" in what is now Bangladesh.

The rural area known as Gafargaon is 80 kilometres north of Dhaka, on the edge of the Brahmaputra River, which snakes its way from the Tibetan Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal.

Of the six crew members – 26-year-old Gregory, Queenslanders Sgt Alan McLean (aged 23; pilot), Sgt Archibald Honeyman (27; second pilot) and Sgt Lionel Benstead (28; wireless operator/air gunner) as well as British gunners Sgt George Hill (28) and Sgt Bert Fuller (31) – no complete bodies were found.

The cause of the explosion could not be determined and information gathered by local police indicated enemy aircraft involvement was unlikely, which meant the plane's bomb payload or other ordnance on board may have detonated mid-flight.

Internal investigations found the blast "scattered pieces of aircraft and human flesh over half square mile" but the only information provided to Gregory's grieving parents was their son and his fellow crew had been buried in three graves by police officers and afforded full military honours.

When Arthur and Olive Gregory sought more details about their only child's gravesite after war's end, they were told the remote locality was subject to regular flooding from the Brahmaputra and no trace of his final resting place could be found by the British Graves Registration Service.

Instead, they sought solace from Ross's final missive home that chillingly foreshadowed his ultimate flight: "Should I not return from one of the raids we make over enemy territory, you will derive a certain amount of comfort from the knowledge that I went doing my duty".

They were also sent a box of personal items he had left behind in the UK, among them a pair of cricket gloves, his Masonic Lodge certificate and apron and a stack of books including Wisden Cricketer's Almanack and The Battle of Flanders, which details events leading up to the 1940 British troop evacuation at Dunkirk.

The search for clarity regarding Gregory's gravesite was also taken up by his former fiancee Barbara (who had subsequently married) almost 50 years after his death, but the mystery remained unsolved.

A memorial service for Gregory held at Gardenvale's John Knox Presbyterian Church on July 19, 1943 was attended by then Member for Kooyong (and recently deposed Prime Minister) Robert Menzies, as well as former Australia Test captain Clem Hill.

The following year, St Kilda Cricket Club's number two ground (situated across Lakeside Drive from Junction Oval) was renamed Ross Gregory Oval, and the road that skirts its northern flank became Ross Gregory Drive.

His Test cap and blazer are held by St Kilda Cricket Club and on permanent display in one of the club's rooms at Junction Oval, and cricket historian David Frith published a book on his life and loss, The Ross Gregory Story, in 2003.

In recognition of this year's 80th anniversary of Gregory's death, Wesley College dedicated its game against rivals Scotch College in March this year to their former student's memory, and struck a perpetual trophy in his name, which was won by Scotch in the maiden match.

But perhaps the most enduring tribute remains the words penned by Wesley College cricket coach P. L. Williams, who wrote in Sporting Globe soon after his gifted charge's wartime service and sacrifice: "The path before him was quite clear.

"He who had so much to lose by going, knew that he would lose all if he stayed.

"I saw much of him before he sailed.

"He was still the same Ross Gregory, a little more mature, naturally, but always undismayed by the job in front of him.

"I knew from letters that he was impatient to get into things — the prolonged training in England seemed to irk him a little.

"And then came the chance. Raids over Germany, over France, some very bad moments of course, but it was the job he had come to do.

"Then, nearer to Australia, Malta, the Middle East, India and the supreme sacrifice.

"We who knew him will miss him but a man like Gregory has not lived in vain.

"He has left the world a little better for his short sojourn here.

"Australia can ill afford to lose boys of the calibre of Ross Gregory." 

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