Service: Army – New Guinea Volunteer Rifles -M Aust Special Unit
Service number: NGX450
Locality on Enlistment: Lance Cove NSW
Duration of Service: 15 Jul 1940 – 19 Dec 1945
Prisoner of War: No
Honours: Military Cross
Date and Place of Birth: 12 Dec 1901 Colac, Victoria
Parents: Henry Alexander STOKIE and Henrietta STEPHENS
Spouse: Isabella Napier COOKE (1) Helen Severine MASON (2)
School/s:
Occupation: Drover, Farmer, Plantation manager
Date and Place of Death: 10 Nov 1973 Taree NSW
Place of Burial: Coffs Harbour Historic Cemetery
NOTES: Leslie Stokie was living in New Guinea and working as a plantation manager when the war began and Rabaul was threatened by the Japanese. He caught malaria early in the fighting but, using his knowledge of the land and the people, he managed to escape capture by the Japanese over many months. After hearing of 3 American airmen hiding in the nearby mountains, he met up with them, and again using his knowledge of how to locate food and quinine, they survived another many months away from capture. Leslie was awarded the Military Cross for outstanding gallantry from Sep 43 to May 44. At the request of Leslie, the M.C was presented to Mrs. Henrietta Stokie (Mother). Stokie’s only sibling, Pte James Albert Stokie, died in a Japanese POW camp in March 1945. He had been captured on Ambon in early 1942. See more of Leslie’s story at Private Stokie’s war in the jungle: Don Hook