27 March 1919 - 21 October 1973

John Eagles, known to his friends as Jack, grew up in cane country, north Queensland, in Finch Hatton, west of Mackay, where he undertook a five year apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer in the Cattle Creek Sugar Mill, which at the time ran on steam engines of the Babcock and Wilcox boiler type that were common aboard ships of the era.

In May 1940, he joined the Merchant Navy aboard the TSS Canberra as a Marine Engineer. He was one of many thousands to serve their country during the war effort in this manner, during a period of great sacrifice amongst seafarers - more than one in eight merchant seamen perished during the Second World War. He sailed on the Neptuna out of Sydney to Darwin, carrying munitions, in February 1942, whereupon arrival in Darwin they were bombed while alongside the wharf — he was lucky to escape alive, while 42 crew members perished.

With more than 33 years of service aboard ships of various sizes and types, he was an accomplished seafarer and expert engineer. Alongside his career at sea, he held a banana lease on the North Coast and with his wife, had three sons; John, Gary and Mark Eagles.

He had joined the Blythe Star full time only three weeks before its sinking when a glut in the banana market meant he would need the extra income to support his family.

John Eagles succumbed to hypothermia and exhaustion at Deep Glen Bay after making landfall with his fellow crewmates aboard the Blythe Star’s liferaft.

For more on John Eagles, as recollected by his sons, read here.