Robert H. Kelley

Squadron Leader Robert Kelly AFC (RAAF Retired) was born at Waverton, Sydney in 1925 and spent his early years in Erina on the New South Wales central coast. Upon graduation, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force as an aircrew trainee in 1943. He logged over 5,600 hours as a radio operator. He served in Indochina and the Far East, including two tours of duty in Malaya and one in Vietnam. Following his service in aircrew, Kelly performed valuable work in the Air Force and Defence intelligence sections in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Canberra where he was highly regarded as an intelligence analyst. After retirement from the Air Force in 1976, Kelley and his wife settled at Buderim on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. He is a military researcher and is involved with aircraft restoration at the Queensland Air Museum in Caloundra.