LIEUTENANT COLONEL BILL TITLEY OAM (Retd)
Elliott William (Bill) Titley was born (6 August 1941), bred and educated in Charters Towers, Queensland before entering the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1960. He graduated into the Infantry Corps as a Lieutenant in December 1963 and was initially posted to 1 RAR, before a quick re-posting to 3 RAR for deployment to Borneo. There he was a platoon commander in operations on the Thai/Malay border and later in Kuching and Kalimantan after which the unit returned to Terendak in Malaysia.
In May 1965 Bill was sent on a 10 days’ visit to Vietnam including to the Pleiku region where he observed operations by Montagnard troops. Later that year he was posted to the 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, then the Infantry Centre before joining 5 RAR in 1968 as 2ic C Company. He served in the battalion with distinction in South Vietnam from 8 February 1969 to 10 March 1970, initially as 2ic C Company, sometimes as the acting Company Commander for short periods, and then from September 1969 as the battalion adjutant / assistant operations officer.
Following his operational service Bill attended the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham in the UK in 1970-71 a period which was followed as an exchange officer to the UK Ministry of Defence involving technical intelligence. Returning to Australia in 1974 he was a company commander and operations officer with 2/4 RAR. In 1976 Bill attended the Australian Staff College, then spent two years as a staff officer at AHQ before becoming the Assistant Commander of 11th Field Force Group in north Queensland. His final posting before retiring from the army in 1986, was Deputy Commandant of the Officer Cadet School, Portsea.
Bill returned to Charters Towers to commence a retail business with Tandy Electronics, trading as Inland Electronics. It was so successful that in 1991 he was named Tandy’s Australian Dealer of the Year. All the while he was active in the Chamber of Commerce, was elected to the City Council and later became the Deputy Mayor for 1988-93. A member of the RSL, he became president of the Charters Towers RSL Services Memorial and Citizens' Club, he was the Coordinator of the local Bicentennial Celebrations in 1988 and in 1995 the coordinator for the 50th anniversary of the Victory in the Pacific. In 2003, Bill and his wife, Beth, moved to Hervey Bay where he established the “Leading Edge Electronics” business until 2011.
A member of Legacy since 2005, he has held a number of executive positions in the Fraser Coast and Country Burnett Legacy Club and the Hervey Bay and Gold Coast Legacy groups including those of president, secretary, treasurer and pension and welfare advocate. For his outstanding voluntary commitments to ex-service organisations in Queensland, he was awarded the OAM in 2019.
Bill is a long-term member of the 5 RAR Association serving with outstanding loyalty and dedication. In early 2015 at short notice, he volunteered to take up the position of treasurer. For the past ten years he has diligently refined the accounting and reporting procedures of the Association to ensure they are fully compliant with the NSW Department of Fair Trading, with which the Association is registered. On his own initiative, he has also structured the association’s accounting procedures into a more contemporary data system and has provided regular comprehensive financial reports to the Association’s executive. Further, with his wide ranging experience across the veteran community he has provided wise and sound advice to assist our association in successfully achieving its goals.
Bill Titley’s exceptional service clearly warrants his appointment as a Life Member of the 5 RAR Association.