Leonard Cuthbert Lucas

Brigadier Leonard Cuthbert Lucas, OBE, DSO, MC, VD (6 November 1894 – 3 September 1978) was an Australian architect, public servant and Army officer.

During the Second World War, he served with the 6th Division in Libya, Greece and Ceylon, and was Deputy Engineer-in-Chief at Advanced Land Headquarters, South West Pacific Area.

After the war, he was in charge of the construction effort supporting the Operation Totem British nuclear weapons tests in Australia in 1953.

He then worked as a sugar cane cutter and then a journalist, and studied engineering at the local school of mines.

[3] He returned to the mainland, where he enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a signaller in Sydney on 9 March 1915, and joined the 18th Battalion on 21 June 1915.

He was promoted to sergeant on 25 June, the day on which the 18th Battalion embarked for Egypt on the troop ship SS Ceramic.

As part of the 2nd Division, the 18th Battalion embarked at Alexandria on 18 March 1916, bound for Marseilles and the Western Front, where he was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 16 June 1916.

[5]Lucas was wounded in the legs and feet by shell fragments on 5 November 1917, and was evacuated to England, where he was treated at the 3rd London General Hospital in Wandsworth.

[2] On 28 March 1919, he married his cousin, Whilhemina Shields, a 19-year-old typist, at St John's parish church in Glasgow, Scotland.

[6] His citation read:Commanded Engineers, 6 Aust Div throughout the Cyrenaica Campaign from the opening engagement at Bardia to the final defeat of the enemy on February 7th.

Under his direction the engineers have done most valuable work of every conceivable kind, from breaching enemy wire, removing roads, railways, power and water installations.

The work of the engineers under Lt Col Lucas contributed very materially to the success of the attacks and the rapidity of the pursuit.

In 1953 he was placed in charge of construction of facilities for the British Operation Totem nuclear tests at Emu Field in South Australia.