Obituaries Australia

The death occurred on 25th May of Piotr Mackiewicz, practicing forester and member of this Institute.

Born in 1909 in China, he returned to Poland, the land of his parents, at the age of thirteen to complete his education. Upon obtaining his forestry degree at the University of Poznan he entered the Polish Forestry Service and there remained until 1939 when he joined the Polish Army.

His experiences at war must have been exciting to say the least, yet it is characteristic of the man that he mentioned them hardly at all. With the end of Polish resistance to Hitler's forces he escaped to Roumania and was there interned. Not for long such a fate: after some months he escaped to France to join the Polish Free Forces. After the fall of France in 1940 he escaped once more to England. There he joined the British Army, attained the rank of Captain, and saw service in West Africa and Italy.

Came the peace and Mr Mackiewicz served two years with the British Forestry Commission before migrating to Australia in 1949. Here he was first with the Forests Commission of Victoria and later with the Forestry Commission of New South Wales.

In recent years he was engaged on administrative forestry in a pine plantation sub-district and prior to that he carried out classification and site-quality surveys in the Tumut region — investigation work which has contributed to the development of a plantation scheme which will eventually become one of the great forest areas of Australia.

Of his special charms I would mention only one: he possessed the rare quality of perfect manners. In 1950 Mr Mackiewicz married Dorothy Hill, by whom he is survived, together with a son, Leon.