Obituaries Australia

Hugh Syme, standing beside the first German Type C aerial magnetic mine to be recovered intact

Australian War Memorial, P03434.001

Mr Hugh Randall Syme, one of Australia's most highly decorated heroes of World War II will be given full naval honours at his funeral on Wednesday.

Mr Syme, 63, who died yesterday, was awarded the George Cross, George Medal and Bar for his bomb and mine disposal work.

He was a director of David Syme and Co Ltd, publishers of the Age, a former president of the Australian Newspapers Council, and a former chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Melbourne.

He retired in 1963 as general manager of the Age.

A funeral service will be held at All Saints' Church of England, Kooyong, at 10.30 on Wednesday morning and the cortege will go afterwards to the Springvale Crematorium, where a service will be held at noon.

Mr Syme, who is survived by a wife and three daughters, belonged to a section of the Royal Navy which "deloused" unexploded bombs and mines during the war.

He won his first George Medal for disarming a mine which threatened a tenement area and reservoir at Primrose Hill, London. The task took him three days.