Monte Modlin was born in Bloemfontein in 1917. He attended the South African College School in Cape Town and then entered the University of Cape Town Medical School. During the second world war he served for three years in the SAMC in Egypt. In 1943 he returned to South Africa and joined the air sch

John Stuart Martin was senior consultant otolaryngologist at Hull Royal Infirmary. He was born on 19 June 1917 in Robinstown, County Meath, and qualified from Queen's University Belfast in 1939. After completing his junior appointments in Belfast he joined the RAMC, where he served in North Africa a

Robert Mitchell was born in Longueville, New South Wales, on 13 October 1927. His father, William Robert Mitchell, was an accountant. His mother was Lilian née Coram. He was educated at the Sydney Church of England Grammar School and studied medicine at the University of Sydney. He did junior posts

Saw Leong was born in Burma on 19 October 1918 in Mudon, where his father, U Saw Ohn Pe, was a landowner and his mother, Daw Tan Ma Chan, a businesswoman. His uncle, Tan Chan Taik, was an ophthalmologist in Rangoon. His sisters, Ma Thwe Ohn Pe and Thein Thein Myint, became GPs in Moulmein and Streat

Ian James Gordon was a consultant surgeon in Bendigo, Australia. He was born in Aberdeen on 29 October 1924. His father, James Lendrum Gordon, was a mercantile marine officer and his mother, Mary Ironside Sherriffs, was the daughter of a farmer. He was educated at Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen,

Robert (Robin) Welsh was born on 23 April 1928 in Witbank, Transvaal, South Africa, the eldest son of Dr Robert William Hepburn Welsh, a general practitioner in Pretoria for thirty years, and Evelyn Jessie Watson. He was educated at St John's College, Johannesburg, and the University of Witwatersran

William O'Flynn was born in County Limerick on 12 April 1927, into a family with a long tradition in medicine as general practitioners. Unfortunately no details of his forbears are available. After education at Presentation College, Bray, County Wicklow he entered the National University of Ireland

Ellery Arthur Mulvihill Ryan was born in 1917 in Melbourne, the son of a leading ophthalmologist who exerted a great influence on his son's character and interest in sport of many kinds. He went to school as a boarder at Xavier College from the age of six till he was eighteen and left with the prize

Joseph Patrick O’Byrne McMullin (initially known as ‘Shos’) was a general surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital, St Stephen’s Green/Elm Park, Dublin. He was born in 1921, the eldest son of Joseph Columba McMullin, a surgeon at the Shiel Hospital, Ballyshannon, and later county surgeon in Cavan, and Mary

Frank Haine was born in Little Wolford, Oxfordshire, on 13 November 1909, the eldest of four boys. His father, Robert John Haine, was a farmer who had moved from Somerset to the north Cotswolds after the death of his first wife. His mother, Marianne Baines Horne, was the daughter of a corn merchant

Andrew Pollen was an orthopaedic surgeon at Bedford General Hospital. He was born in London on 17 October 1923, the son of Jewish parents whose families had to flee persecution in Russia under Tsar Alexander III. His father, Zalman Pollen, was an artist and art teacher, his mother was Esther Violet

Brian Gadsby Peet was the only child of Edward Gadsby Peet, a master brewer, and Hilda Harriet Harden, a nurse who had worked as a theatre sister in France in the first world war. He was educated first at the Heath Grammar School in Halifax until the age of thirteen and then sent to board at Denston