Dr. Roy Mills was born in Denman in the Hunter Valley in 1917, went to school there, then Maitland High School, so was a real son of the Hunter.

As a child he used to follow the local GP from Merriwa on his rounds, and his father suggested he might like to do medicine he entered medicine, and describes the prewar medical course and his teachers with realism and affection. He was taught by the giants of medicine of that era, and after graduation, in 1939 was a resident at RPAH when the role and responsibilities were vastly different to the present day.

He joined the Army just after the war broke out, in late 1939, was finally posted to Malaya, fought in the battles preceding the fall of Singapore, where he was seriously wounded was then incarcerated by the Japanese for 4 years in Changi, then along the Burma railway and saw more than half of his mates die in atrocious conditions in the prison camps.

He risked his life by keeping a diary over those years, this was later [self] published , and remains as the most accurate description of the hellish conditions in the camps. At the end of the war, he had contracted TB., and lost 18 months of his life before he could practice again.

The story of how he became the first chest physician in the Hunter, was a leader in the battle against T.B., triumphed over financial difficulties, became a leader in postgraduate education, was elected as the President of the Australian Thoracic Society, and set up the first intensive care unit at RNH is a fascinating story of persistence.

In overcoming many obstacles. He was chosen as one of the 100 Australian heroes in the book of that name, awarded an honorary MD by the University of Newcastle, and made a Member of the Order of Australia a remarkable climax to an outstanding career his is the story of one of the real heroes of the second world war, and one who made a unique contribution to medicine in the Hunter and on the national scene.