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John Bernard "Jack" Mackey VC was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British Commonwealth soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.
Born in Leichhardt, New South Wales, Mackey was the only son and the eldest of four children of Stanislaus Mackey, a baker, and his wife Bridget Catherine Smyth Mackey. After attending the St. Columba's School, Leichhardt, and the Christian Brothers' High School in Lewisham, New South Wales, the Mackey family moved to Portland, New South Wales, in 1936. Aged 14, John finished his formal education at the St. Joseph's Convent School that year.
Mackey had enlisted in the Australian Army and served in North Africa in 1940–42, including at the climatic Battle of El Alamein at which the Axis armies under the German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel were permanently expelled from Egypt.
Mackey was 22 years old and an army corporal in the 2/3rd Pioneer Battalion of the Australian Army during the Second World War when the following events took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.
On 12 May 1945 at Tarakan Island, off North Borneo, Corporal Mackey led his men along a very narrow spur trail where it was almost impossible to move to a flank. His section came under fire from three well-sited Japanese Army positions, but Corporal Mackey went ahead, charging his first position, wrestling with and killing one of the enemy, and he then rushed a heavy machine-gun post, killing its crew. He again attacked a third enemy position further along the spur, and he was killed, but not before he had slain two more of the Japanese.
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