We have been advised of the death of Commander Richard (Dick) Marum at his home in the United States.
Dick started his naval aviation career as a member of BATC 3/66. He was in the second group from that cohort which left Australia for Pensacola in January 1967 to undertake flying training with the US Navy at Pensacola, Florida. Forty years later his daughter received her USN wings of gold at Pensacola.
On return to Australia, he was posted to 723 Squadron for Helicopter Flight Vietnam, and was awarded a DFC for his service there. Life after Vietnam was an adventure of multiple naval postings, career change, marriage, procreation and migration to the North American Continent where he lived in the sunshine state of Florida with wife Crystelle.
From Vietnam he was posted to 724 Squadron for jet conversion, qualified in the Macchi, but decided that the politics and personalities were not professionally appropriate and opted to continue in general service. A short posting followed, to HMAS Kuttabul in Sydney. In 1971 he joined the oceanographic survey ship, HMAS Diamantina as navigator. Between 1974 and 1978 he spent two years at the Naval College HMAS Creswell as Jervis Divisional and Sports Officer, followed by a posting to HMAS Vampire. That was followed by staff jobs in Defence Central Canberra, then Seoul, South Korea where he was the Australian Defence Attaché and Australian representative on the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission Korea until March 1985.
After returning to Defence Central for a while, he resigned and emigrated with the family to Canada. He worked as a Financial Consultant in Toronto and then Palm Beach, Florida, retiring in 2005 after a successful career in the finance industry. He succumbed to a long illness and passed away on 22 July 2022.
