Former Sailor Killed
May 3, 1999
A young father, out of the RAN for just 12 months, was stabbed to death in a Sydney street on ANZAC Day when he went to the aid of a young woman who had just been robbed by two men at an ATM.
He was John Hammond, 30, of Botany, a former leading seaman of HMAS PERTH and HMAS MELBOURNE.
He had been to the Gulf on MELBOURNE.
On ANZAC Day he marched with former mates from PERTH in the city parade.
In previous days he had helped fill sandbags urgently needed to hold down flapping tarpaulins on rooftops lain open by the April 14 hailstorm barrage.
John answered a student's screams for help as she was mugged by two men in Castlereagh Street on the Sunday night. He clashed with one assailant who stabbed him in the chest.
By Graham Davis