Charles John Newhill Leleu was born at Babbacombe, Devon, on 6 June 1912, the son of John Charles Leleu, a solicitor, and Hilda Blanche Harding, the daughter of Judge Harding of Shanghai. After World War I, during which JC Leleu was decorated for bravery, the family came to Australia and then to Fiji.

Charles was educated at Suva Grammar School and Cranbrook (Sydney) and St Paul’s College within the University of Sydney. He graduated in 1936, and was resident medical officer at Royal North Shore Hospital and Prince Henry Hospital before entering practice at Wollongong with Dr Street. He married Barbara Dalrymple Hay, who had been a nurse at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital during his student days, and they had a son and a daughter.

When Hitler entered the Sudetenland in 1938, he could see war was inevitable, and applied to each of the services, being commissioned in the RAAF Medical Services. During the War he served in the South-West Pacific Area, rose to group captain, and was awarded the OBE and mentioned in dispatches for his services as SMO, North-West Area. In 1944 he did the DTM&H at the School of Tropical Medicine at Sydney University before returning to New Guinea and Tarakan.

After demobilisation he joined the Colonial Sugar Refining Company and went to Fiji. He was invited to rejoin the RAAF in the reorganisation after the War. Whilst he was CO of 3 RAAF Hospital at Richmond, and a clinical assistant at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, he passed the examination and was admitted MRACP.

He resigned from the RAAF, disappointed by the non-fruition of promises that had been made of clinical opportunities, and returned to the tropics in Samoa as a consultant physician. Shortly before his death, and in character, he swam some distance out to sea to save the life of a man who had drifted out in a current. On 12 April 1961, he suffered a fatal coronary attack whilst doing a ward round at Apia Hospital. To outsiders he gave the impression of being rather a dour man, but this was a reflection of his shy personality, for he was a man who had clearly offered his professional skills for the welfare of others.