Ivan Francis Southall was born on June 8, 1921, in Canterbury, Victoria, Australia. The son of Francis Gordon Southall and Rachel Elizabeth Voutier Southall, he grew up in Surrey Hills, a suburb of Melbourne, where he attended the local school through the eighth grade. He won a scholarship to Boxhill Grammar School and began writing at twelve years of age.

When Southall was fourteen, his father, who had worked in the insurance business, died. Southall found it necessary to leave school and go to work to help support himself, his younger brother, and his mother. From 1936 to 1941 he worked as a process engraver for a printing firm in Melbourne. At the beginning of World War II he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, trained as a fighter pilot, and later became a flight lieutenant, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. From 1944 to 1946 he worked as a...