Coorabie War Memorial

Details

Location Fowlers Bay Road, Coorabie, South Australia, Australia
Type memorial
Description

A white concrete obelisk surmounted on a two-tier pedestal and concrete base. The monument is enclosed within a four-post concrete and wrought iron fence with a single entrance gate. At the entrance at ground level is the date 1950 engraved.

A shelter has recently been added (c2024) with replica prints of the Honour rolls held at the Coorabie Hall

Built Not yet discovered
Opened Not yet discovered
Inscription

Pedestal face:

WORLD WAR 11

1939-1945

Condition

MAINTAINED BY: Local community
PECULIARITIES/DAMAGE: Nil

View Tributes of Honour Description

Stories

The Restoration of the Coorabie War Memorial by Lyndon Giles

I approached the Coorabie and Districts Progress Association to see if I could coordinate refurbishing the memorial on behalf of their association and they agreed and that was in January, 2015. The reason I did that was because my mother’s father who served in WWI built that memorial and my father’s brother who served in WWII lost his life serving for his country and his name is on the memorial, so in respect both sides of my family are involved in the memorial. My parents were both born and raised in that area. I do not live in the district, I never have but my family ties are very strong, I live in Port Lincoln 600 kilometres away and I did this purely for the Coorabie District.

I worked with 24 organisations and businesses in that time, and the major funding came from the Federal and State Government’s Departments of Veteran Affairs and the Outback Communities Authority based in Port Augusta. That does not diminish the roles everyone else played as I was completely overwhelmed and amazed at the financial and vocal support that I received during this whole operation, it exceeded all of my expectations and it just blew me away. I deliberately have not mentioned them as there are too many but each and every one of those businesses have been acknowledged by a personal letter that I wrote of which I sent you a copy Bob for your reference.

The biggest challenge was the distance factor as you would appreciate, myself residing in Port Lincoln and working with businesses in Ceduna, Port Lincoln, Port Augusta and Adelaide, the coordination and timelines did take juggling and fine tuning as I virtually worked with two thirds of the state in bringing it all together, an example is the distance from Coorabie to Adelaide, which is 950 kilometres. I must mention the Coorabie and Districts Association, as this project was something that I chose to do for their community, I never did it seeking accolades or pats on the back so to speak, that was the furthest thing on my mind, and I have no regrets as now that memorial will stand for many decades and not have to be maintained or repaired. This project took 2 years and 3 months to complete.

Please Note: When the memorial was built in 1950, there was a brick with that date on it put at the entrance of the memorial gate, that was shifted to be on the North Face of the memorial facing the Coorabie Hall, the reason for that is the entrance is now level with the ground surrounding the memorial, as in the past the gate entrance was significantly higher than the ground level. The reason that I made it level was for easier access and also to be wheel chair friendly, as before you had to step over the wall to get into the memorial.

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Names

Showing 8 people of interest from memorial

DREW, Frank Napier

Service number 542
Trooper
9th Light Horse Regiment
AIF WW1
Born 5 Jan 1890

GILES, Bill

Service number SX33417
Private
2nd/24th Infantry Battalion
Australian Military Forces (WW2)
Born 28 Dec 1925

KNIGHT, Alfred Ronald Yorke

Service number 3190
Private
32nd Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 7 Oct 1894

COPPINS, William Thomas Angus Horace Valentine

Service number 667
Private
12th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 4 Jul 1889

REID, Frank Clark Dickson

Service number SX9600
Lance Sergeant
8th Division Ammunition Sub-Park
Australian Military Forces (WW2)
Born 15 Jan 1918

MCKENZIE, Alexander McGregor

Service number 1797A
Private
27th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 11 Jan 1891

CUSSION, Christian Walter

Service number 340
Private
10th Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 29 Oct 1899

STEPHENS, Claude Ralph

Service number 2151
Private
43rd Infantry Battalion
AIF WW1
Born 25 Apr 1890

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