Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

"...5126 Sergeant Leslie Hurtle Sando, 32nd Battalion. A lithographer from Brighton, South Australia, prior to enlistment he held the rank of Acting Staff Sergeant Major on the AIF Instructional Staff. He embarked with the substantive rank of Sergeant with the 14th Reinforcements of the 32nd Battalion from Melbourne on 22 December 1917 aboard HMAT Ulysses for Suez and then to England via Taranto, Italy, and Cherbourg, France. He then spent eight weeks with the School of Instruction at Jellalabad Barracks, Tidworth, before joining his battalion on the Western Front near Corbie, France on 10 May 1918. Sgt Sando was killed in action near Nauroy, France, on 29 September 1918. He has no known grave and he is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, France. He was aged 25 years. His younger brother, 2404 Pte Sydney Joseph Sando, 48th Battalion, was killed in action at Pozieres on 12 August 1916. He also has no known grave and is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, France." - SOURCE (www.awm.gov.au)

Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, France

Villers-Bretonneux is a village about 15 km east of Amiens. The Memorial stands on the high ground ('Hill 104') behind the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, Fouilloy, which is about 2 km north of Villers-Bretonneux on the east side of the road to Fouilloy.

The Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux is approached through the Military Cemetery, at the end of which is an open grass lawn which leads into a three-sided court. The two pavilions on the left and right are linked by the north and south walls to the back (east) wall, from which rises the focal point of the Memorial, a 105 foot tall tower, of fine ashlar. A staircase leads to an observation platform, 64 feet above the ground, from which further staircases lead to an observation room. This room contains a circular stone tablet with bronze pointers indicating the Somme villages whose names have become synonymous with battles of the Great War; other battle fields in France and Belgium in which Australians fought; and far beyond, Gallipoli and Canberra.

On the three walls, which are faced with Portland stone, are the names of 10,885 Australians who were killed in France and who have no known grave. The 'blocking course' above them bears the names of the Australian Battle Honours.

After the war an appeal in Australia raised £22,700, of which £12,500 came from Victorian school children, with the request that the majority of the funds be used to build a new school in Villers-Bretonneux. The boys' school opened in May 1927, and contains an inscription stating that the school was the gift of Victorian schoolchildren, twelve hundred of whose fathers are buried in the Villers-Bretonneux cemetery, with the names of many more recorded on the Memorial. Villers-Bretonneux is now twinned with Robinvale, Victoria, which has in its main square a memorial to the links between the two towns.