Australian Soldiers, Memorials and Military History

I mind they told me on a noisy hill I sat and disbelieved, and shook my head: “Impossible! Impossible! but still these other men have died, and others bled”. Knees clasped, I sat and thought, unheeding war. The trees, the winds, the streets came back to me; The laughter of his eyes, his home afar, The memory of his hopes, his buoyancy, His dreams, his jests, his moods of wistfulness, The quaintness of his speech, his favourite song; And this, -and this the end so pitiless! The man we knew! The man we knew so long! - To die-be dead-not move, and this was he! I rose and oiled my rifle musingly.

The Report of the Inquiry into unresolved recognition for past acts of naval and military gallantry and valour

https://defence-honours-tribunal.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/AF13050626.pdf

The Peter Badcoe VC Medal

https://vwma.org.au/collections/home-page-stories/peter-badcoe-vc-medal

ANZAC Spirit School Prize 2013 - Ernest Warman

WARMAN.pdf

Find a Grave - Derrick Ralph Sorensen

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/204994360/derrick-ralph-sorensen

Violet Town: Commemorating a Community - Elsa Reuter

https://vwma.org.au/collections/home-page-stories/violet-town--commemorating-a-community

ANZAC Spirit School Prize Biography 2021 - by Sadie Schultz, St Ignatius College

John_Anthony_Howard_Wilkinson___S_Schultz.pdf

Commonwealth War Graves Commission - Dunure

https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/2081129/dunure-cemetery/

Ian "Scrubber" Ahearn - GPO 102 Fd Bty - Account of FSB COral

http://artilleryhistory.org/moments_in_history/on_this_day/1968/documents/real_story_of_fspb_coral_v7.pdf

Echoes of Remembrance - A Poem by Robert Kearney

/collections/home-page-stories/echoes-of-remembrance

ANZAC Spirit School Prize 2012 - Cyril Foreman

C_W_E_FOREMAN.pdf

ANZAC Spirit School Prize 2010 - John Munn

MUNN.pdf

The Lockleys sub-branch of the RSL was formed in July 1935. Ownership of the hall was formally vested in the Lockleys Soldiers’ Memorial Hall Inc in January 1946. For many years the Sub Branch met in the Basement of the Cinema. Clubrooms were later built at the rear of the hall and this building, in combination with the Memorial Hall, was known as the Lockleys Servicemens' Memorial Centre. Ownership of the centre was formally vested in Lockleys Servicemen’s Memorial Centre Inc in February 1954. Ownership of the adjacent land and the cinema complex was transferred for no monetary consideration to the West Torrens Council in October 1991. The Lockleys Sub Branch wound up in 2018 after the last of its Members agreed to transfer their premises to the West Torrens City Council for re-purposing as a part of the re-development of Mellor Reserve. . A memorial is to be erected to commemorate its presence on Mellor Reserve as a key part of the community for 83 years.

ANZAC Spirit School Prize 2017 - John Rutherford Gordon

2017_Lily_Bright_John_Rutherford_Gordon.pdf

Find a Grave - Leslie James Mills

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/199087025/leslie-james-mills

ANZAC Spirit School Prize 2022 - Vinka Lakic, Endeavour College

Vinka_Lakic_Endeavour_College_Michael_Cetinich.pdf

ANZAC Spirit School Prize 2012 - John Turner

TURNER.pdf

The Last To Leave The guns were silent, and the silent hills had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze I gazed upon the vales and on the rills, And whispered, "What of these?' and "What of these? These long forgotten dead with sunken graves, Some crossless, with unwritten memories Their only mourners are the moaning waves, Their only minstrels are the singing trees And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfully I watched the place where they had scaled the height, The height whereon they bled so bitterly Throughout each day and through each blistered night I sat there long, and listened - all things listened too I heard the epics of a thousand trees, A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew The waves were very old, the trees were wise: The dead would be remembered evermore- The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies, And slept in great battalions by the shore. For more information use this link: https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/173933

Out of the 596 aircraft on the raid 29 were shot down. These figure were fairly typical of RAF raids on German targets at the time – immense destruction was now almost assured at a cost that was, if not acceptable, then at least sustainable. Flight Engineer Sergeant C.H. ‘Chick’ Chandler was on one of the Lancasters that was not shot down that night. His experience was about as bad as it could get without becoming a casualty. In his memory the traumatic events remained to be replayed in slow motion: It was 0110 HOURS on the morning of 23 April 1944. We were a XV Squadron Lancaster III crew from Mildenhall on our 17th op and we were hit simultaneously by heavy ﬂak and cannon fire from an Me 109 at the precise moment that our bombs were released on Dusseldorf. Being the flight engineer, I was standing on the right-hand side of the cockpit, as was usual during our bombing run, with my head in the blister to watch for any fighter attack that might occur from the starboard side. The bombs were actually dropping from the aircraft when there was a tremendous explosion. For a brief period of time everything seemed to happen in ultra-slow motion. The explosion knocked me on my back; I was aware of falling on to the ﬂoor of the aircraft, but it seemed an age before I actually made contact. I distinctly remember ‘bouncing’. Probably lots of ﬂying clothing and Mae Wests broke my fall, but under normal circumstances one would not have been aware of ‘bouncing’. As I fell I ‘saw’, in my mind’s eye, very clearly indeed, a telegram boy cycling to my mother’s back door. He was whistling very cheerfully and handed her the telegram that informed her of my death. She was very calm and thanked the boy for delivering the message. As I laid there I saw a stream of sparks pass a few feet above the cockpit, from back to front and going up at a slight angle. This caused me some confusion. If the sparks were from a burning engine they were going the wrong way. It was some little time before I realised that the ‘sparks’ were in fact tracer shells from a fighter that I did not know was attacking us. The illusion that the tracer shells were going upwards was no doubt caused by the fact that our Lancaster was going into an uncontrolled, screaming dive, but because of the slow-motion effect that I was experiencing, I did not appreciate this fact. This whole episode had taken 2 or 3 seconds at most, then the slow-motion effect began to wear off, and I became aware of the screams of the bomb-aimer. [after the aircraft went through violent evasive dives they threw off the fighter … the order to prepare to ‘bale out’ was withdrawn after they discovered that most of the parachutes had been destroyed] My task now was to check the aircraft for damage and casualties. My checks started at the front of the aircraft, in the bomb-aimer’s compartment. I am afraid to say that my sheltered life had not prepared me for the terrible sight that met my eyes. It was obvious that this area had caught the full blast of the ﬂak, and Alan Gerrard had suffered the most appalling injuries. At least he would have died almost instantaneously. Suffice to say that I was sick. At this stage I risked using my torch to shine along the bomb bay to make sure that all our bombs were gone. My report simply was that the bomb-aimer had been killed and that all bombs had left the aircraft. Next stop was the cockpit. The pilot had really worked wonders in controlling the aircraft and successfully feathering the engine that had been on fire. Then on to the navigator’s department; on peering round the blackout screen I saw that Ken Pincott was busy working over his charts, but that Flight Lieutenant John Fabian DFC, the H2S operator (the Squadron navigation leader), appeared to be in shock. However, once I established that there appeared to be no serious damage, I moved on. The wireless operator’s position was empty because his task during the bombing run was to go to the rear of the aircraft and ensure that the photo flash left at the same time as the bombs. Next, down to the mid-upper turret, where Ron Wilson had re-occupied his position, albeit only temporarily. (Unknown to me, he had suffered a wound to his ear that, although not too serious, would keep him off ﬂying for a few weeks.) On reaching the next checkpoint I was again totally unprepared for the dreadful sight that confronted me. Our wireless operator, Flight Sergeant L. Barnes, had sustained, in my opinion, fatal chest injuries and had mercifully lost consciousness. It was found later that he had further very serious injuries to his lower body and legs. He died of his wounds before we reached England. From the rear turret I got a ‘thumbs up’ sign from ‘Whacker’ Mair, so I rightly concluded that he was OK. As well as having to report the death of our bomb-aimer, and the fatal injuries to the wireless operator, I had to report the complete failure of the hydraulic system. The pilot was already aware of the fact that we had lost our port inner engine through fire, and that our starboard outer was giving only partial power. The bomb doors were stuck in the open position, and the gun turrets had been rendered inoperative because of the hydraulic failure. Post script: They had just enough fuel to make it back to England, gradually losing height all the way, only to discover that their undercarriage was stuck as they came in to land. The remaining crew survived the emergency landing. All the survivors remained on flying duties, only the slightly wounded mid upper gunner had a brief respite. See Bowman (Ed.) RAF Bomber Stories: Dramatic First-hand Accounts of British and Commonwealth Airmen in World War 2

Government Gazette Appointments and Employment - Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, Sat 3 Aug 1907 [Issue No.42], Page 1023

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232357820/24988054

Deaths On Active Service - The Age, Sat 23 May 1942, Page 9

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206821532

West Coast Sentinel 7/7/1948

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/167835649?searchTerm=norman%20thompson&searchLimits=l-title=828|||l-category=Article

AWM - Nursing for the British Raj

https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/nursing-british-raj

ANZAC Spirit School Prize 2014 - Peter Badcoe

P_BADCOE.pdf

The torpedoing of the HMAT Southland

https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/browse/groupstories/2634