Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Cover of the History of 2 OTU

An 8 inch howitzer of the 1st Australian Siege Battery (aka 54th Siege Battery) at full recoil after firing one of its 60 pound shells. One of a series of images taken by Frank Hurley Official War Photographer

3619 Private Edwin Allen

Informal group portrait of RAF ground staff with RAAF and Royal New Zealand Air Force air crew of a Mitchell bomber squadron, 180 Squadron RAF with the Second Tactical Air Force. Left to right: two RAF ground crew, Jock (Fitter) and Alf (Rigger); 422248 Flying Officer (FO) Jack B O'Halloran, pilot of Sydney, NSW, (later Flight Lieutenant and DFC); 417379 Pilot Officer James Crosby (Jim) Jennison (later Flying Officer and DFC) of Adelaide, SA; 422175 FO Reg J Hansen of Sydney, NSW; FO Harry M Hawthorn, RNZAF of Hastings, NZ. The aircraft was lettered D and the pilot named it 'Daily Delivery' and the nose art illustration portrays a stork carrying a large bomb. Location RAF Dunsford Surrey UK

Memorial to Men of Railway Town

1914/15 Star, British War Medal, Victory medal with the oak leaf clasp denoting Mentioned in Despatches.

Part of a Lancaster Crew of No. 156 Squadron L-R 21442 Pilot Officer Robert Ernest INGLIS (rear gunner) KIA 2 Dec 43 411685 Flight Sergean John Neville EDMONDS (wireless operator) KIA 2 Dec 43 J22068 Flying Officer JV Scrivener RCAF subs bomb aimer subsequently PoW 31 Mar 44 409356 Warrant Officer Reginald Ronald WICKS (pilot) KIA 2 Dec 43 420351 Flight Sergeant Norman McDonald (navigator) PoW 2 Dec 43

Informal portrait of 407016 Squadron Leader W. K. Bolitho DFC of Mannum, SA, pilot, of No. 11 (Catalina) Squadron RAAF.

The explosion of the MV Neptuna and clouds of smoke from oil storage tanks, hit during the first Japanese air raid on Australia's mainland, at Darwin on February 19, 1942. In the foreground is HMAS Deloraine, which escaped damage.

George Arthur Debnam, Phoebe Debnam and their son, George Parkman Debnam. This is a compsite image. George Parkman DOW Gallipoli September 1915, before his father enlisted, aged 50, in February 1917. He survived the War

This Australian soldier’s skull has extensive damage caused by bullet wounds sustained in the Battle of Passchendale (or Third Ypres, Battle of Polygon Wood) in the First World War. He was shot on September 28, 1917. Most of the damage was caused by a lead bullet that entered the mouth and passed through the palate and right eye. Shrapnel destroyed the ascending ramus of the right jaw, and another bullet, visible here, struck the left frontal sinus. Philadelphia opthalmologist and surgeon WT Shoemaker treated this soldier at a battlefield hospital in France. This soldier survived his initial injuries and treatments. But, five days after his injuries, blind and disoriented, he pulled out the bandage materials in his mouth that packed the wounds. He bled to death. Mutter Museum Philadelphia

A 455 Squadron Beaufighter in its Coastal Command markings replete with Invasion Stripes post June 1944. The Beaufighter was sometimes described as "two engines followed closely by an aeroplane". It was relatively fast, very heavily armed with four nose mounted cannon, six wing mounted machine guns and devastating rockets or bombs. 455 Squadron Beaufighters were not configured to launch torpedoes, rather their partner RNZAF squadron did. The pilot had peerless forward vision.

Arthur Harold Boettcher - Lancaster LM-372

His medals — including the Military Medal awarded for Alfred's heroism on day one of the Third Battle of Ypres — have passed down the generations to Alan Bishop, 58, of Morphett Vale. Alan has the medals of all three Bishop brothers; the family tradition is for them to go to the youngest son of the youngest son. Alan’s grandfather, Victor, the youngest of the four Bishop brothers, was too young to go to World War I. The medals went to him when Lloyd died in 1951, apparently at Lloyd’s request. When Alan dies the medals will go to his eight-year-old grandson, Hamish. “I was 13 when they passed down to me,” Alan told the Sunday Mail this week. “I thought ‘Gee, that’s nice’, without really understanding what it meant because I was so young. “All I know is I’m glad I wasn’t one of them. When you look at Alfred’s record, he was in and out of hospital with bronchitis and pneumonia. So they were fighting the weather as well. “They’re never forgotten. They’re always in the back of your mind.”

"Australia Remembers" plaque. Inscription: Thomas Moody, 1941- 1945.

Corporal Philip Ness "Doc" Dobson, MID.

Physios and nurses of 2/4 AGH staging on Morotai Island, 1945 (Marjorie Hill back row, left)

Albert James DUNSTER's headstone at Trois Arbres Cemetery

The Noonan SA Police Heavyweight Boxing Championship Trophy Belt won by Tom Tobin 1938-1940. On display in Police Headquarters

Outdoor group portrait of six signallers in the snow. Identified back row, left to right: 19636 Gunner (Gnr) Reginald Sylvester Mason; 19822 Gnr Gilbert James Simmonds; 19657 Stanley Clarence Whiting; 19806 Gnr Lewis Ewen McKenzie (later MM). Front row, seated: 19616 Gnr Frank Orman Ball and 19634 Gnr Allan Lyle McPherson (later MM). These men embarked for service overseas with the 8th Field Artillery Brigade aboard HMAT Medic (A7) on 20 May 1916 (Gnrs McPherson, Whiting and Ball from Sydney and Gnrs McKenzie and Simmonds from Melbourne). Gnr Mason, a printer from Corrowa, NSW, prior to enlistment, died of wounds in Belgium on 27 September 1917, aged 22. The other five men survived the war.

Charles Darwin GREGG's headstone - AIF Cemetery West Terrace Adelaide

Colin Lawrence WRIGHT

Graham Leaver in camp at Heliopolis, Egypt in 1916

Robert Glendenning Jemison's 'Dead Man's Penny' in a circular wooden frame. In the collection of his Great Nephew, Bruce James-Martin. In a fascinating twist of fate, Bruce is a friend of John Wadlow, narrator of the accompanying story.

Fred Barson, June 1917 Hurdcott England

A M2A2 105mm howitzer fires in support of 1 RAR from FSB Coral

Studio portrait of Arthur John Lammey

75 Squadron DH Vampires based in Malta 1954

WW1 Meritorious service post 31 Dec 15 Embarkation: L-R Military Medal (MM), British War Medal, Victory Medal

Studio portrait of 427775 Flight Sergeant (Flt Sgt) Harry James Boyd, No. 24 Squadron, of Pomborneit North, Vic. Boyd enlisted as a private, service number V170264, in the Citizens' Military Forces in Oct 1941. In September 1942 he enlisted in the RAAF. On 23 March 1945, Flt Sgt Boyd was the 2nd pilot, and one of twelve men on board, of Liberator aircraft A72-80 which left RAAF Truscott to undertake reconnaissance over the Lombok Strait and island of Bali. Shortly after take off, A72-80 developed engine trouble and crashed into Vansittart Bay, WA. All on board were killed. Flt Sgt Boyd was 22 years of age.

In November 1967 a 9 Squadron Iroquois lands to pick up members of the 7th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment (7RAR) during operation Santa Fe, a gruelling three week-long operation through inhospitable country some 23 kilometres from the Task Force Base at Nui Dat. [AWM COL/67/1127/VN]

Map illustrating the relative position of AO Surfers, Saigon and the Australian base at Nui Dat