Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Wesley_Choat_by_Lily_Farrell.pdf

William_Faint_by_Ryan_Schwarz.pdf

William_Harold_Simcock_by_Charli_Medlow.pdf

Mericourt-L'Abbe Communal Cemetery Extension

LHS Plaque at St Peters Heroes Memorial

RHS Panel of the St Peters Memorial

A Matilda Tank several of which payed a crucial role at Slater's Knoll

Showing Slater's Knoll a week after the Japanese attacked on the morning of 5 April 1945. The front had now been pushed forward and life was quiet again on Slater's Knoll; the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion had just vacated the position and it was now occupied by troops of 'B' Company, 58/59 Australian Infantry Battalion. This work was painted with the simple object of showing life in a dug-in forward position, and gives an idea of many other sites where the infantry had been dug in for some time. The latrine with a 4-gallon oil drum serving as a seat, would be out in the open, away from the tents on the right, and food would be carried in dixies from the cook house, further back, and served to the men on the position. In the tents were two bunks made by using the canvas of the issued stretchers, supported by saplings. The legs of the stretchers were then stored in the Left Out of Battle (LOB) area, as they would be too bulky to carry. Pictured, is a Bren gun pit in the immediate left foreground where a lad is shown cleaning his weapon. There is a steep bank on the left of the picture, making a natural defence. This is actually at the rear of the site. As the Japanese attempted to take the knoll by force of numbers they approached up the gently sloping side to the right, beyond the limit of the painting. The Bren gun in the pit in the foreground supplied most effective cross fire. On the right can be seen part of a large bomb crater, made during the Japanese occupancy, and the uprooted trees cutting diagonally across the picture were evidently thrown up when the crater was made.

Studio portrait of 405605 Aircraftman Walter Henry Rose of Cloncurry, Qld.

Hand coloured studio portrait of Pilot Officer Henry Rose, DFC, of No. 156 Squadron (RAF), Pathfinder Force

WCDR John Balmer, while CO of No. 100 Squadron RAAF September 1942. Later CO of No. 467 Squadron, lost on Ops.

United Kingdom: London. 9 November 1943. Outside Buckingham Palace after an investiture is Wing Commander (Wing Cdr, later Group Captain [Gp Capt]) John Raeburn Balmer OBE, DFC, RAAF of Melbourne, Vic, Commanding Officer of Lancaster No 467 Squadron, RAAF Bomber Command (right), and Squadron Leader D. A. Green DSO DFC, RAF, Devon, UK. Grp Cpt Balmer was lost on operations over Belgium on May 11, 1944. He is buried in the Heverlee War Cemetery near Brussels.

Auction notes 25th September 2008 DNW website 1914-15 Star (O.N.2263 Ord. Sea.); British War and Victory Medals (A.B., R.A.N.); War and Australia Service Medals (2263 R. F. Grimley); Royal Australian Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue, fixed suspension, with Second Award bar (2263 Leading Seaman, R.A.N.); H.M.A.S. Sydney - S.M.S. Emden Medal, 9 November 1914, silver Mexican Dollar dated 1895 , mounted by W. Kerr, Sydney, unnamed; Western Australia, Sydney - Emden Commemorative Medal, reverse inscribed (part engraved) ‘Presented by the People of Western Australia to R. F. Grimley, Boy 1 Class’, mounted for display, edge bruising, first three worn; others very fine (8) £1800-2200

The battered hulk of the SMS Emden after it was beached on North Keeling Island

Military Medal, G.V.R. (3958 Pte. G. H. Trew. 2Aust: Inf:); British War Medal 1914-20 (3958 Pte. G. H. Trew. 2Bn. A.I.F.) ‘3’ officially corrected; War Medal 1939-45 (N65913 G. H. Trew); Australia Service Medal (N65913 G. H. Trew), Second War Medals officially impressed, mounted for display

Sunderland and Catalina flying boats of RAF Coastal Command at Castle Archdale in Northern Ireland, January 1945. The big freeze. Nearly all the aircraft on strength with three Coastal Command squadrons are visible here, drawn up out of the water at Castle Archdale in Northern Ireland as Logh Erne froze over in January 1945. More than 30 aircraft can be seen, including Sunderlands of No's 201 and 423 RCAF Squadrons and No 202 Squadron's Catalinas.

Far and away: The young Private Bill Cassidy spent five of the eight years of his marriage away at war.

Far and away: The young Private Bill Cassidy spent five of the eight years of his marriage away at war.

John Francis TUCKER's grave

Australian pilots of No. 453 Squadron scramble to their Brewster Buffalo aircraft. A US aircraft never adopted by US forces, the Buffaloes were no match for the Japanese 'Zeros' and 'Oscars' ranged against them

The AE1 submarine went missing on September 14, 1914.

A QANTAS Catalina operated for the RAAF at the Nedlands base in WA before setting out on one of the longest flights of the war.

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

ALexander McBride Kerr's Funeral Medal set. flying helmet and Photo

Bristol Beauforts at No. 1 Operational Training Unit, Bairnsdale, Victoria. Nearer camera: A9-102, 262097, Flying Officer Peter John Gibbes, DFC; A9-66, 377, Squadron Leader Cyril Clarence Williams.

The sinking of troopship SS 'Ballarat' which took place on 25 April 1917 in the English Channel. A submarine torpedoed the 'Ballarat', which was carrying Australian troops from Melbourne to England. Efforts made to tow the ship to shallow water failed and she sank off The Lizard the following morning. No lives were lost of the 1752 souls on board.

A wrecked M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), destroyed in 6RAR's 'Operation Bribie' by enemy Recoiless Rifle (RCL) fire which killed the driver and crew commander.

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]

Nine members of 5 Platoon, B Company, 6RAR. By the end of Operation Bribie three of these young men were dead and five had been wounded. Only one emerged from the battle unscathed. Image courtesy of J. O'Halloran. [AWM P02452.002]

Unidentified radio operator of B Company 9 RAR on Operation Friendship 3. Radio communications were better and more readily available than in any previous conflict.

Charles Wilfred Hart

THOMAS, David John, Service No: 561, Unit: 44th Infantry Battalion STRAND MILITARY CEMETERY Grave II. D. 9.

Graham Leaver in camp at Heliopolis, Egypt in 1916

Mount Gambier's iconic Blue Lake, the caldera of an extinct volcano, filled by the plentiful aquifers in the Mount's substates.

Victor Harbor - favoured SA holiday destination

The best tunnelling conditions were in the great chalk seams running across northern France. Excavation generally had to be conducted with great care to conceal t he diggings and where in the proximity of enemy miners, to prevent detection by listening devices. Men of the 3rd Australian Company excavating a chamber in the chalk in the Hulluch subway system. The chalk was dug out with miners' picks and filled into bags. These bags were trucked along the gallery to suitable positions, hauled to the surface and emptied at night. In places where the chalk crumbled, the walls had to be revetted, as is seen on the left. Identified left to right: Captain R. J. Langton MC, Officer Commanding, No. 1 Section (holding bag); 1194 Sapper (Spr) D. C. Vecchia; 6772 Spr C. A. L. Robinson, all members of the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company.

RAAF 402571 FLIGHT LIEUTENANT C.R.G(GORDON DFC DFM ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE 26TH OCTOBER 1994 AGE 83 LOVED HUSBAND OF TONI. FATHER OF BARBARA, MAX AND MICHAEL

846 Private Roy Stephen KENYON, MM

Group portrait of No. 4 Initial Training School, RAAF Course No. 22, A Squadron, Flight 13. Pugh is second from the left in the centre row.

FLGOFF Kenneth BENNETT 463 Squadron

A memorial to the crew of No. 463 Squadron RAAF Lancaster LL847 JO-D, which crashed nearby after being shot down with the loss of all seven crew on the night of 18/19 December 1944

Original grave marker of the crew of Lancaster LL847 JO-D and the common grave in which they are now interred in Le Gros-Thiele Communal cemetery

FLGOFF Robert Wentworth BYRNES 463 Squadron

Original grave marker of the crew of Lancaster LL847 JO-D and the common grave in which they are now interred in Le Gros-Thiele Communal cemetery

1630 Private Bruce Oscar STEWART 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion

Sister Ellen Keats, 2nd/10th Australian General Hospial

Nursing SIster Dorothy Elmes, a victim of the Banka Island massacre

Australian Army Nursing Sisters Ellen Keats and Elizabeth Pyman. Ellen Keats was evacuated from Singapore on the ill-fated SS VYner Brooke and was murdered by her Japanese captros at Banka Island. Sister Pyman was more fortunate being evacuated on another ship and returning safely to Australia

Sister Dora SHirley GARDAM, 2nd/4th Casualty Clearing Station. She survived the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke and avoided death at the Banka Island massacre only to succumb to malnutrition and disease in April 1945.

A commemorative coin marking the 75th Anniversary of the loss of the SS Vyner Brooke