Memories

Anzac Day 1965 was a special day - the fiftieth anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. At Wynyard, Tasmania, 65 ex-servicemen marched at dawn to the Wynyard War Memorial where they held a simple service. Afterwards they gathered to remember and reminisce about some of the 136 servicemen of Wynyard and district whose names were recorded on the memorial. Nat Flint, of Yolla RSL, recalled the two Upchurch brothers from Somerset, a local settlement.

Gallipoli veteran Herb Moles contemplating the names
on the Wynyard War Memorial, Wynyard, Tasmania,
at the Dawn Service, 25 April 1965.
(The Advocate, Burnie)

In particular he recalled Andy Upchurch's death:

I was with him when he was shot. It was Easter Sunday, 1917. A few hours later another Wynyard fellow in our bunch, Charles Hitte, was also shot dead.

Veteran Charlie Carty remembered Ivor Margetts, a Tasmanian State footballer, who was killed in France:

He was my captain ... a great soldier and a great man with it. I was only a few feet away from him in the trenches when he was shot at Pozières in 1917. Killed instantly.

Others recalled the grief of the Byard family from Preolenna. Three Byard boys went off to World War II. One died at the Siege of Tobruk in north Africa, another fighting the Japanese at Milne Bay in 1942, while the third survived the war. Many other stories of Wynyard families at war were told at that Dawn Service where a reporter from the local paper happened to be present to write them down.

There have been many similar occasions around the hundreds of memorials throughout Australia over the years where nobody thought to record the stories and memories revealed on Anzac Day and at other commemorative events. While we say Lest We Forget, the lives and experiences of those listed on war memorials, especially those who paid the supreme sacrifice, have not been remembered. Inevitably, the generation of the men and women of the First Australian Imperial Force of the Great War has nearly passed on and their memories have gone with them. However, there are still many in the community who recall clearly some of those whose names are on the local memorial. Many can also remember other aspects of the war and the way it has been remembered and commemorated locally - the joy or heartbreak of homecomings after the war, the hardships of campaigns overseas, the experience of being stationed far from home in Australia itself, the day a loved one's death was reported, and Anzac Days and Remembrance Days when the community gathered to honour those who left for overseas, sometimes forever.

These and other memories of growing up, going to school, attending commemorative ceremonies between the wars when Anzac Day was a relatively new event, being part of a developing Australia, are as much a part of the community's war heritage as any other type of war material or memorabilia. As Australia moves into a new millennium it is important that future generations have available to them, not just the memorials and memorabilia of the past, but also the recorded memories of veterans, whose war reminiscences stretch across the century to their fathers and uncles who were the Anzacs.

The young people ask: 'What are they marching for?'
I ask myself the same question.
And the band plays "Waltzing Matilda"
The old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear,
Someday no one will march there at all.

-Eric Bogle, And the band played Waltzing Matilda

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