Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

My mother's older brother...

He was born on Gundaria, a station my grandparents owned just outside Camooweal in North Western Queensland, Australia in 1907... Dick was the second child for Richard Edwards Kerswell and Florence Mary Jones and his birth would be followed by four more brothers and one sister, all born at home on the station... His sister and one brother died before the family left Gundaria in 1915 and moved to a farm at the small town of Inkerman, a few miles from Home Hill...

The family soon increased by the births of five sisters and two more brothers...

When his father died in 1937, he became head of the household, his older brother having married two years beforehand...

The Inkerman property had failed quite badly over the years, despite the hard work put into it, so the decision was made to move into Home Hill... Uncle Dick lived at home, supporting the remaining family and never married...

He enlisted in December 1941, eventually embarked for New Guinea from Cairns on H.T. Allen in August 1943, died of wounds on 26th November, 1943... He was initially buried at Sattelberg, re-buried at Finschhaffen and finally at Lae in 1946...

Having been born in Home Hill, one month and one day before his death, I didn't have the opportunity to ever know him...