Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

13367 Cpl Thomas Andrew HEWISH

This is a disturbing image of a destroyed German trench. In the foreground the limp bodies of dead German soldiers lie amidst the rubble. It is difficult to distinguish the soldiers from the chaos around them, but three bodies are clearly visible. One man, wearing a helmet, has been pushed forward by the blast and, although dead, appears to crouch forward. The entire scene is a maelstrom of mud, splintered wood and dead bodies. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Messines_-_destroyed_German_trench.jpg

Members of the 22nd Battalion, AIF, taking a meal in the trenches on Westhoek Ridge on the night before the opening Australian attack at Menin Road on 20 September 1917. Identified, left to right: Mundie; Gilbert; Peach; Robinson; and two unidentified soldiers.

Gunner Robert Bamblett beside an 18 pounder field gun of the 12th Field Artillery Brigade, probably on the Salisbury Plain in England prior to deploying to France

39-45 Star, France and Germany Star, Defence Medal (UK service), 39-45 British War Medal, 39-45 Australian War Medal

These plaques are placed at the base of elm trees lining Prescott Terrace (N) and Alexandra Ave (W) 87 of them

Graves of the crew of 460 Squadron Lancaster lost here 13th June 1943

Tom Tobin at this investiture for the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. Jane Eblen private collection

Private Roy Absolom

1986 Simpson Trophy - Winning Team 10RSAR Team1. L-R Capt Graham"Growler" Growden, Sgt Wayne Birch and Capt Steve Larkins. Dean Range Port Adelaide

Unexploded WW1 artillery shells exposed by the grading of the road adjacent to Courcelette Cemetery. Vast numbers of these are recovered every year from farmland in Flanders and France.

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

ASMAN KHAN, AN EMACIATED INDIAN, WHO IS RECEIVING TREATMENT AT 105 CASUALTY CLEARING STATION.

3RAR’s Regimental Sergeant Major, Vince Murdoch, tends a wounded and blindfolded North Vietnamese soldier at Balmoral.

9.2 inch Howitzers of the 55th Siege Battery in action near Pozieres, late summer 1916

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article165691420

The front cover of Alex Kerr's wartime experience as a bomber pilot member of the 'Catepillar Club' and PoW

The mangled ruins of part of the light railway after a direct hit on a trainload of ammunition. Amidst the debris are damaged shell cases. The light railway was used to transport casualties and supplies within the Ypres area. From Birr Cross Roads casualties were transferred to motor ambulances to be transported to the advanced dressing stations on the Menin Road. Note in the background a line of motor lorries.

Arthur Harold Boettcher - Lancaster LM-372

CPL W.M. JOLUIS, RADIOLOGIST AT WORK AT 106 CASUALTY CLEARING STATION. HE IS X-RAYING THE WOUNDED KNEE OF V64795 PRIVATE J. P. SPORN, 7TH BATTALION AMF WHO WAS WOUNDED AT WEARNE'S HILL.

The iconic image of the Kokoda campaign. Taken by Damien Parer, it portrays members of the 39th Militia Battalion, AMF, parade after weeks of fighting in dense jungle during the Kokoda campaign. The officer in front is Lieutenant Johnson. The men behind him are left to right, Armie Wallace, Bill Sanders, Harry Hodge, Kevin Surtees, George Cudmore, GeorgePuxley Kevin Whelan, Len Murrell, Dick Secker, Neil Graham, Clive Gale and Jack Boland.

JEH Butler's name on last shell fired from Anzac Cove, 12 December 1915

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.

Survived 3 years in France in WW1. Wounded and recovered to go back for more. Promoted to Lieutenant. Sadly passed away in 1971

Studio portrait of Captain (Capt) Ronald Gilbert Horwood MM (left) and Capt Clarence Everard Pellew (right). Paris, France. October-December 1918

Ian Henry Denver (enlisted as I.H. Deramore-Denver), DFC

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.”

Howard Pope is presented with the French Legion d'Honeur at the Australian National Memorial, Villers Bretoneaux, France as part of ceremonies marking the 80th Anniversary of the cessation of Hostilities in the Great War

Bancourt British War Cemetery entrance portal.

Milne Bay, Papua. 1942-09. Commanding Officers of famous RAAF squadrons. Left to right:- Wing-Commander J.R. Balmer, commanding No 100 Squadron, the first Australian Beaufort torpedo-bomber squadron to go into action; Squadron Leader "Bluey" K.W. Truscott, commanding No 76 Kittyhawk Fighter Squadron; and Squadron Leader Les Jackson commanding No 75 Kittyhawk Fighter Squadron.

1087 Private Thomas Carrican

Japanese PoW awaiting transhipment to Japan

George Mitchell shortly before the award of the Military Cross at Dernancourt

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.

One of the ship’s assault landing craft, viewed from the aft gun platform of the landing ship infantry Westralia, as it swung aboard during the movement of the 2/24 Infantry Battalion troops, Morotai, 18 April 1945.

Etaples CWGC Cemetery - the largest in France. Most burials here had died of their wounds at various points along the casualty evacuation.

PTE S.G. Stafford 2nd Battalion KIA at Lone Pine

A picture of Geroge Harriot that appears to show his rank as Lieutenant and thus taken some time before April 1917 when he was promoted Captain.

An Armstrong WHitworth Whitley of No 77 Squadron at RAF Driffield

Nine Elms British War Cemetery - near Popereinge Belgium

Studio portrait of 411099 Aircraftman, later Flight Sergeant (Flt Sgt) Allan Douglas Moffatt of Armidale, NSW. Enlisting in the RAAF in March 1941, Flt Sgt Moffat trained as an Aerial Gunner as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) in Canada and England, and was posted to 625 Squadron RAF flying Lancaster bombers. On the night of 12/13 August 1944, Flt Sgt Moffatt's Lancaster, serial number ME733, radio call sign CF-Z, was shot down and crashed at Hollenstein, Germany after an operational sortie over Brunswick. He was killed alongside six other crew members, aged 24.

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

Corporal Philip Ness "Doc" Dobson, MID.

QLD. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of QFX22714 Captain Pauline Blanche (Blanche) Hempsted, 2/13th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). She was one of sixty five Australian nurses and over 250 civilian men, women and children evacuated on the Vyner Brooke from Singapore three dyas before the fall of Malaya. The Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk in Banka Strait on 14 February 1942. Of the sixty five nurses, twelve were lost at sea, twenty two survived the sinking and were washed ashore on Radji Beach, Banka Island, where they surrendered to the Japanese along with twenty five British soldiers. On 16 February 1942 the group was massacred, the soldiers were bayoneted and the nurses were ordered to march into the sea where they were shot. Only Sister Vivian Bullwinkel and a British soldier survived the massacre. Both were taken POW, but only Sister Bullwinkel survived the war. Sister Hempsted was one of the remaining thirty two nurses who also survived the sinking and were captured as POWs, eight of which later died in captivity. Sister Hempsted died of illness on 19 March 1945 in Sumatra. (Photograph copied from original photograph attached to attestation form, lent by Central Army Records Office.)

A de Havilland Mosquito FB1 of No. 464 Squadron RAAF