Remembrance Day Address
West Wallsend, Friday 11 November 2005
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, and a very special greeting to our ex-servicemen, servicewomen and war widows of West Wallsend.
It is indeed a pleasure to be with you all today as we gather to commemorate the 87th anniversary of Armistice Day in 1918 which ended the four and a half year long First World War, and to remember all those Australians who have died in wars since.
This year also marks the ninetieth anniversary of the First World War Gallipoli campaign in 1915, and the sixtieth anniversaries of the victory against Germany and her allies in Europe during World War Two in May 1945, and victory against Japan in the South-East Asia and Pacific theatres of war three months later in August 1945.
It is these three significant anniversaries that I shall be featuring in my commemorative address this morning, with particular emphasis on the men and women from the West Wallsend and surrounding district who enlisted in World Wars One and Two and the men who died on the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915 and in the Second World War of 1939-1945.
Over 416,000 Australians volunteered for service in World War I.
10,500 of those came from the Hunter Valley.
This magnificent memorial, unveiled on 28 January 1922 by Major H. J. Connell MP of the 35th Infantry Battalion, commemorates 273 men from West Wallsend and district that enlisted and served overseas during World War One.
Thirty one of these men, including one from Estelville, nine from Killingworth and twenty one from West Wallsend seen active service at Gaba Tepe, or as it is more widely known today, Gallipoli, between the landing on 25 April 1915 and the evacuation on 20 December 1915.
Over 8,000 Australians died on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the eight months long campaign.
Six of those 8,000 were from West Wallsend. They were:
Pte Sidney Torrington Allen, 31 year old single labourer of 9 Carrington Street, West Wallsend, K I A 7 Dec 1915
Pte William Henry Clapham, 20 year old single hairdresser of Withers Street, West Wallsend, K I A at Lone Pine 9 Aug 1915
Pte Allen Cameron McLean, 23 year old single boundary rider of Brown Street, West Wallsend, K I A 25 Apr 1915
Pte Joseph Schmitt, 21 year old single miner of West Wallsend,
K I A 2 May 1915
Pte James Howe Sharp, 26 year old married miner of Brown Street, West Wallsend, D O W 26 Apr 1915
Trooper Frank Tong, 24 year old single labourer of West Wallsend,
K I A 28 June 1915
and from Killingworth:
Private William Innes, 25 year old single bushman, K I A at Lone Pine between 6-9 Aug 1915.
In 1939, twenty one years after the end of The Great War in 1918, war clouds again gathered and almost one million Australians enlisted for service to defend their homeland and to fight overseas in World War 2.
32,000 Hunter Valley men and women enlisted in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Merchant Navy and Volunteer Defence Corps.
200 men and 11 women from West Wallsend and the surrounding townships of Barnsley, Estelville, Holmesville, Killingworth, Ladysmith and Seahampton enlisted.
Of these, 157 from West Wallsend enlisted, of which 10 were women.
7 West Wallsend men became Prisoners of War of the Japanese. Three were to die in captivity.
Six West Wallsend and district men, including the 3 POWs, paid the supreme sacrifice during World War Two.
These men were:
*Private Robert Nott, 2/19 Infantry Battalion. K I A 11 Feb 1942. Age 27.
*Sergeant Albert John Glaister, of Elizabeth Street, Holmesville.
27 Operational Training Unit RAF. K I A in flying air battle over France, 28 April 1942. Age 25.
*Able Seaman Harry Kennedy, RAN. K I A 5 Jan 1945 aboard HMAS Australia when ship was attacked by Japanese Kamikaze aircraft in the Lingayen Gulf, Philippines. Age 23.
*Sapper John McPhee, 2/12 Field Company. Died as POW 29 August 1943 on the Burma to Siam railway. Age 40.
*Private John Stewart Swan, 13th Australian General Hospital. Died as POW 8 December 1943 on the Burma to Siam railway. Age 39.
*Warrant Officer 2nd Class Robert William Sykes, 2/15 Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery. Died as POW. Executed by Japanese at Ranau, 11 July 1945 after Sandakan to Ranau ‘death march’. Age 34.
Three of the six have no known grave.
It is sad that there is no memorial in West Wallsend to commemorate the sacrifices of those from the district who enlisted and served their nation during World War Two and to the six West Wallsend district men who paid the supreme sacrifice.
But it is to remember the men and women from the West Wallsend district in the First World War and the Second World War and in the later conflicts in Korea, Malaya and Vietnam that we gather here today in grateful remembrance.
Today, we honour their service and sacrifice with eternal gratitude and with eternal thanks.
THE ODE TO THE FALLEN
They went with songs to the battle,
They were young, straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow;
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn:
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.
“Lest We Forget”
One minutes silence.
Bugler: Last Post.
Bugler: Reveille.
