The World War II style form letter forwarded by the King to Jack's bereaved parents.

[AWM PR86/56]

In a way this great honour seems futile.
I would rather have my son.

Like thousands of her countrymen and women, the well-known Australian poet Dame Mary Gilmore was affected by Corporal John (Jack) Edmondson’s brave actions and tragic death at Tobruk. Although her verse praises the young soldier’s gallantry, her words highlight the loss suffered by his family, and particularly the anguish of his mother.

Poem

Dame Mary Gilmore's poem, Edmondson VC.

Jack and his mother appear to have had a particularly close relationship and, according to newspaper reports at the time, she educated him at home for the first years of his school life. Before he left for overseas she had promised Jack that she would keep ‘notes’ of her day-to-day home life while he was away and he was to do the same.

A copy of Mrs Edmondson’s diary is in the Australian War Memorial together with a large scrapbook filled with Jack’s childhood photographs and the many newspaper accounts of her son’s death at Tobruk on the night of 13-14 April 1941.

In her diary she not only kept detailed accounts of her day-to-day activities but she also noted details of the radio and newspaper reports of the battles being fought by Jack’s division, the 9th Division, in North Africa.

diary

Read excerpts from Mrs Edmondson's diary

John Edmondson's grave in the Tobruk war cemetery.

[Garrie Hutchinson, 2003]

April 26th 41
Received notice Jack killed in action 14th April 1941.

July 4th 1941
Notice of award posthumously of Victoria Cross.

4th Sept 1941
Notice from DRO. Interred 15th April 1941 Tobruk war Cemetery. Grave No 108.
- since altered to 111 –

September 27th 1941
Investiture Ceremony by Lord Gowrie at Admiralty House

18th Dec 1941
Hurlstone Memorial unveiling photograph etc.

25th October 1941
Royal Horse Show. Granville. Silver memorial cup to be annual.

Nov 16th 1941
War Veterans’ Home Narrabeen unveiling enlarged photograph etc.

Dec 21st 1941
Requiem Eucharist and unveiling memorial tablet. St Johns Church Wagga Archdeacon ..the ceremony and unveiling of tablet by W M Curry VC.

June 27th 1942
Hurlstone Memorial plaque of bronze. Unveiling ceremony etc.

Mr and Mrs J W Edmondson, at Admiralty House in Sydney, hold their son’s Victoria Cross after the official presentation by the Governor-General of Australia Lord Gowrie, 27 September 1941.

[AWM P1170.001]

Jack’s mother didn’t mention all the other requests she received. People everywhere wished to commemorate her son’s actions. She was asked to give her permission for numerous streets around Australia to be named after her son and he was to be commemorated by a new clock tower in Liverpool, New South Wales.

Jack Edmondson’s heroism was widely acclaimed. Newspapers around Australia featured articles and stories of his bravery together with accounts of the battle in which he was injured. Officers and men from his unit, the 2/17th Battalion, wrote to his parents praising John. Many of the letters are in the collection at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. There are also numerous press accounts and photographs of his parents attending his posthumous investiture at Government House, Sydney, and other services to commemorate their son.

Pasted on one page of the scrapbook, among the newspaper reports applauding her son’s heroism, is a small cutting in which his mother is quoted:

Of course I am proud of him. I have always been proud of him. In a way this great honour seems futile. I would rather have my son.

[An uncited report of an interview with Mrs Edmondson: press cutting, Edmondson scrapbook, PR 86/56 AWM]