'their fathers' medals'. On 2 April 1943, Jennifer Purtell (7 years) and Maxwell Reece (12 years) were presented with their father’s Distinguished Service Medals (DSMs) in a ceremony at Rushcutters Bay Naval Depot in Sydney.

Maxwell’s father, Petty Officer William Joseph Hodson Reece, was on board HMAS Perth when his ship was sunk in the Sunda Strait, between Sumatra and Java, during the night of 28 February/1 March 1942. Reece, who had been commended for his bravery in Perth during the Battle of Crete in 1941, was still listed as ‘missing’ in 1943 when Maxwell received the award from Admiral G C Muirhead-Gould. In 1945 Petty Officer Reece’s family discovered that he had been killed in action during the sinking of HMAS Perth.

Chief Petty Officer Writer Edward Geoffrey Purtell, listed as ‘missing, believed killed’ at the time of the presentation, was later confirmed as having been killed in action when his ship, HMAS Parramatta, was sunk on 27 November 1941 off the coast of Tobruk in North Africa.

beyond all praise

Some of the etched glass panels on the Australian Service Nurses National Memorial in Canberra. The Memorial was unveiled in Anzac Parade on 2 October 1999 to mark 100 years of military nursing and to honour those who served and suffered in war.

The etched panels on the two glass walls display a timeline sequence of images and events, a collage of historical photographs and extracts from diaries and letters in the nurses’ original handwriting.

Nearby is a small space surrounded by rosemary bushes for quiet contemplation.

Mrs Lucy Lane at the grave of Sister Marie Craig, Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service, Bomana War Cemetery, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 12 September 2005. Mrs Lane was a member of an official party of veterans of the New Guinea campaigns of 1944-1945 visiting PNG to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific. During those final years of the war, Mrs Lane,(nee MacKenzie) served in the Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service (RAAFNS) in the area north of Australia as a Sister with No 1 Medical Air Evacuation Transport Unit (MAETU). On this occasion at Bomana she was remembering her colleague Sister Craig who died in an air crash in the Carstenz Mountains, New Guinea, on 18 September 1945. The site of the crash, in a very inaccessible location, was discovered in 1970 and in 2005 the remains of many of the crash victims, including those of Sister Craig, were recovered and interred in Bomana War Cemetery.

Mort’s Dock, Balmain, New South Wales. Twelve Bathurst class Royal Australian Navy corvettes were built and commissioned in this construction dock between 1940 -1942. Two of the corvettes, HMA Ships Warnambool and Armidale, were sunk on active service.

This memorial on the site of the former Mort’s Dock and Engineering Company Limited is dedicated to both the crew members of the corvettes in ‘recognition of the ships’ proud contribution to the nations’ war effort’ and to the Australian workmen ‘in appreciation of the shipyard and men who provided the ships.’

Mr Eddie Richards takes a moment to remember Captain Graham Anderson, 2/23rd Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, El Alamein War Cemetery, Egypt, 19 October 2002. Captain Anderson died of wounds received at the German attack towards Tel el Eisa, Egypt, on the afternoon of 12 July 1942. Mr Richards fought with the 2/23rd in July 1942 and in October 2002 he went with an official party of Australian veterans to Egypt to commemorate the Australian participation there sixty years earlier in the Allied struggle against General Erwin Rommel’s ‘Afrika Korps’.

In honour of the men of the Australian Merchant Navy who gave their lives for their country and have no grave but the sea. They will be remembered for evermore.
1914-18 1939-45

Thousands of Australians served in the Merchant Navy, often known as the ‘unseen’ or ‘silent service. They risked their lives in Arctic and Atlantic convoys and suffered heavy losses in the Mediterranean and off Greece and Crete. In late 1941 and early 1942 Merchant Navy ships were attacked and sunk in Malayan, Netherlands East Indies and New Guinea waters. Others were attacked and sometimes sunk in Australian waters.

The Merchant Navy Memorial sits near the Carillion on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra.

The Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway at Concord in Sydney, New South Wales has been designed to provide a lasting memorial to all Allied veterans who served in World War II, particularly in the South West Pacific area. There are 22 stations along the Walkway - each providing an account and images of places of significance during the campaign. The Walkway is a community project involving the Canada Bay Council, Concord Rotary Club, the Returned and Services League of Australia, the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning and Concord Hospital.

The memorial cairn on the edge of the runway at Truscott Airfield, Anjo Peninsula, Western Australia. Preliminary work commenced on Truscott airfield in January 1944 and the base became operational in July that year. Truscott became a staging base for Australian, American, British and Netherlands East Indies aircraft and operations continued until the middle of 1945. Two Liberator bombers crashed at the base, killing 23 Australian servicemen. After Japan surrendered in August 1945, Truscott continued to provide a base for both outward and inward relief of prisoners of war and internees (RAPWI) flights from the Netherlands East Indies.

The flame-bearers at the 2004 Len Hall game. In April 1996, the Fremantle Football Club (now the Fremantle Dockers) introduced the Len Hall Commemorative Football Game, named after local Gallipoli veteran, Len Hall. Now these Anzac Day tribute games have become a tradition and each year the game is preceded by a special presentation commemorating Western Australia’s returned servicemen and women. The 2004 Len Hall Game paid tribute to Royal Australian Air Force veterans and Australian nurses.

‘Australia Remembers’. In August 1997, the Queensland Hibiscus Society released a specially developed hybrid yellow flowering hibiscus to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II.

The Society presented the ‘Australia Remembers’ hibiscus to the Office of Australian War Graves to be planted in Australian war cemeteries.