Australian overseas war graves to get 21st Century makeover
Australia’s overseas war graves are about to get a 21st Century makeover, with everything from crowd sourcing, to interactive displays in order to ensure the legacy of the Great War is not lost on our children.
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Exclusive: Australia’s overseas war graves are about to get a 21st Century makeover with crowd sourcing, blogs, interactive displays and local tours to ensure the legacy, post the centenary of the Great War, is not lost on children.
And the first shout out for help is to Australia’s Maltese community and families of veterans who served, were wounded and or died there during the two world wars.
News Corp Australia can reveal the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has begun its biggest audience shake-up since it began honouring the war dead 100 years ago to ensure it is no longer just about “keeping beautiful cemeteries and gardens”.
CWGC assistant historian Max Dutton said yesterday the commission wanted to better engage the public and remain relevant to tech-savvy new generations and is developing various strategies.
He said one was specifically directed at the Australian and Maltese communities as “the crucible for testing some of our key thoughts on how to better engage with visitors.”
“The organisation as a whole is changing and we are not just an organisation that maintains the graves now — our cemeteries always look beautiful and particularly in Malta but all too often there is nobody there and those wandering about don’t know what they are seeing and are missing out. We don’t think that’s good enough any more and we are looking at lots of people to go and visit these men and women in these cemeteries and crowd sourcing is a fantastic way to highlight the individuals who are actually buried there.”
A crowd sourcing appeal last week already paid dividends with several Australian families coming forward to share personal stories of their relatives.
“The crowd sourcing project aims to bring together lots of stories tucked away, photographs of loved ones and relatives in attics and drawers and mantle pieces, we want them to digitise those and send them to us so we can share and remember the guys who were commemorated in Malta … we have a dedicated blog page, we’re uploading pictures and a bit of text, it’s a nice thing it really feel like the men are remembered, the faces are all there looking at you.”
Malta was known as the ‘Nurse of the Mediterranean” treating more than 100,000 wounded troops. There are 204 Australians from World War 1 and 230 from World War II who died there. An Anzac Day service has been held at Malta’s Pieta Military Cemetery since 1979.
WHO IS THERE
From cricket and Aussie Rules greats and recognised flying aces to ordinary labourers and farmers and family men, more than 400 Australians died on or off the coast of Malta during both world wars whose stories are now being collected.
Relatives of the Lamond family from NSW shared their story of three of four brothers who went to war but killed during World War 1 including Sidney Lamond, wounded at Gallipoli and evacuated to Malta but dying of wounds and buried there.
Trooper Stanley Thurlow from Scone in NSW was a painter who would go to serve with the Australian Light Horse but one year to the month after enlisting he was wounded on the Gallipoli peninsula, evacuated to Malta but died from his wounds and was buried at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Pieta Military Cemetery.
A Victorian family also shared their story with the CWGC crowd sourcing project with details about up-and-coming Aussie Rules player relative Thomas Beaudoin who served in Suez and Gallipoli but died in Malta in 1915. Ballarat butcher Lance Corporal Percy Fricker was only 19 years old when he was wounded in Gallipoli and a month later while recovering in Malta died of pneumonia.
Arthur Caldwell was born in Young in NSW in 1886 but grew up in Williamstown in Victoria and in 1909 played eight matches for St Kilda in the VFL before he too was injured in Gallipoli. Before he died however he unexpectedly met his brother whom he had not seen for 20 years
Promising cricketer Alan Marshal who played 119 first class cricket matches for Queensland and Surrey in the UK where he scored five centuries and took 56 wickets was described in Wisden’s 1909 cricketer of the year as “magnificent” all rounder, arrived at Gallipoli on April 25 only to get sick and die from fever in Malta by July.
Gerald Allsebrook from Hobart, a prominent member of the Hobart Football Club, also served in Gallipoli but died of his wounds in Malta
A generation later Sydney man Rodney Gibbes from the RAAF was on a mission when he was shot down, rowed a dinghy to England and survived to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross only to again be shot down over the Mediterranean in 1943 and never seen again. His name is recorded on the Malta Memorial as is Sergeant Ronald McGregor-Herman from Kilkenny in South Australia who had been a clerk at the Perry Engineering Co in Adelaide before enlisting in 1940 as an RAAF wireless operator. On March 1942 his Wellington bomber collided with another over Malta and he was killed. Ironically, his brother James, also a wireless operator, also lost his life in a midair collision over Giru Queensland two months later.
Originally published as Australian overseas war graves to get 21st Century makeover
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