Jack to bolster our Anzac spirit

Epic Anzac pilgrimage by young jack

DEEPLY MOVED: St Teresa Catholic College Year 11 student Jack Frey is looking to honour our fallen on the Western Front. Picture: Peter Gardiner

AS A year 11 student from Noosa, an incredibly moved Jack Frey will walk in the once bloodied farm lands of World War 1's Western Front, where many Australian soldiers gave their lives 100 years ago.

Some were basically "boy soldiers” barely older than Jack, a teenage lifesaver and one of only eight Premier's Anzac Prize award recipients who will help commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux.

Around 1200 Aussies, part of the Anzac assault, lost their lives there.

"The Western Front was ferocious after Gallipoli, which was the first initial Anzac place of contact,” Jack said.

He said battle fields like Pozieres and the Somme were "just like cold, hard fighting” where thousands of young Aussies died.

Jack has been given five crosses to have signed to be placed on war graves while over at the battle sites.

"I went of to the Year 6 St Thomas More students and taught them about where I'm going,” Jack said.

"They've signed these crosses.”

Jack is humbled by the courage of young men like Gympie local Henry Buchanan, who's story struck a chord with him.

Henry survived both Gallipoli as a medic, and the horrors of the Western Front and was wounded three times, the last being by bayonet.

Henry returned home from the war to become a key member in forming the Tewantin RSL.

"Henry actually made it but these actually another one, Stanley John Adams that didn't. So we'll go to his burial place and I guess the primary school students will be able to say thanks,” Jack said.

"Stanley's in just at an ordinary cemetery (as distinct from the special war graves) in the middle of the town.”

Jack is the only student from the Sunshine Coast and the first from St Teresa's Catholic College at Noosaville to make the historic World War 1 pilgrimage.

His travels to London and France will include wartime landmarks, grave sites and 15 solemn ceremonies including Anzac Day.

At each ceremony, students must be prepared to undertake tasks such as laying the wreath, reading the ode, giving a commemorative speech or saying a prayer.

"It's not a holiday,” Jack said.

"It's an opportunity to represent the people of Noosa at a number of significant sites, sites where thousands of young Australian men lost their lives."

Jack will be laying the family emblem of his Noosa Life Saving Club patrol captain on the grave of his grandfather over there and will also lay a plaque donated by the Tewantin Noosa RSL Sub-Branch on behalf of the Noosa community.

St Teresa's principal David McInnes said there is "immense pride in the school” over this young man's journey of war-time discovery.