A tender goodbye as the years close in on our warriors

This is the year the long, tender goodbye to the great generation of Australians who served in World War II gained traction.

Thousands gather around the Eternal Flame at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance for the Anzac Day dawn service. Picture: Aaron Francis

The Logans are making the most of Anzac Day at a big, happy family get together involving everyone down to the great grandkids, gales of laughter and a proud sense of occasion after Nan and Pop took their place together in the march in Brisbane.

The crowd cheered and applauded, aware that 94-year-old army veterans Fred Logan and his wife, Marjorie, 92, really are something special.

This is the year the long, tender goodbye to the great generation of Australians who fought and served in World War II gained traction, their presence falling to a conspicuous, hardy few at Anzac Day commemorations.

The Logans rode side by side in a jeep enjoying every minute of the experience, deeply conscious that this might be their last hurrah.

WWII couple Marjorie, 92, and Fred Logan, 94, with granddaughter Eliza Freshwater, 23. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Then it was back to their apartment at South Bank for a slap-up lunch of roast chicken, pasta and salad that the couple insisted on cooking for 17 of their sexagenarian children, 20- and 30-something grandkids and great grandchildren Willow, 8, and Ash, 6.

“It’s a very special day for us ­because we don’t know how many more there will be,” said Mrs Logan, who drove an ambulance for the Australian Women’s Army Service in WWII.

“The reception was wonderful.”

Mr Logan, an artilleryman who saw action in PNG and Bougainville, said it brought home how few of his mates were left.

“I found it a bit emotional,” he said quietly.

From Melbourne to Darwin, Perth to the north Queensland garrison city of Townsville, where Scott Morrison said Australians weren’t just honouring heroes of the past, “they live with us today”, Anzac Day services and marches drew crowds in the tens of thousands, lined four and five deep in the street.

 

Holding to a ceasefire in election campaigning, Bill Shorten said the Anzac legacy was “the free country we call home”.

But the absence of old and often familiar faces was jarring. Fred From, 101, had not missed an Anzac Day in seven decades with his wartime friend from the 7th Division Cavalry Regiment, Grahame Tweedale. They would meet every year in Brisbane for the march.

But Mr From cut a lonely figure in his wheelchair yesterday, pushed by son Eric. Grahame died last November, aged 97, and Mr From’s eyes filled with tears as he described how he missed him. “I’m the last one left now,” he said.

Siblings and cousins Grace, 10, Bella, 14, William, 6, Riley, 9, and Kaitlyn, 8, in Melbourne. Picture: Jason Edwards

The WWII veterans are fading away at an alarming rate, new government figures show. More than 4900 of them died between Anzac Day last year and yesterday, leaving alive only 15,400 of the 900,000 men and women who wore an Australian uniform in WWII.

A year ago, the number was 20,300, average age 94, down from 31,900 in 2016, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. With the attrition rate accelerating, the last living links to Australia’s WWII generation will soon be gone.

The president of the Victorian Rats of Tobruk Association, Bob Semple, 98, was thrilled to toss the coin at yesterday’s AFL blockbuster between Essendon and Collingwood at a packed MCG.

He was one of only 30 men in his artillery unit, the 2/12th Field Regiment, to emerge unscathed from the 242-day siege of Tobruk in North Africa in 1941 and subsequent fighting against the Japanese in Papua New Guinea and Borneo.

Today, he is one of only 53 surviving Rats of Tobruk — out of 14,000 Australians involved in that epic battle.

“As far as I am concerned, Anzac Day should be recognised as Australia Day,” Mr Semple said, preparing for his big moment at the MCG. “It’s a sacred day to me. I often ask myself the question: why was I spared over five years of war? I can’t answer that, of course, but I do know I feel blessed to wake up and see the sunlight each day.”

Marcus Salone plays The Last Post on the Harbour Bridge. Picture: Toby Zerna

Keith Hearne, 93, who was 19 when wounded in one of the last major Australian actions of the war at Balikpapan in Borneo in July 1945, said only two men ­remained of the 4000 who served in his battalion, the 2/31st. Touched by the warmth of the crowd in Melbourne, he said: “It’s good to see the people line up and when you’re travelling in the cars it’s nice to hear what they call out.”

In Darwin, former NT administrator Austin Asche, who joined the RAAF at 18 and served as a radar officer from 1944-46, marched after attending the dawn service. “I participate because every Australian should participate,” he said. “It’s part of the make-up of our nation.”

Mr Logan and Marjorie both joined up as soon as they turned 18 during the war — he with the gunners of the 2/2nd Field Regiment, she in AWAS, which was formed to free up soldiers in non-combat roles for frontline service.

They met in 1949 and married a year later. Their daughter, Robyn, 68, who accompanied them in the jeep yesterday, travelled to Brisbane from her home on the NSW central coast, giving the couple added incentive to turn out.

“I though this year might have been Mum and Dad’s last in the march, so I wanted to be here,” Robyn said.

“We are all so proud of what they did. When I was younger, I did not really know how to feel about WWII — I was part of the Vietnam War era and I went in the protests. But I have come to realise what a sacrifice they all made, and it’s right they’re honoured.”

The couple’s granddaughter Eliza Freshwater, 23, said she was deeply moved by Anzac Day. “I get a bit teary. It’s the one day of the year we give thanks as a nation to these people who did amazing things before I was born.”

Additional reporting: Remy Varga, Amos Aikman