Our ‘Bonza Bunch’ of WWII veterans is fading away

The news on our Bonza Bunch of WWII veterans is mixed – a snapshot of how this great generation is fading away.

The Bonzas at Vasey RSL Care last April. From left: Ralph Butcher, Betty Cooper, Marie Laurenceson, Annie Overs and Audrey Baker. Picture: Arsineh Houspian

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5:00AMApril 24, 2025

An update on the Bonza Bunch of World War II veterans from Melbourne, who featured prominently in our Anzac Day coverage last year.

The news, sadly, is mixed, a snapshot of how the generation is fading away before our eyes.

The Bonzas we met in 2024 occupied a special place at the Vasey RSL Care home in Brighton, aged 97 to 105. Some of their lives had intersected for decades; others became friends there, in their twilight years.

The late Mr Butcher last April. Picture: Arsineh Houspian.

The eldest of them, Ralph Butcher, was still dining out on how he was commissioned as a captain in the British army after Australian recruiters turned him away. He was looking forward to celebrating his 106th birthday. Instead, he became ill not long after he appeared in The Australian with the Bonzas; he died last May.

Annie Overs, 101, joined the RAAF in 1942 because her brother, Mick, and Uncle Bob were air force men. Her war was mostly spent in the catering mess at the big airbase in East Sale, Victoria: it was hard, thankless work, but she was proud to have done it for her country. She died last November.

But Marie Laurenceson, 99, who became a signals clerk in the RAAF at 18, is going strong. So is Audrey Baker, 98, another WAAF who lamented that the term “bonza” had fallen out of use. “Make sure you use that word,” she said.

Betty Cooper, 101, nursed the sick and wounded soldiers who fought the Japanese to a standstill in New Guinea before she became a casualty and was invalided home with a spinal injury. It plagues her to this day.

A new member of the group, WWII codebreaker Joan Turnour, 98, moved into the home recently to lift the Bonzas’ numbers and spirits.

Australia's last surviving WWII coastwatcher, Jim Burrowes, 101, and his 100-year-old wife, Beryl, who served in the RAAF during the war. Picture: Arsineh Houspian

We also met Jim and Beryl Burrowes, still in love, still caring for one another after 72 years of marriage.

Jim Burrowes and his wife, Beryl, on their wedding day.

Jim, 101, was a coastwatcher during the war, still walking 20 minutes a day in their leafy street in eastern Melbourne. He worried that Beryl, 100, was becoming frail.

But it was Jim who went first; he died in July.