Push to honour city’s forgotten war heroes

THEY are Toowoomba’s forgotten war heroes. Men who survived the horrors of World War I are buried without so much as a plaque to remember them.

Toowoomba United RSL Sub Branch resource officer Lindsay Morrison at what is believed to be the gravesite of World War I soldier Justus Heinrich Haim.

THEY are Toowoomba's forgotten war heroes.

Men who survived the horrors of World War I, who returned home to the Garden City, and who are buried without so much as a plaque to remember them.

Now, almost a century later, the Toowoomba United RSL Sub Branch, with the help of the Toowoomba and Darling Downs Family History Society, have pinpointed the resting places of 63 servicemen whose burial sites sit empty and bare amid the vast expanse of headstones that is the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery.

The sad fact is not all families in the early 1900s had the means to give their loved ones the burial they deserved.

But the Sub Branch is hoping to change that, and is in the process of applying for funding under the Department of Veterans Affairs' Unmarked First World War Graves Program.

If successful, the grants will allow for the graves of 13 ex-servicemen to be marked with headstones.

Toowoomba United RSL Sub Branch resource officer Lindsay Morrison at what is believed to be the gravesite of World War I soldier Justus Heinrich Haim.

Sub Branch resource officer Lindsay Morrison said it was disappointing the men weren't properly recognised, but that he understood why it had happened.

He said the socio-economic conditions of the 1920s, 30s and 40s made it difficult for some families to afford proper grave sites.

"They just came back and got on with life and they passed away and were forgotten," he said.

Mr Morrison said the Sub Branch was hoping to contact descendants of the men and talk to them about their plans for their ancestors grave sites.

He also put the call out for the local business community to help sponsor the remaining 50 graves not covered by the DVA funding program to have them recognised as well.

The Sub Branch is planning to apply for funding to install headstones for the following WWI veterans: Erskin James Caldwell, William Spencer Dines, Justus Heinrich Haim, Edward Goodwin, Francis Sheddon Keogh, Reginald Patrick McCarthy, Francis John Clare, John Francis Long, William Edward Neill, Frederick William Zirbel, John Melvin, Andrew Buchanan Lee, and Martin Biltoft.

Anyone who believes they are a descendant of those veterans, or who wishes to sponsor a headstone for the remaining 50 should contact the Toowoomba United RSL Sub Branch secretary Wendy Holt on 0448 379 604.