The Warrnambool RSL Sub-branch plans to honour our brave in a new state-of-the-art memorial.

Ahead of Saturday’s Remembrance Day, the Warrnambool RSL Sub-branch has launched its plans for a state-of-the-art memorial, which will provide recognition to veterans post-1918.

Its interactive touchscreen will be like nothing else in regional Australia, allowing people to search through the RSL’s records and put faces to the names of thousands of Warrnambool and Moyne servicemen and women.

The interactive monument, expected to cost $330,000, will be built between the current memorial and the RSL building at the end of Liebig Street.

Warrnambool’s existing memorial, opened in the 1920s, bears the names of more than 1000 World War I killed and returning soldiers. Names of district soldiers killed in World War II and Vietnam have been added, but it is difficult to take a chisel to the existing memorial to formally acknowledge veterans in all conflicts after 1918, or make other alterations.

Architect and war memorial specialist Max Chester has drawn up plans for the state-of-the-art memorial. A touchscreen will provide searchable information on those involved in conflicts and peace-keeping efforts from World War II to the present day. It will be housed under a pagoda-style structure and bronze plaques will represent the conflicts Australians have been involved in since 1918.

At dusk a screen of water will come down, a projector will show the Menin Gate at midnight, a silhouette bugler will play The Last Post and The Ode will be read. 

RSL member Vern Robson said the new memorial could be altered and added to.

“We would encourage people who have a relative listed for the new memorial and who have material at home, such as a photograph or details on the family, to obtain the appropriate form and supply those details so they will be included in the memorial’s records,” he said.

The memorial is due to open in October 2018.