One hundred pigeons took to the skies above Warrnambool at the end of Sunday’s Remembrance Day service to mark 100 years since the end of World War I.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Hundreds gathered at the cenotaph for the service which was lead by the Salvation Army.
Major Peter Wood told the crowd of former Warrnambool Salvation Army officer Alfred Green who became a chaplain to the New Zealand forces in 1914.
He went with the troops to Egypt and his work was mentioned in dispatches many times.
Major Wood said that in those days chaplains would work with the troops along the front lines offering cups of tea, biscuits and cigarettes. “Whatever they could get hold of,” he said.
During the five years he was overseas, the Salvation Army officer would visit the sick in hospital and later helped organise war graves and made sure they were properly assigned. Talk of the Salvation Army’s involvement in the war brought back memories for WWII veteran Victor Henshaw, 94.
“When the Salvation Army were talking it reminded me of when the order came through that all organised resistance had ceased, the Japanese broke out,” Mr Henshaw said.
“They were starving and the Salvation Army bloke used to sleep underneath his counter and he woke up with the noise of someone rifling through his biscuit tin.”
The youngest of three brothers, Mr Henshaw lied about his age in order to sign up. At 17 he went off to war for five years, serving in Borneo.
On Sunday he wore his father’s WWI medals on his chest, on the other side were his own WWII medals.
His father, Melville, enlisted in the First World War along with his two brothers, Ralph and Cliff, who were aged just 19 and 21. Only one came home. Ralph and Cliff were both killed in action, one buried at Gallipoli and the other in France.
Mr Henshaw’s father returned from war and had three sons who all joined up when WWII broke out. Only two came home. Mr Henshaw’s brother Ray was killed.
In Port Fairy, about 100 people turned out for the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate WWI and the planting of two Moreton Bay Fig trees in the gardens.
Port Fairy Rotary’s David Digby said it received a $3000 grant for the project. “The idea is they will eventually meet and have the 200th anniversary of armistice under them,” he said. About 300 people attended the Remembrance Day service.
At the Mortlake Remembrance Day service, a Lone Pine tree was planted alongside a plaque to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI.
