Memorial Articles

Dr Edward Fleming was a 19-year-old training to be a Lancaster bomber pilot when he and his crew became horribly lost in bad weather over Britain during the Second World War. The flight almost ended in tragedy.

Major General Marcus Thompson always knew his great-great uncle fought and died during the First World War, but the details of his ancestry were far less clear.

Daniel Hodgekiss, a Ngarrindjeri man, enlisted in the AIF at Mildura in February 1916. For 88 years his grave remained unmarked until a local historian enlisted the help of the Mildura RSL and the Office of Australian War Graves.

Sergeant David Emmett Coyne was awarded the Albert Medal in Gold, the only member of the AIF in the First World War to receive such an honour.

The tale of the Emden Bell is one of the more unusual stories from the Memorial’s collection.

Imagine having to lie about who you are to serve your country. That’s exactly what one soldier had to do to enlist during the Second World War. One of thousands of Indigenous Australians who served during the war, his name is now recorded on the Australian War Memorial’s new Second World War Indigenous Service List.

Remembrance Day at the Australian War Memorial in 1993 was a particularly significant occasion; that year an unknown Australian soldier was entombed in the Memorial grounds.

Local war memorials often give a glimpse of the past through the names inscribed on their surface.

It was a day that would change Clarence Atkinson’s life forever – the 27th of June 1941.