By Kerri-Anne Mesner
FRIDAY will be the day when surviving soldiers remember the mates they fought alongside during World War II.
But the few surviving Diggers are no longer able to participate in the long-standing traditional Anzac Day march.
Sunshine Returned and Services League sub-branch members and World War II veterans were physically unable to participate in the Anzac Day march held on Sunday from the Brimbank City Council chambers in Alexandra Ave to the RSL home in Dickson St.
They will, however, still attend Friday morning’s commemorative service at the RSL and the traditional Gunfire breakfast.
Yarraville 86-year-old WWII veteran Jack Davey said many veterans thought about what happened all those years ago but they preferred not to talk about it.
“If you got back, you were lucky,” he said.
“You try to think of the funny things and nothing else.”
Braybrook 85-year-old veteran Clarence Wise said he usually thinks of one particular mate and an incident involving a bottle of cordial in New Guinea.
He said his mate gave him a bottle of cordial — which was rare for soldiers on the front — to look after but the bottle was lost when they came under enemy fire.
Mr Wise said it was an ongoing joke between them for many years after they returned home about the missing bottle of cordial and the five pounds Clary owed his mate for the cordial.
Mr Wise fought in the war from 1941-45 in the 9th Division Signals participating in two landings in New Guinea.
Mr Davey served in the Navy from 1941-1945 on HMAS Inverell and HMAS Shropshire as a naval seaman.
Another veteran, Sunshine’s Gus MacDonald fought from 1945-49 in the Navy.
Fellow Sunshine resident and WWII veteran Frank Gathercole fought in the Australian Army Service Corp 4th Division from 1942 to 1944.
Mr Gathercole’s father was an original Anzac who did not speak about his time fighting in World War I.
Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the Gallipoli landing – first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.
Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as Anzacs, and the pride they soon took in that name endures to this day.
With the coming of the Second World War, Anzac Day was used to also commemorate the lives of Australians lost in that war. In subsequent years the meaning of the day has been further broadened to include Australians killed in all the military operations.
