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Speaker 1: Five A Knights with Matthew Pantalis. There's a wonderful thing

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Speaker 1: that happens here with the school students, particularly those from

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Speaker 1: Saint Mary's College, who are working with the Headstone Project.

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Speaker 1: Ssay to remember the fallen Well I suppose not really.

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Speaker 1: They return to their homes in South Australia, these is

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Speaker 1: World War one and two soldiers, but their graves have

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Speaker 1: been lost over time, perhaps didn't have a headstone, didn't

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Speaker 1: have a marker, and these Year nine students, as part

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Speaker 1: of their history lessons through the year in World War One,

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Speaker 1: as was commemorated today at least, were working hard to

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Speaker 1: identify lost graves of South Australian soldiers who served in

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Speaker 1: World War One. Leading the Headstone Project say for the

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Speaker 1: last few years. John Brenly, who joins me now, John,

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Speaker 1: good evening, Thanks for your time.

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Speaker 2: Good evening, Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: John tell us firstly the Headstone Project. They say, we

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Speaker 1: know what it sounds like, it's about headstones, but give

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Speaker 1: us a little bit of a background in what you

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Speaker 1: do and how the Headstone Project began.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're a group of volunteers to seek out the

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Speaker 2: final resting place of veterans from World War One who

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Speaker 2: currently lie in unmarked graves. When we identify those veterans

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Speaker 2: and verify their service history, including the fact that they

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Speaker 2: must have served overseas or usually served overseas, we then

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Speaker 2: seek out family members descendants of the veteran, and when

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Speaker 2: all of that is done and we've complied with all

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Speaker 2: the requirements of the cemetery authorities, we erect a headstone

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Speaker 2: with a memorial pluck to one of that veteran service

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Speaker 2: the country.

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Speaker 1: Is it difficult to find descendants? Sometimes it must be.

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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. I have a team of investigators that are extraordinary.

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Speaker 2: I can't speak highly enough of them, and they will

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Speaker 2: go to the nth degree to track down living de

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Speaker 2: senants of the veteran. Not just because theyre living descendants,

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Speaker 2: it's important that we get their consent to erect a

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Speaker 2: monument on the grave.

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Speaker 1: I suppose for many too. If you find a fallen

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Speaker 1: again a return soldier who's buried in West Terrace or

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Speaker 1: wherever they might be, to then try and work out

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Speaker 1: who that person was, where their relatives are. The relatives

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Speaker 1: the descendants may have no idea where their ancestor.

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Speaker 2: Is very free. Equently, we quite often contact families and

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Speaker 2: so you may be related to a veteran that we've

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Speaker 2: discovered in such and such a cemetery, and they do

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Speaker 2: a bit of tracking of their own and they are

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Speaker 2: astonished by we've what we've revealed to them.

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Speaker 1: All right today, Saint Mary's students who are involved in this,

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Speaker 1: what's the connection there?

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Speaker 2: The investigations manager had two daughters at Saint Mary's and

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Speaker 2: that's how the connection started. We've worked with Saint Mary's

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Speaker 2: now for three years and the students have been wonderful.

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Speaker 2: As you're probably aware, Year nine history students in term

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Speaker 2: three are required to study the history of World War One,

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Speaker 2: which is one thing, but it's quite remote from what

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Speaker 2: from what they experienced. This brings them into the reality

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Speaker 2: of the veterans who served our country.

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Speaker 1: So they tracked the soldiers down. Is that what they do?

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Speaker 2: Quite literally, this whole project started off. My senior investigator

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Speaker 2: had two daughters at the school and that's how the

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Speaker 2: connection was established. And after talking with the with the

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Speaker 2: teacher in charge of the history unit, we presented the

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Speaker 2: school with a list of twenty names that we knew

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Speaker 2: were buried in West Terrace Cemetery. I think there was

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Speaker 2: about forty odd girls. So they were put into pairs

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Speaker 2: and the instruction was, we know these men and women

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Speaker 2: are buried in West Terrace. You've got to first of

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Speaker 2: all figure out how to find them, find them, then

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Speaker 2: research their military history and to an extent they're familiar history.

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Speaker 2: Although we don't ask them to contact to send it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, now interesting and they would get a lot

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Speaker 1: out of that. I mean, it's almost a personal connection

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Speaker 1: to the people they're looking for.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely. I hope is that, of course, when there's young

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Speaker 2: ladies graduate, that they can carry on their love of history,

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Speaker 2: because people like myself won't be around forever and we

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Speaker 2: need a younger group of a group of people to

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Speaker 2: pick up the button as it was, because as it were,

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Speaker 2: because there are significant numbers of these people across out Australia.

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Speaker 2: Our estimate is that there may be upwards of two

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Speaker 2: and a half thousand of these veterans in unmarked graves.

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Speaker 2: We've got nine hundred cemeteries in South Australia and if

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Speaker 2: we had to find three per cemetery, there's the mass.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I wonder why so many. I mean you

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Speaker 1: can think perhaps poverty or you know, whatever circumstances led

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Speaker 1: to them ending up in an unmarked right well.

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Speaker 2: A lot of these men and women, I should say,

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Speaker 2: died in the nineteen twenties and thirties. During the depression.

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Speaker 2: An aggrieving family had to consider whether they'd put food

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Speaker 2: on the table or put a mark on all off

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Speaker 2: one's drave and a family's welfare is always going to

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Speaker 2: win that argument. Frequently they came back badly damaged by

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Speaker 2: the experiences that they had been through at Gallipolo or

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Speaker 2: the Western Front or wherever else they served. They took

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Speaker 2: to the drink and wandered off. We had had a

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Speaker 2: veteran from narraw Court who wandered off from his family

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Speaker 2: and finished up at Timber on the Open Insudent, a

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Speaker 2: long way away, and he died in a buggy accident.

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Speaker 2: He knew, nobody in the family knew where he was.

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Speaker 2: They only found out about five years ago, and so

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Speaker 2: he was buried by the goodwill of the local community

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Speaker 2: and a poor pos grave. Others simply outlived aging parents,

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Speaker 2: and when the parents died, there's no enough to bury them.

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Speaker 2: Others didn't know that they might have had some sort

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Speaker 2: of access to commonwealth benefits that could have got them

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Speaker 2: a war grave and we're very proud of the fact

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Speaker 2: that we've revealed a number of these people who have

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Speaker 2: been taken up by the Department of Veterans Affairs through

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Speaker 2: the Office of Australian War Groves, and they have been

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Speaker 2: given a full military grave, Captain Pepper the perpetuity by

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Speaker 2: the Australian Government. So we're proud of what we've done there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's wonderful. And it's not just soldiers. You're runnering

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Speaker 1: nurses in the same way you were searching their histories.

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Speaker 2: Indeed, we are. Nurses are a particular challenge for us

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Speaker 2: because firstly, there was only three thousand nurses from across

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Speaker 2: the country went to World War One, and the second

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Speaker 2: problem is that as a condition of their enlistment they

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Speaker 2: had to be unmarried, and of course they came back

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Speaker 2: from their service overseas, they got married and all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden we've lost the name that they enlisted under, right,

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Speaker 2: and so tracking them down as a real challenging. Wow.

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Speaker 2: We've been supported by the South Australian government with a

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Speaker 2: special grant to honor ten nurses that we're found across

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Speaker 2: South Australia. Two of those we honored honored today well.

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Speaker 1: That's wonderful and more to come obviously, yes, indeed, and

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Speaker 1: right across the state. I mean that's interesting. I mean

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Speaker 1: people served from every country town, and the war memorials

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Speaker 1: in every town attest to that, particularly from World War One.

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Speaker 1: So I suppose you do this research. You don't know

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Speaker 1: where it's going to.

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Speaker 2: Take you, no, absolutely, and it takes us across the state.

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Speaker 2: We've been out as far as Kimber where we did

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Speaker 2: three out there, across to Renmark and the river Land

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Speaker 2: where we're did twenty three. We've done twenty at Portagusta,

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Speaker 2: and we know if more. We've done twenty two at

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Speaker 2: Port Perrio, and we know if more. We know, well,

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Speaker 2: we've commemorated eight at Mount Gambia, but we believe there's

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Speaker 2: another thirty at least that we haven't honored the yet.

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Speaker 2: So it takes us across the length and breadth of

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Speaker 2: the state.

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Speaker 1: Goodness, and what wonderful work it is and rewarding and

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Speaker 1: terrific for these people to be honored and remembered. Moving forward, Tommy,

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Speaker 1: with the gravestone that you put in place, and I

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Speaker 1: imagine it has what the army insignia you're on it

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Speaker 1: or the services at least depending what they want, you know,

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Speaker 1: service they were in.

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Speaker 2: That it does, it has it has the writing son insignia.

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Speaker 2: It has the veteran's service number and rank, then his name,

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Speaker 2: his date of birth, date of death. But we go

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Speaker 2: further than the Office of Australian War Growth in that

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Speaker 2: we add son of sibling, old brother of and go

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Speaker 2: down through the family line because we feel that's important

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Speaker 2: as well. And then we asked the family to nominate

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Speaker 2: an epitah to go at the foot of the foot

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Speaker 2: of the plak Oh, that's lovely.

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Speaker 1: Do you do the barcode as well, so any passer

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Speaker 1: by can stop and have a look at the person

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Speaker 1: and see where they served and what their role was

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Speaker 1: and what they did in the war.

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Speaker 2: I guess that's the next step. No, we don't at

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Speaker 2: the moment, but it's something that we need to investigate

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Speaker 2: and look into further.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. I remember last time we spoke John, which

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Speaker 1: is probably a good eighteen months or so ago. The

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Speaker 1: Headstone project they say, was struggling for funding then and

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Speaker 1: there was a real risk that the work might grind

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Speaker 1: to a halt. But obviously that hasn't happened. You've got

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Speaker 1: money from somewhere. You mentioned the state government. Did they

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Speaker 1: come to the party.

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Speaker 2: Yes, they have, and we're immenseally grateful to the Government

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Speaker 2: of South Australia and in particular Minister Joe Shockashes, Minister

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Speaker 2: for Veterans Affairs, who has ensured that we've got funding.

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Speaker 2: The current tranch of funding runners through. I think we're

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Speaker 2: just about to embark on the second of three years.

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Speaker 2: But we've also secured some different grants. For instance, we

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Speaker 2: two of the two nurses we honor today amongst ten

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Speaker 2: that were wanted a special grant for to to honor.

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Speaker 2: And we also secure a grant from the government to

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Speaker 2: purchase a trailer to move our gear from across the state.

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Speaker 2: In the past we've been hiring a commercial rates, hiring

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Speaker 2: a van to move our stuff and over the time

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Speaker 2: we've spent something close to our eight thousand dollars just

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Speaker 2: on van hire. That now is covered by the fact

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Speaker 2: that we are on our own trailer and we can

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Speaker 2: go wherever we like, whenever we're like, without the cost

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Speaker 2: associated with it.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's good, that's excellent. Well, that's a really wonderful thing.

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Speaker 1: Our World War two soldiers in the same boat have

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Speaker 1: we lost many of Where are there where they're buried?

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Speaker 2: Well, World War two soldiers are outside the headstone. Pro

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Speaker 2: there's enough work for us with World War One veterans,

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Speaker 2: and there were significantly greater numbers that enlisted in World

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Speaker 2: War One, and you know, we were absolutely up to

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Speaker 2: our eyeballs just in managing that. I'd like to think

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Speaker 2: that World War Two veterans are similarly honored that I'll

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Speaker 2: leave that to a generation that comes after me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you'd like more volunteers, obviously from what you said, John, Well,

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Speaker 1: we're not.

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Speaker 2: Doing badly for volunteers. But anybody that's got an interest

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Speaker 2: in military history and volunteering is welcome to come along

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Speaker 2: to our meetings. We met at the only RSL on

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Speaker 2: the last Sunday every month, or they were in the

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Speaker 2: research just at the moment. Our next meeting is not

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Speaker 2: until the first of February. But anybody that's interested in

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Speaker 2: our work and we'd like to become part of the team,

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Speaker 2: and they're more than welcome.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic, John, Thank you so much for your time. It's

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Speaker 1: wonderful work and remembering these people buried in unmarked graves

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Speaker 1: for a range of reasons is a very good thing

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Speaker 1: to be doing. They served their country and wore the uniform, obviously,

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Speaker 1: and it's tremendous and important that they're recognized for what

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Speaker 1: they did and what they endured and came back to

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Speaker 1: live their lives in South Australia and obviously, as you said,

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Speaker 1: some suffered terribly with the post traumatic stress disorder. At

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Speaker 1: least we recognize that now, but it's hard to understand

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Speaker 1: back in the day.

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Speaker 2: But our creeds they served, they deserve to be remembered.

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Speaker 2: That's as simply as I can put it. These menders

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Speaker 2: are better than what they've got.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally, and it's a really good thing. These

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Speaker 1: young students are appreciating that so early in their lives too.

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Speaker 1: So well done to all. John, thank you for your

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Speaker 1: time tonight.

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Speaker 2: Oh thank you for having me on.

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Speaker 1: I'm grateful for the opportunity, pleasure, good to speak with

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Speaker 1: you again. John Brownlee, who's president of the Headstone Project SA,

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Speaker 1: and the tremendous work they're doing in remembering forgotten heroes,