The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, the Hon Alan Griffin, is in Europe to attend Remembrance Day services in Ypres and at the Menin Gate and the re-dedication of the Australian Corps memorial at Le Hamel, France. During his trip Mr Griffin will join the Governor-General Ms Quentin Bryce AC in laying a wreath at the site of the battle for Fromelles before inspecting the site of the planned new Commonwealth War Graves (CWG) cemetery near Pheasant Wood and visiting the Cobbers Memorial and VC Corner.
Mr Griffin is also scheduled to have bilateral talks with the new UK Minister for Veterans, Kevan Jones, and his French counterpart Jean Marie Bockel. The Ministers will discuss the plans for the CWG cemetery and opportunities to raise awareness of the service and sacrifice of Australians on the Western Front during the First World War.
Ninety years after the end of the First World War, the Australian Government will hold a Remembrance Day service at the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, where the names of nearly 11,000 of our dead from the battlefields of France with no known grave are inscribed. Australians travelling in France are invited to attend.
The recently repaired Australian Corps Memorial, which honours Australian efforts in the First World War, including the crucial Battle of Le Hamel, will be re-dedicated on 8 November. Also travelling to France to attend Remembrance Day services and the re-dedication of the Le Hamel memorial will be a delegation of leaders from the veteran community. Each leader comes from an organisation with links to the First World War.
“Out of the horror of the First World War, great Australian institutions such as the RSL, Legacy and the Repatriation Commission were born, to help returning soldiers and the widows and children of those who did not return. With no Western Front veterans still with us, the national leaders of organisations with a noble history of supporting veterans and their families will represent the veteran community at the rededication of this key First World War memorial,” Mr Griffin said.
The delegation will comprise Mrs Audrey Blood OAM, National President, War Widows’ Guild of Australia; Major General Bill Crews AO (Retd), National President, Returned & Services League of Australia; Mr David Grierson, Chairman, Legacy National Coordinating Council; Mr Les Dwyer, National President, Naval Association of Australia; and Air Vice Marshal Roxley McLennan AO (Retd), National President, Royal Australian Air Force Association