Being Anzac Day yesterday I thought it appropriate to remember our fallen Men and Women for this Sunday ,
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During the Second World War,
Adelaide River was the headquarters of a large base and the
Adelaide River War Cemetery was created especially for the burial of servicemen and women who died in this part of Australia. It was used by Australian General Hospitals 101, 107, 119, 121 and 129.
After the war, the Army
Graves Service moved
graves from civil cemeteries, isolated sites and temporary military burial grounds, into the
Adelaide River War
Cemetery. These included Bagot Hospital
Cemetery, Berrimah Hospital and War
Cemetery,
Daly Waters Civil
Cemetery,
Darwin Public
Cemetery, Gove War
Cemetery, Hughes
Cemetery in
Darwin,
Katherine Civil and War Cemeteries,
Larrimah War
Cemetery,
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Milingimbi War
Cemetery, Mt Isa War
Cemetery in Queensland, where No 74
Camp Hospital once operated, South Goulburn Island Mission
Cemetery and Truscott War
Cemetery.
Adelaide River War Cemetery was taken over by the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission in September 1947 and under a formal agreement with the Australian Government, is maintained by staff of the Office of Australian War
Graves. The War
Cemetery adjoins the
Adelaide River Civil
Cemetery, in which are buried 63 civilians, including nine
Post Office workers who were killed on 19 February 1942, as a result of a direct hit on the
Post Office by Japanese bombs. Thirty-one Aboriginal people are among the dead who lie in that part of the
cemetery. The War
Cemetery is situated in savannah
country about 1km from the Stuart Highway, along a short bitumen road, which runs parallel to, and 100 metres from, the
Adelaide River.
There are 434 burials, comprising 14 airmen of the Royal Air Force, 12 unidentified men of the British Merchant Navy, one soldier of the Canadian Army, 18 sailors, 181 soldiers and 201 airmen belonging to the Australian forces, and seven men of the Australian Merchant Navy.
The
Adelaide River War Cemetery was entered in the Register of the National Estate in 1984.
The Northern Territory Memorial to the Missing is one of several erected around the world for those who have no known
grave. This Memorial was erected especially to commemorate those of the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Air Force and the Australian Merchant Navy who lost their lives in the South West Pacific region during the Second World War.
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The total number honoured on the Memorial is 292, of whom 102 belong to the Australian Army,
164 to the Royal Australian Air Force and 26 to the Australian Merchant Navy. Included in the figure for the Army is a sister of the Australian Army Nursing Service.
The Memorial is placed centrally in the
cemetery, between
the entrance building and the Cross ofSacrifice, which is towards the rear boundary fence.
Because Anzac began in WWI I thought something about John Simpson , the Soldier and the Donkey would be worth a mention,
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