COAST’S LINKS TO GALLIPOLI
Campaign veteran Charles Ware went on to help prepare plane for first west to east trans-Atlantic crossing in 1919
THE Gold Coast will pause to remember the fallen this week to mark Anzac Day.
This year’s commemoration falls in the 100th year since the Great War came to an end, adding an extra sense of poignancy to the solemn occasion.
Locally, ceremonies will be held across the city, including the famous Elephant Rock dawn service.
These ceremonies are grander in scale than those which were held on the Gold Coast to mark the 50th year after World War I’s end.
The year was 1968 and the city was home to many surviving veterans of the war, including Charles Ware of Main Beach who shared his story with the Bulletin.
The Gallipoli veteran, who was well known locally during the 60s for his fights to raise awareness of beach erosion, revealed his war story, which took him across the world.
Mr Ware served at Anzac Cove with the 9th Battalion and then in France where he became a fighter pilot with the Australian Flying Corp.
Near the end of the war the Lieutenant was appointed to train an AFC bomber squadron at the Brooklands racetrack near London but the conflict ended before he saw action again.
While there he witnessed the build-up to the first westeast crossing of the Atlantic by plane.
He helped re-design and test fly a Vickers Vimy bomber for two men named Alcock and Whitten-Brown who went on to make the flight from Newfoundland in 1919 and won the $20,000 prize.
The same day they landed, Australian Harry Hawker and his navigator, Commander Grieve took off to attempt the same feat but engine failure forced them to ditch into the sea off Ireland.
They were not found for more than a week and were given up for dead but turned up alive and were returned to London.
Their arrival was witnessed by another Gold Coaster – Jules Tardent of Labrador.
“It was tumultuous to put it mildly,” he told the Bulletin 50 years ago.
“Large numbers of the AIF were in England awaiting repatriation and they rolled up in their thousands to cheer.
“They chaired Hawker and Grieve shoulder high to the Anzac Officer’s Club.”
Gold Coast Mayor Sir Bruce Small used the 50th anniversary of the conflict’s end to salute veterans.
‘The personal experiences of the men who took part in that historic landing (at Gallipoli) – like so many of the men themselves – have passed into history.
“To most of us – certainly to the youth of today – much of the significance of Anzac Day, if not lost, is fast being dimmed into the mists of legend,” he said at the time.
“That is why the perpetuation of Anzac Day is something that is so important for the future.”
Anzac Day 1968 proved to be a wet day, much as this year’s is predicted to be.
Veterans from World War I, World War II, Korea, the Malayan conflict and Vietnam ignored the downpour and stood for the solemn tributes at Southport and Surfers Paradise and listened to the service conducted by parish priest Father J.N Shannon.
Now, 50 years on, there are no veterans of the Great War remaining and a dwindling few World War II veterans.
Half a century has passed since that day but the Gold Coast’s respect for their sacrifice remains strong.
Lest We Forget.
... THE PERPETUATION OF ANZAC DAY ... IS SO IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE
SIR BRUCE SMALL IN 1968