OXLADE FAMILY HISTORY
"Dwellers in the Valley of the Oaks"
MILITARY SERVICE – AUSTRALIA
.
Rising Sun used with permission
"
THE BRAVE DO NOT DIE
THEIR DEEDS LIVE FOR EVER"
ROLL OF HONOUR
...They
shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not
weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning
We will remember them...
THE FALLEN
W.W.I.
Sergeant E OxIade 815
Australian Infantry, A.LF
6th Aug 1915
ROLL OF HONOUR
THE FALLEN W.W.11.
Squadron Leader A G Oxlade
Royal Australian Air Force
6th Jun 1944
" IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF GLORIOUS SERVICE "
ROLL OF HONOUR
W.W.1.
Lance Corporal Gerald Oxlade 380
PrivateHerbert Lewis Oxlade 1308
Private Matthias Byers Oxlade 3885
The Poppy
On and around 11 November each year, the League sells millions of red poppies for Australians to pin on their lapels. Proceeds go to League welfare work. Why a red poppy? The red poppy, the Flanders poppy, was first described as the flower of remembrance by Colonel John McCrae, who was Professor of Medicine at McGill University of Canada before World War One. Colonel McCrae had served as a gunner in the Boer War, but went to France in World War One as a medical officer with the first Canadian contingent. At the second battle of Ypres in 1915, when in charge of a small first-aid post, he wrote in pencil on a page torn from his dispatch book:
In
Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on
row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still
bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are
the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset
glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders'
fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing
hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break
faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In
Flanders' fields
The verses were apparently sent anonymously to the English magazine, Punch, which published them under the title . "In Flanders' Fields". Colonel McCrae was wounded in May 1918 and died after three days in a military hospital on the French coast. On the eve of his death he allegedly said to his doctor, "Tell them this. If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep". An American Miss Moira Michael, read "In Flanders' Fields" and wrote a reply entitled
"We Shall Keep the Faith":
Oh!
You who sleep in Flanders' fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew,
We
caught the torch you threw,
And holding high we kept
The faith
with those who died,
We cherish, too, the Poppy red
That grows
on fields where valour led.
It seems to signal to the skies
That
blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of
the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders' fields.
And
now the torch and poppy red
Wear in honour of our dead
Fear not
that ye have died for naught
We've learned the lesson that ye
taught
In Flanders' fields.
www.defence.gov.au/army/traditions/documents/
ROLL OF HONOUR
W.W.11.
Arnold George Oxlade SX20934
Boyd Davies Oxlade 6635
Boyd Davies Oxlade VX90716
Bryan E Oxlade QX56039
Francis E Oxlade SX38875
George Oxlade Q962
George Oxlade QX30372
Henry Wilfred Oxlade S8123
James Oxlade VX3883
Joyce Clara Oxlade 92794
Lewis Oxlade 146079
Lionel Martindale Oxlade M.M.
Loftus John Oxlade S43513
Noel Munro Oxlade QX5487
Raymond P.T. Oxlade 58592
Raymond P. T. Oxlade V58396
Robert Oxlade 273066
Walter G Oxlade S50718
The Dawn Service
The ANZAC Day Dawn Service has become an integral part of commemorations on 25 April. However, credit for its origin is divided between the Reverend Arthur Ernest White of Albany, WA and Captain George Harrington of Toowoomba, Queensland.
Reverend White was a padre of the earliest ANZACs to leave Australia with the First AIF in November 1914. The convoy assembled at Albany’s King George Sound in WA and at 4 am on the morning of their departure, he conducted a service for all men. After the war, White gathered some 20 men at dawn on 25 April 1923 on Mt Clarence overlooking King George Sound and silently watched a wreath floating out to sea. He then quietly recited the words ‘As the sun rises and goeth down we will remember them’. All were deeply moved and the news of the ceremony soon spread. White is quoted as saying that ‘Albany was the last sight of land these ANZAC troops saw after leaving Australian shores and some of them never returned. We should hold a service (here) at the first light of dawn each ANZAC Day to commemorate them.’
At 4 am on ANZAC morning 1919 in Toowoomba, Captain Harrington and a group of friends visited all known graves and memorials of men killed in action in World War 1 and placed flowers (not poppies) on the headstones. Afterwards they toasted their mates with a rum. In 1920 and 1921 these men followed a similar pattern but adjourned to Picnic Point at the top of the range and toasted their mates until the first rays of dawn appeared. A bugler sounded the ‘Last Post’ and ‘Reveille’.
There is no standard format for the Dawn Service, but Brisbane’s traditional (since 1931) service is: assembly, bugle calls ‘Long G’ followed by ‘Last Post’ at exactly 4.28 am (the time of the original ANZAC landing), two minutes’ reverent silence, a hymn, short address, placing of floral tributes, a second hymn, bugle call ‘Reveille’ and the singing of ‘God Save the Queen’.
In
reverence, the old man stood
In dawn's grey misty gloom
He
murmured an almost silent prayer
Before that empty tomb.
The
memories came flooding back
He saw them all again
His mates,
who wore that old slouch hat
And died on strange terrain.
For
Cenotaph means empty tomb
As from the ancient Greek,
And that
old man with ribbons up
No solitude would seek.
It's Anzac Day,
and as he stood
As if in lonely prayer,
He smiles, for all his
unseen mates
Were with him; standing there.
author
unknown
Source: 7th Division Cavalry Association
World Wars 1 and 2
Of the cemeteries containing WW1 burials, the following contain large numbers of Australian war dead:
Heath Cemetery, Harbonnieres, France - 958
Pozieres British Cemetery, France - 690
Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Belgium - 1,128
Tyne Cot Cemetery, Belgium - 1,353
Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, France - 772
Of theWW2 cemeteries, the following contain large numbers of Australian war dead:
Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery, Papua New Guinea - 3,147
Labuan War Cemetery, North Borneo - 1,167
Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore - 1,115
Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand - 1,362
El Alamein War Cemetery, Egypt - 1,234
There are also numerous Memorials to the Missing, listing the names of those veterans whose remains were not recovered or could not be identified. Notably among these are:
Villers-Bretonneux Memorial to the Missing, France - 10,982
Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, Ieper, Belgium - 6,209
Port Moresby (Bomana) Memorial to the Missing, PNG - 744
Singapore Memorial to the Missing, Kranji War Cemetery - 1,645
Rabaul Memorial to the Missing, Papua New Guinea - 1,225
Labuan Memorial to the Missing, North Borneo - 2,258
Sources: ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee (Queensland) Incorporated site.
http://www.anzacday.org.au/education/tff/dawn.html
www.defence.gov.au/army/traditions/documents/Historyofdawnsvc.htm
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