WA towns honour ANZAC diggers

FARMERS, labourers, camel drivers, horsemen and one of the few indigenous members of WA’s 2/28th Battalion in WW2.
Lit by the goldfields sun, their names are honoured on the war memorial at Menzies where the bust of ‘Rat of Tobruk’ James ‘Jim’ Brennan OAM stares proudly across the mining and pastoral town 776km northeast of Perth.
The Shenton Street memorial unveiled in time for the 2016 ANZAC Day dawn service includes honour rolls for WW1 and WW2 soldiers. StreetWise visited the Menzies memorial during a recent tour of the goldfields that included Kalgoorlie’s ‘super pit’, Mt Magnet, Meekatharra, Leonora and Wiluna.

Remembrance

StreetWise Media has since its launch in 2015 offered readers stories and images of Anzac Day and Remembrance Day from around WA. In 2018, StreetWise released ‘Monument Hill 1928-2018’ to mark the 90th anniversary of the Fremantle war memorial (https://streetwisemedia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Fremantle-Monument-90th-Anniversary.pdf).
Produced on behalf of Friends of Monument Hill and proudly supported by the City of Fremantle, which subsidised the printing, the commemorative booklet was reprinted in time for Remembrance Day 2018, with all gold donations raised for Legacy WA, which also celebrated its 90th in 2018.
Limited copies of the free publication are available at SCOOP Property on Norfolk Street and StreetWise Media at www.streetwisemedia.com.au.
WW1 and WW2 memorials in regional WA honour men and women killed and injured in all conflicts since the Boer War (1899-1902). Most are maintained with the care they deserve, others have seen neglect and erosion by the elements. Many also lack details of where and when they were born and what occupation they held before they enlisted.
The names on the Menzies memorial includes Fremantle labourer Arthur Robinson Eastbourne is honoured (opposite).
The young private, whose mother Elizabeth Ann lived on Mandurah Road (South Terrace), enlisted on August 19, 1915, and was killed in France on June 24, 1918, aged 23, having fought in all Australian battles on the Somme in France.
A year earlier, he was shot in the left shoulder, recovered and rejoined the 16th Infantry Battalion. Arthur was wounded again on May 4, 1918, and again recovered. Weeks later, his luck ran out at Corbes in northern France near the Belgium border, “to the great sorrow of his mother and friends”.
His service and unit also are honoured on the Australian War Memorial ‘Roll of Honour’, Fremantle Fallen Sailors & Soldiers Memorial at Monument Hill.
William Edward Boase, a private in 28th Infantry Battalion, 17th Reinforcement, died in Belgium on September 20, 1917 (opposite). The 41-year-old horse driver was a widower when he enlisted on July 20, 1916. On November 9, his unit left Fremantle for the Western Front where he was killed by a mortar shell at Polygon Wood, Ypes.
James Coffey did return to Australia in July 1919, the 34-year-old mine truck driver from Boulder having enlisted on January 5, 1916 (opposite). The 10th Lighthorseman died on September 2, 1959.
Metallurgist Hector John Harrison (below) was 38 years old and married when he enlisted on August 11, 1915. The fate of the Bendigo-born sergeant of 38th Battalion, A Company, is unknown.
Leonora labourer Leslie Kramer, 20, enlisted on July 26, 1915, sailing from Fremantle October 5. The 16th Battalion, 9th Reinforcement corporal’s fate is listed as ‘Effective abroad (still overseas)’.
The Reillys (below) feature prominently in the Menzies honour rolls. Labourer Leslie George Leo, born in Victoria in 1897, enlisted in Perth on October 27, 1915. Few details are available for the driver in 4th Divisional Ammunition Column.
William Joseph Reilly was born in Menzies on Christmas Eve 1903 when about 10,000 people lived and worked in the town now populated by about 100 people. He enlisted in WW2 on July 28, 1941. The RAAF warrant officer was discharged on November 14, 1945.
Leslie Norman Reilly, 34, enlisted at Claremont on October 23, 1940. The Menzies private was discharged on March 7, 1941.
Alexander John Reilly, born in West Leederville in 1921, was a cutter’s assistant when he enlisted in Claremont on July 22, 1940. His home town is listed as Menzies, the 2nd/28th Infantry Battalion sergeant having died in NSW after he was discharged on September 8, 1945.
John Albert Reilly, 20, enlisted at Rottnest on August 26, 1942. Born in Menzies, the private was discharged on December 14, 1944, and Leonard Thomas Reilly, 19, who enlisted at Chidlow on September 15, 1942. was discharged a lance corporal on November 10, 1944.
Kookynie miner John Woosnam was 38 when he enlisted at Kalgoorlie on March 24, 1917, and embarked from Fremantle on June 30, 1917. The Camel Corps, May 1917 Reinforcements private returned to Australia where he died in 1965.
The bust at the Menzies memorial honours James Brennan, born in Laverton in 1917.
The Rat of Tobruk and one of the few indigenous members of the 2/28th Battalion in WW2 was working on a station near Leonora when he enlisted on August 1, 1940. After serving at Tobruk, Jim was one of about 450 members of his battalion to be captured at Ruin Ridge on July 27, 1942, during the Battle of El Alamein before he was taken to a POW camp in Italy where he worked on rice farms in Milan and Turin. Jim escaped in September 1943 with an Aboriginal POW from Queensland, Edward Albert of the 2/15th Battalion. They remained on the loose in northern Italy during the winter of 1943-1944.
According to vwma.org.au/explore/memorials/2779, they spent seven months avoiding capture with the help of Italian civilians who provided escaped Allied POWs with food and shelter: “In April 1944, they were sheltering in a farmhouse near the Swiss frontier, in company with several other escaped prisoners, when they were ambushed by the fascist militia. Three of the escapees who were sheltered with Jim were shot and killed. Jim and Edward were recaptured and sent to a German Stalag camp.”
The former prisoner-of-war returned to Australia in July 1945 and was discharged in November 1945. Jim returned to the WA goldfields where he worked at Sons of Gwalia. Having learnt to speak Italian, he was able to help Italian migrant workers on the Gwalia mine.
Jim’s mother was killed during an Aboriginal ‘war’ at Skull Creek near Laverton. He was smuggled up the creek and given to his aunt. Jim then lived with a local blacksmith named James Brennan, which was how he got his European name.
Jim was brought up by his adopted father until he was five when authorities moved him to the Moore River native settlement, known as Mogumber Mission 130km north of Perth. At the Mission he found a job travelling between stations before returning to work in the eastern goldfields.
In 1984, Jim was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in recognition of his service to Aboriginal welfare. Jim died in 2000, survived in Menzies by son Ronald and daughter Joan Tucker, grandchildren Nadine, Andrew and Gary Tucker and great-grandson Gary Tucker, an army cadet who each year wears Jim’s medals proudly in the Kalgoorlie Anzac Day march.
Jim’s daughter Gloria, a distinguished Aboriginal community leader and public servant, died in 1985. Among her many achievements was helping establish the Aboriginal Medical Service and the Aboriginal Legal Service in WA.
In Fremantle, Anzac commemorations resume at Monument Hill. Due to COVID-19 safety guidelines, people will need to register to attend.

Dawn Service
Time: 5.50-6.30am
Location: Fremantle war memorial (Monument Hill, Knutsford Street)

North Fremantle Community Service
Time: 9-9.30am
Location: Fallen Soldiers war memorial (Corner Queen Victoria Street and Harvest Road, North Fremantle)

Anzac March
Time: 10.15–10.45am
Location: Pioneer Park (Market Street, Fremantle)