DVA 23 Monday 12 March 2001

This Week in History - Our Wartime Heritage

Issued by the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Bruce Scott, to foster awareness of Australia’s wartime history and heritage during the Centenary of Federation.

March 15-21

15 March 1940: Two women from the Voluntary Aid Detachments organisation became the first women to enlist in the AIF for overseas service.  More than 200 Voluntary Aids served in the Middle East and Ceylon during WWII.  After August 1942, most members of the VAD transferred to the new Australian Army Women’s Medical Service.

16 March 1943: Flight Lieutenant William Newton, 22 Squadron, RAAF, born in St Kilda, Victoria, was awarded the only RAAF Victoria Cross in the Pacific during WWII.  Flight Lieutenant Newton took part in repeated raids on the headland of Salamaua, New Guinea - at that stage, a vital enemy coastal base.  On this day he led an attack through intense fire.  Although repeatedly hit, he held his course and bombed important targets from a low level, destroying two 40 000-gallon fuel installations.  Flight Lieutenant Newton’s Boston was crippled: torn fuselage, wing sections and tyres, pierced petrol tanks and seriously damaged engine.  Despite this, he successfully landed back at base. Flight Lieutenant Newton was captured during another mission and was executed on 29 March 1943.

17 March 1917: The AIF, 2nd Division, occupied Bapaume, France, following the withdrawal of the Germans to their new defensive position on the Hindenburg Line.  The retreating Germans left several mines, one of which exploded on 25 March 1917 in the town hall, killing 30 sleeping Diggers.  Bapaume had been the object of unsuccessful British advances during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

20 March 1916: Troop ships carrying the 2nd Division, Anzac Corps, landed in Marseilles, France, from Gallipoli.  French troop trains carried the Australians to the Western Front - the unbroken line of about 700km which, by 1915, stretched from the Belgium coast, near Nieuport, to the Swiss border, near Belfort. The 2nd Division was stationed at the front, near Fleurbaix, south of ArmentiÃÂ¨res, by mid-April.

20 March 1917: Lieutenant Frank McNamara, 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, born in Rushworth, Victoria, became the only member of the AFC to win a Victoria Cross, the only Australian aviator’s VC of WWI.  During an attack on Tel el Hasi, Palestine, Lieutenant McNamara, who had been wounded in the thigh, spotted enemy cavalry galloping towards a downed Australian aircraft behind enemy lines.  He landed and picked up the injured Australian pilot.  Lieutenant McNamara’s injuries, however, prevented him from controlling his aircraft, which crashed.  The two pilots then ran to the downed aircraft and Lieutenant McNamara, weak from blood loss, took off just as the enemy burst into the clearing and managed to fly 115km back to his aerodrome.

Media Contact:   Mark Croxford  02 6277 7820  or 0408 645 787



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