The small NSW country town of Coolah, in conjunction with Anzac Day, will be holding an exhibtion on Coolah and District soldiers of First World War.
The usual Anzac Day services at Coolah for 2009 will be supplemented with a display for several following days in the town Gallery of photographs and details relating to local soldiers who served in the First World War. In addition there will be war photos, paintings, recruiting posters, letters home and memorabilia.
Coolah’s most decorated soldier was Louis Matthias, DCM with bar and MM. Jim Trail and Tom Baillieu were both DFC winners. Three others won military medals. Out of 122 names on the Coolah Memorial, 29 locals were either killed or died of wounds.
Several relatives from Sydney will be attending the service and gallery display. One is related to Lieutenant William Hawke who was killed in action. William was a descendant of N. Hawke, who, with P. Russell, in 1904 and onwards had a commercial store in Coolah.
Two soldiers from Coolah joined the recruiting marches: Clem Kane, the 1915 Cooee March from Gilgandra; and William Hunter, the 1916 Kookaburra March from Tooraweenah.
The exhibition is unique and is believed to be the first time in a country area such a display has been held in conjunction with an Anzac Day service.
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The most decorated soldiers from Coolah who is featuring in the exhibition also featured in issue 23 of the Families and Friends of the First AIF quarterly magazine DIGGER.
Below is an extract from the article written by DIGGER editor Graeme Hosken:
A courageous soldier: Lieutenant Louis John Mathias, DCM & Bar, MM,33rd Battalion
Tambar Springs, a small farming community between Coolah and Gunnedah, contributed its fair share of men to the AIF in the Great War. The most-decorated soldier on the village’s war memorial is a ‘Lieut LJ Mathias, DCM & Bar, MM’. Given that the DCM is the bravery award ranked below the VC, it appears that Mathias was some soldier, as he was awarded the DCM twice, plus a Military Medal……………………..
Photo: Lieutenant LJ Mathias, DCM and Bar, MM, of Coolah, NSW. [AWM P0331/01.]
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The Families and Friends of the First AIF thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers – presently buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood – dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and applauds Minister Snowdon and his British counterpart, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for Veterans, Kevan Jones MP, for their joint decision to DNA test the remains at exhumation and use every reasonable method to attempt identification of each soldier.