{"id":1490,"date":"2008-10-14T21:57:44","date_gmt":"2008-10-14T10:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fffaif.wordpress.com\/?p=1490"},"modified":"2008-10-14T21:57:44","modified_gmt":"2008-10-14T10:57:44","slug":"2008-remembrance-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/?p=1490","title":{"rendered":"*Remembrance Tour."},"content":{"rendered":"

FFFAIF member Mike Goodwin <\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0recently returned from leading the fifth overseas tour with students from the \u2018Lest We Forget’ history project <\/a>of Mackay North State School in Queensland. \u00a0To glimpse some of what happened on the trip Mike has sent the following report:<\/p>\n

Remembrance 2008 Commemorative Tour<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo: The tour group in the playground of Victoria Primary School, Villers-Bretonneux. [Mike Goodwin]\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mackay North State High School’s fifth overseas commemorative tour has just been completed, with 32 senior History students having recently returned from a 3 week pilgrimage to the battlefields, cemeteries and memorials of Singapore, Gallipoli, France and Belgium.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Student, Duane Russell looking out over graves at Tyne Cot Cemetery. [Mike Goodwin]<\/p>\n

Whilst on the tour, the students commemorated 115 fallen diggers in 47 cemeteries and at 12 memorials on behalf of families in Australia.\u00a0 They also conducted 3 major commemorative services – at the Menin Gate, Lone Pine Memorial and the Australian National Memorial.<\/p>\n

Photographs of the graves and memorial names will be presented to relatives at a special presentation evening at the school on November 1.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Student, Demi Portegys at the grave of John Gallagher – until the research carried out by Demi, John Gallagher’s family did not know of the existence of his grave. [Mike Goodwin]<\/p>\n

\u00a0Special highlights of the tour included:
\n–\u00a0 A private charter cruise along the Anzac coastline and swimming off North Beach over a sunken Anzac barge.
\n–\u00a0 Spending dawn and dusk at Anzac Cove.
\n–\u00a0 Twighlight at Polygon Wood – listening to a student sing the National Anthem overlooking Buttes New British Cemetery on a perfect Autumn evening.
\n–\u00a0 Involvement in the Menin Gate Last Post Service.
\n–\u00a0 Meeting the last British WW1 veteran, 110 year old Harry Patch.
\n–\u00a0 Battlefield walks at Pozieres, Fromelles & Broodseinde Ridge.
\n–\u00a0 Visiting the Pheasant Wood mass burial site at Fromelles.
\n–\u00a0 Spending lots of time with our FFFAIF overseas members, Johan Durnez\u00a0<\/a> & Yves Fohlen <\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Student, Megan Mabin, at the grave of her relative, 19 year old Victor Reedman, buried at Bulls Rd Cemetery, Flers. [Mike Goodwin]<\/p>\n

Mike will be writing more about his most recent pilgrimage in upcoming issues of DIGGER<\/em>\u00a0<\/a> magazine. Why not subscribe <\/a>\u00a0to DIGGER<\/em> for only $A40 p.a.? To find out more about becoming part of the Families and Friends of the First AIF<\/em> and receiving your quarterly copy of DIGGER click here<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

The Families and Friends of the First AIF<\/strong><\/em> 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 urge those responsible to ensure all necessary scientific and other means are employed to properly identify each soldier.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FFFAIF member Mike Goodwin \u00a0has\u00a0recently returned from leading the fifth overseas tour with students from the \u2018Lest We Forget’ history project of Mackay North State School in Queensland. \u00a0To glimpse some of what happened on the trip Mike has sent … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,95,103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-projects","category-villers-bretonneux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}