Virtual War Memorial Australia

14/10/2026

Two of the eight men playing with No. 453 Squadron's mascot, Sprog, at RAF Perranporth in October 1943 were killed in Normandy nine months later, a day apart. Both are remembered on the Virtual War Memorial Australia.

Pilot Officer Kenneth Charles Kinross of Essendon, Victoria, was killed near Bayeux on 24 July 1944. He was 22.
https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/635267

Warrant Officer Clarence Alfred ‘Clarrie’ Seeney of Gatton, Queensland, was killed east of Falaise on 25 July 1944. He was 21. His name is on the Gatton Weeping Mother Memorial.
https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/646532

If your family holds a photograph, letter or story about either man, you can add it to there profiles.

Lest we forget.

14/10/2026

During the period following World War Two, Australians serving with the "British Commonwealth Occupation Force" (BCOF) worked closely with Japanese police to help the country's post war transition.

https://vwma.org.au/collections/home-page-stories/bcof-the-forgotten-battalions

13/10/2026

Striped shirt, dark tie, hair swept back off his forehead.
A bank clerk from Collinswood looks straight at the lens.

This is Peter Parkinson. He was a Flying Officer of twenty when he was killed on Ceram in October 1944. Born in Port Augusta on 24 April 1924, he worked as a clerk with the Savings Bank of South Australia. Home was Harvey Street, Collinswood. His parents were Henry and Olive.

The photograph sits in his RAAF personnel file at the National Archives, below an OHMS envelope marked “Negatives for P/O P. Parkinson, Deceased.” The file begins at No. 5 Recruiting Centre, Adelaide, on 10 October 1942. Peter was eighteen years and five months old, five foot eleven and 147 pounds. Against “trade or calling”, the form reads: Bank Clerk.

He learned to fly on Tiger Moths at Parafield and moved on to Wirraways at Deniliquin. In July 1943 he went to No. 2 Operational Training Unit at Mildura. His conduct sheet followed him from Victor Harbor to the squadron, and every adjutant who signed it gave the same verdict: certified no entry.

Peter joined No. 80 Squadron as a sergeant pilot on 22 September 1943. He was commissioned the following February and turned twenty on the squadron in April. By the end of June he had 419 hours of flying behind him, 140 of them on Kittyhawks in the previous six months. In July his commanding officer wrote that he was “comparatively inexperienced in commissioned rank, but is developing quite well.” He finished: “Quite a promising young officer.”

On 13 October 1944 Peter flew Kittyhawk A29-688 from Noemfoor Island on a watercraft sweep in Waroe Bay, on Ceram in the Netherlands East Indies. There was ack-ack over the bay. As he pulled away from his bombing attack, the Kittyhawk was seen to turn onto its back and dive into the ground behind the village of Boela. It exploded on impact. The casualty report concluded that the aircraft, and possibly the pilot, had been hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire.

He was buried at Boela. In August 1946 he was moved to the war cemetery on Ambon, where he lies in Plot 7, Row C, Grave 7. His father was told of the reburial by letter that October.

The negatives are still in the file. On one of the packets someone has written: “Prints required by family.”

In January 1997 Peter’s brother, by then retired in Melbourne’s east, wrote to Air Force Headquarters. “One of my children has requested I obtain any medals due to my brother,” he wrote, “and would be pleased to receive them in due course.” That July, Defence posted him the 1939–45 Star, the Pacific Star, the War Medal 1939–45 and the Australia Service Medal 1939–45, inscribed with Peter’s service particulars.

Peter’s name is on the honour roll of the Savings Bank of South Australia, on the rolls at St Peter’s College and St Andrew’s Church in Walkerville, and on Adelaide’s WW2 Wall of Remembrance.

Lest We Forget.

Rod Hutchings
Director, Virtual War Memorial Australia

13/10/2026

111 years ago today, soldiers watched from the deck of a troopship in Fremantle Harbour as a crowd farewelled them from the wharf.

One of the men leaving had a camera.

The Australian War Memorial records 1328 Private Richard Goldsmith Hummerston, 10th Light Horse Regiment, as the man who took the photograph.

He was a stockman from Fremantle, sailing out of his own town’s harbour with the 10th Reinforcements of his regiment aboard HMAT Themistocles.

His next of kin was his father, at the P and O Hotel in High Street, Fremantle.

Whether his family stood in that crowd, the record does not say.

Themistocles carried the reinforcements to Egypt. In July 1916 Richard moved to the 3rd Light Horse Brigade Machine Gun Squadron.

On 19 April 1917, during the Second Battle of Gaza, he was wounded in the right knee.

After treatment in Cairo he was sent home. The AIF discharged him as medically unfit on 6 June 1918.

The Memorial holds more of his photographs from Egypt. In one, taken at the 14th Australian General Hospital in Cairo, Richard is in the frame himself, on the right of the back row.

He served again in the Second World War, in the Volunteer Defence Corps. He died at Tuart Hill on 3 November 1976.

He was 81.

His Virtual War Memorial record still lists his schooling and his place of burial as not yet discovered.

If someone in your family sailed on Themistocles from Fremantle on 13 October 1915, we would like to hear from you. Photographs from the 10th Light Horse or the 3rd Light Horse Brigade Machine Gun Squadron are welcome in the comments. Tell us who we are looking at.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings

Photograph: soldiers on deck and a crowd on the wharf at Fremantle Harbour, 13 October 1915. Taken by 1328 Private Richard Goldsmith Hummerston, 10th Light Horse Regiment. Australian War Memorial P05566.037, public domain.

13/10/2026

On 13 October 1943, deep in the dense battlegrounds of World War II New Guinea, 24-year-old Lance Corporal Denis Kevin Cosgrave laid down his life serving with the 2/27 Australian Infantry Battalion.

"L/Cpl. Denis Kevin Cosgrave.

MR. AND MRS. COSGRAVE, of Macclesfield, have been notified that their second son, L/CPL. DENIS KEVIN was killed in New Guinea on October 13. He was born at Macclesfield 24 years ago, and was educated at the Sisters of St. Joseph Convent school, where he was a much loved pupil. Like his elder brother, PTE. THOMAS COSGRAVE, who died of wounds in Egypt, he was loved by old and young alike. Both were members of the sports clubs of the districts and were honoured for manly and friendly play. Above all, they were loyal to their school and faithful to the Church, and were altar servers for several years. Denis enlisted in March, 1941, and went overseas in April. He served in Palestine and Syria, was wounded in Syria, July, 1941, and returned in February, 1942. He then served in New Guinea and was home on leave in February of this year, returning to duty early in March. May his soul reap the eternal reward of the supreme sacrifice which he has made." - from the Adelaide Southern Cross 05 Nov 1943

We will remember him.

https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/597828

12/10/2026

11/10/2026

Concrete pillboxes swept the saturated ground with machine-gun fire, pinning the stalled Australian advance in the freezing mud.

Captain Clarence Smith Jeffries knew they could not stay there.

The twenty-two-year-old from Wallsend was an only child. Before the war, he had been a mining surveyor for the Abermain Collieries, calculating angles and distances in the quiet of the Hunter Valley. Now, he applied that calm exactness to a shattered Belgian ridge.

Commanding a company of the 34th Battalion at Passchendaele, exactly 109 years ago today, Jeffries saw the attack breaking down. He gathered a small party and rushed a German emplacement, capturing four machine guns and thirty-five prisoners.

He rallied his company and pushed them forward through heavy artillery fire. When a second position blocked their path, he led another charge. He was killed in the final rush, though his men overran the guns.

The instinct to go forward when the men are pinned does not age. Ninety-six years later, in the dust of Afghanistan, Corporal Cameron Baird VC MG would make the exact same choice, repeatedly charging a fortified compound to draw fire and break a deadlock, paying the same price to protect his team. The uniform changes, but the combat leader does not.

The 34th Battalion's wider assault that day failed, with casualties amounting to more than half its strength. After the war, Jeffries’ father, Joshua, travelled across the world to walk that same ground, desperately searching for the grave of a son lost two weeks shy of his twenty-third birthday.

Today, Clarence rests quietly in Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Rest easy, Clarence.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Director, Virtual War Memorial Australia

11/10/2026

Twenty-five years after Australia first deployed to Afghanistan, the conflict remains a deeply personal part of our military history. In “Afghanistan, Twenty-Five Years On”, VWMA Director Rod Hutchings reflects on a war that touched his own family, including his son’s service with the 2nd Combat Engineer Regiment, and remembers those who served alongside him, including friends and colleagues who did not return.

From the early deployments of Operation Slipper through the fighting in Uruzgan and the final evacuation from Kabul in 2021, more than 35,000 Australians served in Afghanistan or in supporting operations. Today, 47 ADF personnel are commemorated on the Australian War Memorial’s Roll of Honour. Behind each name is an individual story of service, sacrifice and family. Twenty-five years on, this article offers an opportunity to remember those stories and reflect on the enduring legacy of Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Read the full article here: vwma.org.au/collections/home-page-stories/afghanistan-twenty-five-years-on

10/10/2026

60 years ago today | Vietnam War

A photograph taken on a beach in South Vietnam captures something rarely associated with war: three people sharing a laugh.

It was 10 October 1966, and Warrant Officer Peter J. Davern, from Albury, New South Wales, was spending his final day of service in Vietnam.

At a farewell barbecue on Back Beach, Vung Tau, Davern was photographed speaking with Miss Pak Myung Cha, a Korean secretary, and Colonel Ik Hoon Song, the officer in charge of the Vung Tau Korean Hospital.

The occasion marked the end of five months of work that had helped establish Australia's growing air operations in Vietnam.

Davern had arrived in May 1966 to command Detachment A of No. 5 Airfield Construction Squadron (5ACS).

His team was responsible for constructing hangars and working accommodation at Vung Tau Airfield, supporting the RAAF's Iroquois helicopters and Caribou transport aircraft.

Working alongside Vietnamese labourers and other RAAF personnel, the detachment helped establish the facilities needed to maintain aircraft and sustain operations.

By early October, the hangar was complete, and members of the construction team were preparing to return to Australia.

Their contribution was largely made on the ground.

They built the facilities where aircraft could be maintained, equipment stored and crews supported.

Their work rarely attracted the attention given to flying operations, yet those operations depended upon it.

The photograph also preserves another part of Australia's Vietnam War history: the everyday relationships formed between Australians and personnel from other nations serving in South Vietnam.

Sixty years later, this simple moment at Back Beach reminds us that military history is also found in friendships, shared experiences and farewells.

We remember the airfield construction crews, tradespeople, technicians and support personnel whose work made the service of others possible.

Did you or a family member serve with No. 5 Airfield Construction Squadron or at Vung Tau? What stories from their service deserve to be preserved?

Their experiences form part of Australia's military history.

Rod Hutchings
Lest we forget.
Virtual War Memorial Australia
Preserving the stories of Australian service and sacrifice.

10/10/2026

Four days after his son disappeared, George Bates wrote from Little River to the Department of Air.

“We do hope you have good news, to send us in the near future.”

His son was Warrant Officer John Charles Bates, a 23-year-old pilot serving with our No. 75 Squadron.

On the morning of 10 October 1944, John took off in Kittyhawk A29-432 for a sweep against watercraft along the northern coast of Ceram, in the Netherlands East Indies.

After completing the mission, the aircraft encountered heavy cloud east of Misool Island.

Flying Officer Donald Andrew was flying another Kittyhawk in the formation. His account survives in John’s casualty file.

Andrew reported that John followed Flight Lieutenant Morrison into cloud at 8,000 feet. After a turn began, Andrew lost sight of the aircraft he was following.

He descended to 2,000 feet, hoping to emerge below the cloud.

Still unable to see clear of it, he abandoned his Kittyhawk and parachuted through cloud and rain.

Andrew could not explain what had happened to John or Morrison. He had neither seen the rest of the flight after the turn began nor heard further radio messages.

At Little River, George and Mrs Bates waited for news.

George’s first letter thanked the Department for its sympathy and for notifying them promptly. It also recorded their hope that another message would bring better news.

More than six months later, on 24 April 1945, he wrote again.

“We are still hoping for news of him.”

He thanked those making enquiries, including the International Red Cross Committee.

The search for answers continued after the war. In June 1947, a RAAF search and recovery officer investigated reports of aircraft wrecks near Misool. The aircraft examined did not resolve John’s disappearance.

John’s casualty file preserves the squadron’s report, the enquiries and his father’s handwritten letters.

Alongside the operational record are the words of a family still waiting to hear what had happened to their son.

We remember Warrant Officer John Charles Bates, of Little River, who did not return from operations on 10 October 1944.

Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
Virtual War Memorial Australia