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■ RSL president Wells up with ’shared grief’ for servicepeople killed during training...
Unique memorial By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
John Wells under the Forgotten Warriors Memorial.143251 Picture: GARY SISSONS
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UNDER the wings of a gleaming Macchi MB326H naval-service jet is the start of an evolving war memorial at the Cranbourne RSL. The Forgotten Warrior Memorial is dedicated to Australian servicepeople who were killed during training exercises outside of wartime. No other such tribute exists in Australia - the names of several thousand such victims are not even listed at the National War Memorial, RSL sub-branch president John Wells said. The monument will be dedicated at a public ceremony on 30 August, attended by surviving widows with a “shared grief”. “We’ve had this huge cost of lives - men, women and children. They deserve better and as a society, we need to be better,” Mr Wells said. “Those families have a grave somewhere, yes. But they don’t have a place to come together with other families who suffered the same sort of loss.” Roz Fordham, whose first husband RAAF Flight Lieutenant Steve Carter is named on the memorial, says it was helpful to people who hadn’t had a place for “memory and reflection”. Lt Carter had been killed as a pilot in a mid-air collision between two Macchis during Roulettes training in East Sale on 15 December, 1983. Ms Fordham said the Roulettes had been practising for their air shows, a week before most personnel left for the Christmas break. “They were all very experienced pilots, and I understand and believe that what happened was an accident. “I hope (the memorial) is helpful to all who have lost someone in the service of their country and who have not had a place for memory and reflection because the loss didn’t occur in wartime.” The Macchi on display in Cranbourne took 10 years to be sourced in parts and restored by volunteers in a warehouse at Station Street. The memorial’s plaques state a quarter of the 97 Macchi training planes that went into national service since 1970 had crashed. Named are each of the eight young pilots killed in the aircraft. “They are all young men - people who were promoted once or twice. None of senior rank,” Mr Wells muses. “No glory but tragedy in their deaths.” Continued on page 3
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