General Sir Cyril Bingham Brudenell White led Australian forces in World War I and is credited with planning the successful withdrawal of 35,000 soldiers from Gallipoli, in which not one was injured.
His legacy has been renewed in Buangor, near Ararat, with a rededication of his grave not far from where he ran a farm after returning from the battlefield.
About 200 people attended, doubling the town's population for the day.
Sir Brudenell White's grandson, Tim White, said it was important his legacy was not forgotten almost 75 years after his death.
"I feel very proud, sort of humbled ... just a real good feeling," he said.
"It's the sort of memory we want to try to revive because a lot of this is starting to slide into the background ... if you let it go it never comes back."
Sir Brudenell White retired to his pastoral property after returning to Australia after World War I but was coaxed out of retirement by then prime minister Robert Menzies, who asked him to lead the country's World War II effort.
But he was killed in 1940, when a plane he was travelling in with three Menzies government ministers crashed en route to Canberra.
His death was a great loss to the nation. ( He would have made a far more impressive wartime leader than Thomas Blamey) The air crash has been written about recently in a book by Andrew Tink called Air Disaster Canberra. He believes one of the Ministers on the plane, Fairburn,who fancied himself as a pilot took control of the plane which led to the crash.
No comments:
Post a Comment