Vandalised War Memorial

[Tony Smith]

The following article appeared in our local paper:

"THEIVES WRECKED AN 85-YEAR TRADITION"

The Rydal community has been devastated to find that it's war memorial has been desecrated and it's WW1 machine gun, which was on top of it, has been stolen.
For the past 85 years the German machine gun, captured as a trophy in the 1914-18 campaign, was above the stone memorial whichs lists the names of all men who enlisted from the Rydal district, including those who were killed in action.
The memorial has stood proudly at the entrance to Rydal Railway Station and has been cared for by the community.
It was the focal point for the commemoration held in Rydal last Anzac Day as it has been so many times since the end of the Great War.
It appears that the thief cut into the steel mounts with bolt cutters and then dragged the gun off the memorial.
President of Rydal Village Association, Linsey Featherstone, whose Grandfather's name is one of those on the memorial, has described the act as completely despicable.
"I cannot understand that anyone would be so low as to sneak into our Village in the dark of night and destroy that which our community holds most sacred" he said.
"Rydal is remarkably free of vandalism and theft so this horrible act is all the more shocking."
Lithgow Police are investigating and anyone who is able to assist in their inquiries should contact Lithgow Police Station.
The machine gun is of little value to collectors as it is incomplete and it would not be possible to make it operational."

[Tony Smith]

Australia has many War memorials scattered across the country in just about every city, town or village and many suburbs. There are something like 17,000 memorials ranging from a small obelisk to more elaborate statuary through to Sydney and Melbourne's large cenotaphs. Almost all will list the locals who gave their lives in the First World war, with additional panels for those from WW2, Korea, Malaya and Vietnam. Some of the memorials in smaller villages will list all the locals who joined up. These memorials were in just about every instance paid for by the local communities by subscription, not by Government. I think it was said that Australia had the most number of War Memorials per head of population than other country, does that still hold true?The WW1 vintage memorials will occaisionally have a trophy german field piece. Rydal's memorial is the only one that I know of that had a captured German machine gun, a Maxim MG08-15. When I last saw it a couple of years ago, it had a brass plate rivetted to the water jacket that said siomething the lines of "Captured in xxxxxx, France May 1917 by Pte. xxxxxx of xxxx, NSW, xxxth Batt". I wish now I'd taken more notice of the details. Many of the memorials have been augmented over the years by the addition of WW2 field pieces like 25pdrs and Bofors guns and even the odd Vietnam era 105mm Howitzer. Ships anchors and aircraft propellors also get a showing, too.

[Tony Smith]

Thief who took the gun must have really wanted it badly. The MG had the block removed, the barrel plugged and the charging handle welded in place. It had sat out side in the weather for 85 years and was starting to degrade. The MG, even though stripped and in an unrestorable condition and impossible to fire, is still classified as a Prohibited Weapon. Penalities for it's possesion include Hanging (Well, that's if the locals caught him ) and 14 years imprisonment if caught by the Authorities. Unfortunately, the penalty for defacing the memorial will be much less than possesion of the gun. Memorials regularly get bad treatment by vandals and used by skateboarders and there's often little that can be done other than shake your fists and clean it up.
The fact that Rydal's memorial retained it's Maxim MG is unusual as many were reconditioned and converted to .303 for use by the VDC (Home Guard) during the early stages of WW2.

[Bob Moseley (RIP)]

Hi All
Tony has touched on one of my "soapbox" topics. The weaponary given to the Australian community as War Memorials. Over the years various councils have removed, sold on, destroyed, etc. these items that are a part of our cultural heritage. They have no right to but how do you stop it. They come up with crap like insurance, maintenance, terrorism and the like. Fortunately, of late, I have been assisting some of our Returned Services League clubs restore their memorials, in the main 25pdrs. At least something will survive.
Bob

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally posted by Tony Smith
Thief who took the gun must have really wanted it badly. The MG had the block removed, the barrel plugged and the charging handle welded in place. It had sat out side in the weather for 85 years and was starting to degrade. The MG, even though stripped and in an unrestorable condition and impossible to fire, is still classified as a Prohibited Weapon. Penalities for it's possesion include Hanging (Well, that's if the locals caught him ) and 14 years imprisonment if caught by the Authorities. Unfortunately, the penalty for defacing the memorial will be much less than possesion of the gun. Memorials regularly get bad treatment by vandals and used by skateboarders and there's often little that can be done other than shake your fists and clean it up.
The fact that Rydal's memorial retained it's Maxim MG is unusual as many were reconditioned and converted to .303 for use by the VDC (Home Guard) during the early stages of WW2.

Tony..
A pox on the theives that stole your Maxim...Check with the scrap yards..It's probably on its way to China..
Death by 1000 cuts is too good for the slime that did this..
Too bad a few of you cobbers couldn't catch the low life..I'm sure if you use "Rule 303" like Breaker Morant ,that would be appropriate...

Sad to report that the King's Stone in Rowlands Castle, known well to GWB and reported in MLU by myself, was seriously vandalised again in January.

Although repaired from the damage in early 2004, which could have been accidental, and now more firmly re-set into a strong footing, the Stone was broken into three pieces.

I think the next phase of repair will see it set back from the walkway and protected by a substantial railing.

You do have to wonder why all these measures have to be taken.

R.

[Bob Potter]

Put him in a "Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice Are My Heroes" t-shirt and air-drop him into Mosul or Fallalujah. If that is logistically difficult, there are number of ideas to be found in Jean Larteguy's "The Praetorians" that require some det cord and a blasting cap.

Seriously, I do hope you catch him. It always pains me to see any sort of history desecrated (sp?), especially cemeteries and war memorials.

Bob Potter

[Tony Smith]

Dennis, aka forum member "Dinty", has sent me the following pic and story, mainly about Remembrance Day, but I thought it would be more appropriate here:

" I was on my way to Coonabarabran, we stopped at Who'd a Thought it, a Lookout in Quirindi to observe 11/11/05 at 1100hrs, we travelled on after observing a minutes silence and coming into the village of Breeza, I thought of how many fella's from this part of the world didn't return and I thought of the small memorial and wondered if anyone had observed the the ritual there in Breeza. Well, I was dismayed when I arrived at the memorial to find it in an unkempt state, weeds everywhere and not even a flower or wreath, etc at the site. What a disgrace I thought!. I stopped and took some pix. We travelled on through Gunnedah and out towards Mullaley where I was relieved to see the towns memorial was clean and mowed and the flag was flying at half mast, with the primary school in close proximity I assumed that the school children possibly participated in a ceremony there. Tony could you please post this in MLU for me as I haven't got any idea of how to post pix."

Despite the obviously sad state this memorial is in, it is actually another good example of the type of memorial found in many similar small villages across Australia (Max, note the Red Ensign!). Breeza today would possibly only have a couple of hundred residents, and in it's heyday would have mustered less than 2000 souls. Yet like many other districts, a large proportion of the young male population volunteered for WW1, and with the full blessing and support of the community. The loss of even a handful of these men would have been keenly felt and the response of a small community to to such tragedies was to fund such a significant memorial. This one, like Rydal (was), is surmounted by a captured German Maxim