City of Ryde Veterans and Ex Service Group in North Ryde | Community organisation

City of Ryde Veterans and Ex Service Group

Locality: North Ryde

Phone: +61 425 204 831

Address: P.O. Box 6167 2113 North Ryde, NSW, Australia

Website:

Likes: 186

Add/Update information

Reviews

Tags

• Community organisation

23.01.2022 MEDIA STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE HMAS commemoration delivered in digital format... 3 November 2020 Australia’s greatest naval tragedy, the sinking of the HMAS Sydney II, will be remembered with an online ceremony to mark the 79th anniversary. Differing to previous years’ services, a pre-recorded ceremony will be delivered to the community online to pay respect to the 645 crew members who lost their lives at sea after the ship sunk off the Geraldton coast in 1941. City of Greater Geraldton Mayor Shane Van Styn said the service was taking on a new format this year to adhere to proper restrictions. Many of our events haven’t been reinstated this year due to COVID-19, and that’s why this year’s commemorative service will be presented in a different format, he said. It is still extremely important for us to deliver this service to the community as we know how important it is to pay homage to this tragic event which has played such a big part in our nation’s history. I would like to encourage the community to still take the time to remember and honour this significant event by tuning into the online broadcast. The City has worked closely with the HMAS Sydney II Warden, Naval Association of Australia, RSL, the HMAS Sydney II Advisory Committee and other bodies to pre-record an order of service much like previous years. Commander Greg Swinden R.A.N will provide the main address and CO of the HMAS Sydney V Commander Edward Seymour R.A.N will feature as a guest speaker. The wreath laying service will take place at the HMAS Sydney Memorial on the evening and will be live streamed as part of the broadcast. The broadcast will take place on the City of Greater Geraldton’s Facebook page and YouTube channel on Thursday 19 November from 5:45pm. Residents are also reminded that at approximately 7pm a large blank cannon shot will be fired as well as a display of multiple flares off the coast. There will also be a service for the Unknown Sailor on Sunday 15 November from 10-10:30am. It will take place at the Geraldton War Cemetery in Utakarra. The service takes place every year at the grave site of the Unknown Sailor to reflect and remember the servicemen who paid the supreme sacrifice for their country. This year this service is combined with the Pilgrimage to the Cemetery. For more information about the 79th HMAS Sydney II Commemoration service, contact the City on 9956 6600 or email [email protected] ENDS: Notes to media: For all media enquiries, please contact the Communications team via email to [email protected] or by phoning (08) 9956 6973.

22.01.2022 A thought, as we come up to Remembrance Day. https://iancoate.com/

21.01.2022 Today is Remembrance Day. Australians are encouraged to take a moment and observe a minutes' silence at 11am, in memory of those we have lost. While we pause to... remember the fallen, we also spare a thought for the families of our deceased veterans left behind this Remembrance Day. We will always remember them. Lest We Forget. Defence Australia, photographed by LSIS Kylie Jagiello

19.01.2022 150 YEARS OF THE CITY OF RYDE EXPLORE OUR HISTORY > http://bit.ly/150YearsRyde We’re celebrating our 150th birthdayour sesquicentenarythis month, which ma...rks 150 years since City of Ryde's formation as a council in November 1870. For a birthday we'd usually invite everyone to a party but in these coronavirus (COVID-19) times, that party will be held online instead. Find out what made us who we are by exploring our history and development through an online exhibition of 150 photos and objects. You'll also be able to explore a time when Ryde was known for its market gardens, orchards and poultry farms, when aeroplanes could be built in backyards, and more!

16.01.2022 #OTD 2/13th Battalion awarded Battle Honour ‘Tobruk’ On the 18th of November 1941, the 2/13th Infantry Battalion (also known as the ‘Devils Own’) was awarded... the Battle Honour ‘Defence of Tobruk’ for their part in the defence of the encircled city. The Battalion’s involvement with the city commenced on the 9th of April 1941, and it was the only Battalion to see out the entirety of the Siege of Tobruk, remaining in the city for eight long months. Plans to evacuate in October were delayed when their convoy was forced to turn back from an enemy air attack, resulting in the Battalion being forced to remain in Tobruk until the siege was lifted in December following Operation Crusader. During this period, the Battalion assisted in repelling two major German attacks. For this period, Tobruk remained the final bulwark between Rommel and Egypt. The defiance of the defenders of Tobruk raised morale in the Commonwealth and their nickname, the ‘Rats of Tobruk’ was worn with pride by those who served. Following their relief in December, the Battalion saw action in Palestine, Syria and North Africa, including the pivotal Battle of El Alamein. The Battalion would return to Australian in 1943 where it then took part in the campaigns against the Japanese in New Guinea and Borneo until the end of the war. --------------------------------------------------------------- If you spot an error, please send me a message. Join our group here: https://business.facebook.com/groups/2626189084317964

15.01.2022 On 19 November 1941, HMAS Sydney II, a modified Leander-Class light cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy, was sunk following action with the German raider HSK K...ormoran off the Western Australian coast. Disguised as a Dutch merchant vessel, Komoran used the advantage of surprise to have Sydney close and enable Kormoran to bring maximum firepower to bear on Sydney. The loss of Sydney and her 645 crew remains one of Australia’s worst naval disasters. The Kormoran was also sunk however, 317 of her crew of 397 were rescued. For almost seven decades, the final resting place of Sydney and her crew remained unknown. In mid-March 2008 the Australian Government announced that the wrecks of Sydney and Kormoran had been found approximately 112 nautical miles off Steep Point, Western Australia. A model of Sydney II can be seen in the Second World War galleries at the Memorial. Learn more: https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-sydney-ii Read about the Unknown Sailor: http://www.sydneymemorial.com/unknownsailor.htm Image: Crew members of the RAN light cruiser HMAS Sydney (II) peer through a hole in the forward funnel. The damage was sustained in action against the Italian Cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni off Cape Spada, Crete. 002435 Photographer: Damien Peter Parer

08.01.2022 Legacy Australia Patron, His Excellency the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, General the Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Retd), and Mrs Linda ...Hurley, laid a wreath at the Remembrance Day commemorative service, held at the Australian War Memorial on the 11th November 2020. Governor-General of Australia Australian War Memorial , Australian War Memorial

06.01.2022 #OTD Private Rodney Hughes, KIA Today we pause to remember the life and service of 1201350 Private Rodney Donald Hughes, who was killed in action whilst serv...ing in South Vietnam at the age of 20 on the 17th of November 1968. Rod volunteered to serve in the ARA in 1968, and was posted to 1RAR on completion of his initial employment training. He deployed to Vietnam on the 27th of March 1968 and spent 236 days in country before his death. He was fatally wounded by a sniper during a search and destroy operation in Phuoc Tuy on the 17th of November 1968. Lest we forget. --------------------------------------------------------------- If you spot an error, please send me a message. Join our group here: https://business.facebook.com/groups/2626189084317964

03.01.2022 A good thing to remember this Remembrance Day. https://iancoate.com/

01.01.2022 A long read , an all too familiar story: Mick Berrigan had served in Vietnam for seven months when he suffered a catastrophic head wound. MICK Berrigan went to ...war in 1967 - a bright spark who loved a drink and the girls. The shell of a man who came back injured never recovered from his private hell. PRIVATE Mick Berrigan died from combat injuries Sunday Oct 31 2011 and was buried on the Thursday. There weren't any politicians there, or news cameras, because death didn't come swiftly. It ate at him for 44 years, tore at his body and soul and drove his parents, Rosemary and Gerald, to an early grave. The artillery shell shrapnel that hit him, so-called friendly fire, took the best part of his life in Vietnam, and then took its time with the rest. When soldiers die on the battlefield, they are said to have made the ultimate sacrifice. To live on in pain, anger and confusion as a brain injury progressively destroys you and everybody you love, is worse than that. Comrades count Mick as an Australian combat casualty of the Vietnam War, as much as any of the official 500 fallen. They think, dead at 66, he may be the last. "We commemorate the dead but we forget about the wounded," unofficial 7th Battalion historian Mike O'Brien says bitterly. And Mick's younger brother Chris, who has spent most of his life watching his brother's cruel decline, says there are worse things than a battlefield death. "If you're killed outright, there's traumatic suffering and terrible sadness. But the terrible sadness goes away eventually, doesn't it?" Chris says. "I think this was worse than what they usually call the ultimate sacrifice." In 1967, while the rest of the world embraced flower power and the Beatles sang that love was all you need, Mick Berrigan, the fourth of eight kids, went to war. He was smart, with a year of Melbourne University law under his belt, and headstrong. He liked a beer a little too much, liked to chase girls at South Side Six in Moorabbin, and took a gap year from uni to build a bankroll for the rest of his course. When the call-up came for national service, Mick was up for the pay and the adventure. He landed in Vietnam in April 1967 and took a hit in November ahead of an attack on a Viet Cong camp 1km east of Nui Toc Tien. Australian guns were called in to soften up the camp and five of the six shells hit. The other exploded against a tree 50m from Pte Berrigan and shrapnel from it tore through his skull and his brain. "We couldn't keep him quiet," a Digger mate of Mick's wrote in a diary. "We gave him dose after dose of morphine. We believed we had no alternative. We were close to the enemy and had to keep him quiet." But the story didn't stop there. Mick died and was resuscitated. His mother was flown to Vietnam to say her goodbyes to her comatose son, but he was strong and fit and lived. "Operating on his skull, they had to remove fragments that were blown into his brain. Then they patched him up," Chris says. "I remember him in bed at Heidelberg (Repatriation Hospital) and he looked remarkably fit and very, very tanned, brown as a berry. "He was already paralysed, flat in bed and he couldn't turn to one side. His speech was slurred already, but he knew people." With calipers and a four-pronged walking stick, somehow the hospital got Mick on his feet and home. "There was a time when he was at home and we were living in East Malvern when he used to walk up to the front gate, walk 100m down the street," Chris says. But it was a false dawn. "There was a great hopefulness that he would improve. That changed into 'nothing's happening', and that changed into a feeling of hopelessness, awful for any family," Chris says. Mick suffered seizures and each one took a part of him away. His short-term memory was shot and his useless limbs, once so strong, grew twisted. "It's like he's been a 22-year-old soldier all his life. In that sense he was stuck in time," Chris says, but adds: "Whatever brain damage there was, he did have some episodes of clarity and deep insights. We wondered how much he knew." In an earlier war, Mick would have died. A later one, and he would have caught medical advances and better treatment. As it was, his life became a round of psychiatric hospitals, frustrated outbursts and harsh drugs to bomb him out. The family's fight for the best for Mick was unending. And also, so bittersweet, there were times when he touched his carers and family, connecting in small ways that meant everything to them. "He was quite an assertive, macho guy, intensely independent," Chris says. "It was very difficult for him to have that taken. Often he would lash out at people, try to hit people. He would get angry and this would lead to him being heavily tranquillised. "It was just a gradual decline. It's hard to express. My mum was particularly devastated by it. It was a real heartbreak to go out and see him. "He went through unpleasant repat hospitals for many years, and nursing homes and things like that." Family priest Fr Peter Matheson spoke of the toll on Mick's parents at Thursday's service. "They died before their time because of that weight," he said. Mick's last 11 years were spent surrounded by kindness, helped by Yooralla at a home in Highett, but the brain injury was relentless and paralysis spread to his throat muscles. "There was not much in his life. The only pleasures were a beer and a smoke and his food," Chris says. "In the end you'd give him food and instead of swallowing it, he was breathing it in." On Sunday, his battle ended. The war was over for Mick and his family. "The ultimate sacrifice? This is even more, isn't it, really? What a waste," Chris says. "He died in his sleep. That's something, isn't it?" And a comrade, John Johnston, one of the 30-odd Vietnam veterans in a guard of honour for the flag-draped coffin, spoke for all of them. "There just couldn't be a greater sacrifice," he said. "There couldn't be." See more