Tongala families saluted the dairy farming town’s connection to the armed services when a memorial wall was displayed at the town’s Anzac Day service.
Portraits of 120 former servicemen and women are the first faces visitors see on entering the recently refurbished Tongala RSL-Sub branch hall in Mangan St.
Sub-branch president Dale Hateley, who was a member of the regular army and is featured on the wall, said family members of at least half of the former servicemen and women featured on the wall were still in the immediate area.
It was one of several highlights of the Tongala commemoration, which started with the traditional dawn service and a few hours later involved community members joining the sub-branch members to walk the 200m from the RSL headquarters to the shire hall.
That march also featured a spectacular flyover by five planes, co-ordinated by pilots Neil Madill and Mark Turner.
Highly respected and long-time community members Daryl and Jenny Reid are among the 32 active members of the sub-branch who hosted a bumper Anzac Day crowd.
They have a unique connection to the faces on their wall, as both their fathers are featured.
In fact, they were placed alongside one another several months ago by sub-branch treasurer and wall curator Chris Andrew.
Mr Reid’s father Private Leslie Percival Reid served in Darwin for three-and-a-half years in his early 20s before returning to his Birchip farm and eventually buying a dairy farm at Tongala..
He died in 1961, four years after coming to Tongala.
Mrs Reid’s father Corporal Ian Winter Norman worked with the Department of Agriculture and joined the war effort through the RAAF, based at Gove.
He was a radar technician who kept close watch on the northern extremities of Australia for enemy activity.
Mr Andrew said the decision to create the wall had been made because there were so many portraits of different shapes and sizes.
“We were doing an upgrade last year and all the photos on the wall were re-scanned. Then we decided to present them in a more ordered fashion,” he said.
The Tongala RSL Sub-branch has had a constant stream of visitors through its doors in recent times, with the addition of a Vietnam mural memorial at the end of the building attracting plenty of attention.
Sub-branch member Allan Wallace was guest speaker at the Tongala mid-morning ceremony.
He served for more than a decade as a diver with the Australian Navy before purchasing a dairy farm at Koyuga. He now lives in Echuca.
He is a member of the Tongala and Echuca RSL sub-branches and spoke of his father, Leslie James Wallace, who was born in 1920 and a member of the famed RAAF 450 Squadron.
His father spent four-and-a-half years in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, providing ground support for the kittyhawks and other aircraft that drove the Germans out of the occupied territory during World War II.
Students from Tongala Primary School and St Patrick’s Primary School also spoke in front of a jam-packed town hall during the ceremony.