This Anzac Day will be a special time of reflection for two local men who served in World War II.
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On Sunday night Nat Orr, 97, and Ron Edwards, 94, laid a wreath at the rededication of the Light Horse Memorial in Cooke Park.
The two men represented the 6th Light Horse at the evening’s candlelight commemoration to mark the centenary anniversary of the Anzac Landing at Gallipoli.
Mr Edwards had been a member of the 6th Light Horse in civilian times – when it was part of the citizens military force - and involved in local exercises.
“I was always keen on the Light Horse, my uncle (Leslie ‘Mick’ Miles) was in it,” he said.
“I joined up when I was about 19.”
When Japan entered the war and action moved into the Pacific, the Light Horse became the 6th Motor Regiment.
Although a newlywed in 1942, Mr Edwards left his job on Bill Ward’s farm at Alectown and was sent to the south coast – to Jervis Bay and Huskisson.
He was later sent to Papua New Guinea, where he spent the rest of the war, to work on the docks.
“We unloaded the ships and supplies and backloaded whatever was needed,” he said.
“I was up there nearly two years altogether - I was there about 14 months then came home on leave, then went back up there again.”
Mr Edwards did not complain about the conditions he saw: he said so many others had really suffered in the region.
“My uncle was in the 2/2 Machine Gun Battalion and they had it pretty tough,” he said.
“He was a scout – he’d go out in advance.
“My father served in France (in WWI) and they had it rotten in the trenches there with the frost and the water.
“He got out of it with just a couple of fingers off and he had shell in him.”
Mr Edwards also came home relatively unscathed and returned to his wife Marjory, his work on the farm and riding bullocks in rodeos.
Mr Orr, a farmer, enlisted for service just after Christmas 1941.
“The threat of Japanese invasion was very real so I enlisted,” he wrote in a memoir for his family.
“It wasn’t easy. I had taken over a lot of the farm management from dad and it meant he had to take up the reins again.”
Mr Orr had trained as a mechanic after leaving school at 13, and his skills were in demand.
He was quickly seconded to the 6th Armoured Regiment, which had been the 6th Light Horse in civilian times.
“The light horse had ceased to function as a horse operation and was supplied with Bren Gun Carriers – an armoured light vehicle,” he said.
Mr Orr was sent to Jervis Bay to service and maintain the regiment’s Bren Gun Carriers.
When their presence was no longer needed on the south coast, he was sent to north Queensland, where he was in charge of the Torres Strait Native Island Labour Battalion.
He remained with them, training the locals how to select trees and bring them out of the jungle and transport them to the mill, until the end of the war.
“The good memories I recall,” he wrote. “The abundance of fish and going out onto the reef with a couple of boys who would dive for coral crays.”
When the war ended he came home to the farm, where he met and married Mary Whitmill, known as Molly.
They raised four children.
This Anzac Day both men hope to attend the local march, if the weather is fine, followed by the commemoration in the park and a service at Southern Cross Village.
They also hope to see the work that has taken place at Memorial Hill.
Mr Edwards hopes future generations can be spared the horrors the Anzacs and other servicemen endured.
“Australia is a great country,” he said. “I’d like to see it go along peacefully.”
Mr Orr says Anzac Day remains a very significant day in Australia and encouraged people to participate in the services that commemorate Australia’s part in The Great War.
“It’s Australia’s day to memorialise when we came of age as a nation in our own defence,” he said.