ROLL OF HONOUR : 'WE HONOUR OUR FALLEN'

The first action that the 2/1st Infantry Battalion and the 16 Brigade of the 6 Division saw was in North Africa some 12 months after they had departed Australia, January 1940.

Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Knightsbridge War Cemetery, Acroma, Libya. Additional burials were at the Tobruk War Cemetery, Libya and the Halfaya-Sollum War Cemetery, and Alamein Memorial in Egypt.  (www.cwgc.org)

Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Phaleron War Cemetery Athens, Greece. The ATHENS MEMORIAL stands within Phaleron War Cemetery and commemorates nearly 3,000 members of the land forces of the Commonwealth who lost their lives during the campaigns in Greece and Crete in 1941 and 1944-1945, in the Dodecanese Islands in 1943-1945 and in Yugoslavia in 1943-1945, and who have no known grave.. (www.cwgc.org).

Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Suda Bay War Cemetery, Crete. There are 1,500 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 776 of the burials are  unidentified but special memorials commemorate a number of casualties  believed to be buried among them.   (www.cwgc.org).

Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Commonwealth War Cemetery, Damascus. Other cemeteries and memorial sites for the 2/1 Battalion are the Cairo War Memorial Cemetery, the Aswan-Bandar British Cemetery, and the Gaza War Cemetery. Panels at the Memorials record the names of those missing for whom no burial was possible.  (www.cwgc.org).

In 1942, the 2/1 Bn was for some three months stationed on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) before their return to Australia in August 1942. Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Colombo Kanatte General Cemetery, Sri Lanka (www.cwgc.org)

Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Bomana War Cemetery, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Panel no.2 at the Bomana Port Moresby Memorial records the 35 names of those missing for whom no burial was possible.(www.cwgc.org) 

Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Klagenfurt War Cemetery, Austria. POWs of the 2/1 Battalion who died from 1941-1945 in Europe are also buried at the Berlin 1939-45 War Cemetery and Durnbach War Cemetery in Germany, and Holten Canadian War Cemetery in The Netherlands. (www.cwgc.org) 

Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Sydney War Memorial and Cemetery, Rookwood, Sydney, Australia.  "Here are recorded the names of the men and women who died in the Eastern and Southern regions of Australia on land, at sea and in the air but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades 1939 - 1945."

Privates Murphy and Bannerman who were buried at sea 45 miles NE of Cairns on the way to Port Moresby in 1942 (see 'Papua - Kokoda Track') are among the names on the Memorial at the Sydney War Cemetery at Rookwood.. (www.cwgc.org) 

Photo courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of the Lae War Cemetery, Papua New Guinea. The cemetery is the last resting place of 37 men from the 2/1st Battalion who died in the Aitape-Wewak Campaign in New Guinea during 1945 (www.cwgc.org)