Veterans from the Royal Australian Navy Helicopter Flight Vietnam, the EMUs, came from Western Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales to commemorate Vietnam Veterans’ Day at the Old Bar Public School on Saturday, August 18.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Also in attendance was a Navy pilot who served in the RAAF’s 9 Squadron in Vietnam and Mike Law, a US Army pilot who flew Huey and Cobra helicopters.
Mike is from Texas and is a committee member of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association.
While he was in Old Bar he collected oral histories of the members for histories to be stored in the University of Texas.
The Old Bar Public School is well known across Australia for hosting Vietnam Veterans’ Day and the former Chief of the Navy, Admiral Tim Barratt, attended a function in WA and made comment as to how wonderful this school is in the way it works with the veteran community.
In the audience was Andy Curran, who served on the RANHFV as a door gunner.
Andy is also the owner of WarBadges and forwarded two plaques to be presented to the school. He started WarBadges when he wanted memorabilia of his own unit, the 135th AHC EMUS and found that the best way was to manufacture them himself. (Source: www.warbadges.com)
The students conduct the ceremony and as the names of the 37 fallen EMUs were read out they pinned a ribbon bearing the names of each person on a board.
The service was very well attended by the public and excellent speeches were made by Chief Petty Officer Rod Tremlett RAN, MidCoast Council mayor David West and Kirralie Smith, local senate candidate.
After the service at the school, members adjourned to Club Old Bar where the Last Post Ceremony for Petty Officer Phillips was live streamed from the Australian War Memorial. PO Phillips was killed in August 1978 while flying as a door gunner in a US Army Gunship.
The members had an enjoyable dinner at Club Old Bar with photos of their time in the service projected onto the wall to bring back memories.
Many thanks to the Old Bar Public School and Club Old Bar for their support; greatly appreciated.