Australia\u2019s thousands of prisoners of war \u2013 including some of the WA heroes captured while serving their country \u2013 have been remembered at a memorial service in King\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n
The Ex-POW Association was formed in 1947 following the cessation of WWII and the repatriation of Ex-POWs back home to Australia.<\/p>\n
And every year,\u00a0 the WA branch holds a memorial service at King\u2019s Park to remember their sacrifice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the Boer War to the Korean War, over 35,000 Australian service men and women were captured and endured incarceration as Prisoners of War.<\/p>\n
They included Arthur Leggett, whose passing last year aged 105 meant no former POWs were represented at the service for the very first time.<\/p>\n
This year, his daughters Maureen Rayson and Sue Meagher did attend, and laid a wreath in memory of their father.<\/p>\n
In his address, Governor Chris Dawson remembered another WA hero \u2013 the last of WA\u2019s POWs who died earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIvan Howell passed away in March, aged 101. With him, he took his own remarkable story of bravery,\u201d the Governor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNearly 30 sorties as a member of RAAF, until in February 1945 flying over Germany the Lancaster Bomber he was in began to shudder from stern to stern, with an engine on fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pilot told Ivan and others to prepare to \u2018disembark\u2019 \u2013 at about 8000ft. Which is what he did over their intended target of Karlsruhe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin minutes of hitting the ground, Ivan was captured. Ivan was only in captivity for a matter of months.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he was still held in four different camps, including Nuremberg Germany before being liberated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIvan was the last of a generation in Western Australia. And his story, is our history.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the memory of Ivan, and all his like. We hope that what they suffered will not be suffered again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pupils of Mount Lawley Senior High School were central to the commemoration ceremony, with the school having been closely connected to Mr Leggett for many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s thousands of prisoners of war \u2013 including some of the WA heroes captured while serving their country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[317899,64,63,317900,317901,44,317902,317903],"class_list":["post-657467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-arthur-leggett","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ex-pow-association-of-wa","tag-mount-lawley-senior-high-school","tag-news","tag-prisoners-of-war","tag-ray-galliott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}