BASE SECTION 7,
 USAF CEMETERY - ROOKWOOD
SYDNEY, NSW
IN AUSTRALIA DURING WWII

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A US Armed Forces Cemetery was established at the civilian Rookwood Cemetery at Hawthorne Avenue, Rookwood, Sydney in New South Wales during WWII.

Towards the end of the war there were 431 US Service personnel buried in the US Military Section of the Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney. Some of these were bodies that had been exhumed from other cemeteries such as the US Military Section on the Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth, in Western Australia.

 

Main entrance to Rookwood Cemetery where
American servicemen were buried during WWII

 

The American military embalmed their dead so that towards the end of the war, they could be exhumed and relocated to a number of larger cemeteries on the east coast of Australia such as Rookwood Cemetery and Ipswich Cemetery and be reburied for temporary storage until they were exhumed again and taken by special ship back to Hawaii for burial in cemeteries nominated by their relatives.

The 9105th Technical Service Unit was established in the American spring of 1947 to carry out disinterments in Hawaii and the Pacific area. It comprised 8 Field Operating Sections which were dispatched in whole or in part to carryout exhumations. The American ship USAT Goucher Victory arrived in Brisbane on 17 November 1947 to take the bodies back to Hawaii. Three Field Operating Sections and one third of the Mobile Port Company of the 9105th Technical Service Unit disembarked without the need for the customary passport requirements which had been waived.

 


Photo:- Sydney Morning Herald 17 May 1944

Kneeling were Private Ollie M. Johnson (South Carolina) and Private, First Class, Dorothy M. Helgenberg
(Philadelphia) from the recently-arrived W.A.C. contingent, placing a wreath at the base of the flagstaff in
 the American section of the Rookwood cemetery on 16 May 1947. On the right were Brigadier-General T. E.
Rilea (Commanding General Base Section, Sydney) and Lieutenant-Colonel Mary-Agnes Brown (Commanding
Officer of the W.A.C.s in the Southwest Pacific Area SWPA.)

 

A service was held at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney on 30 May 1947, to decorate the grave of each US Sailor, soldier and airman buried in Australia during WWII. See the photo below. US Naval rating from the US Tanker Mattaponi, American ex-Servicemen, and RSL members were posted along the lines of graves as the ode of dedication was read. The service concluded with the firing of a three-volley salute by Australian soldiers and the sounding of "Taps" (The American equivalent of the Last Post), followed by the Reveille, played by an Australian bugler as the Stars and Stripes, flown at half-mast throughout the service, was once again raised. The service was conducted by Chaplain Hulme-Moir.

 


Photo:- Sydney Morning Herald

Dedication ceremony at the American Memorial Day service at Rookwood Cemetery on 30 May 1947

 

Local labourers were used to exhume 465 deceased (another source suggests that there were 472 bodies) from Rookwood Cemetery with work starting on 17 November 1947. After processing in accordance with Australian Health Regulations, the remains were relocated by truck to the nearest Railway Station for shipment to Brisbane in south east Queensland. Caskets were always hidden from the view of the public by tarpaulin covers. An American ex serviceman then living in Australia was hired to escort the shipment to Mausoleum No. 4 at Redbank about 16 miles from Brisbane.

Exhumations were completed at both Rookwood and Ipswich by 20 December 1947. Caskets from both Rookwood (465 souls) and Ipswich (1,406 souls) were then loaded onboard USAT Goucher Victory in the Brisbane River.

A ceremony was held in the Brisbane City Hall on 22 December 1947 to honour the American dead. A coffin containing the body of an unknown American soldier was paraded ceremoniously on a gun carriage through Brisbane King George Square where the cortege stopped in front of City Hall where wreaths were laid by officers of the Australian Commonwealth Government, the Brisbane City Council, various patriotic organisations and the American Consul. The parade was watched by approximately 30,000 Brisbane residents. The cortege then moved to Newstead Wharf where Taps were sounded and three volleys fired.

The caskets containing US servicemen left Brisbane on board USAT Goucher Victory before Christmas 1947. USAT Goucher Victory then travelled to Guadalcanal where the caskets were unloaded and then loaded onto the USAT Cardinal O'Connell along with 3,346 souls recovered from Guadalcanal which then travelled to Hawaii.

 

REFERENCES

"Memorial Day for USA - Devotion to Peace", The Sydney Morning Herald, Sat 31 May 1947

 

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