As Remembrance Day approaches, we would like to reflect on an historic moment for Australia, symbolising the Anzac Spirit.
During the Great War of 1914-18, on the battlefields of northern France, an Australian soldier perished. He was among 61,720 troops killed in action during the war.
Despite the meticulous records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at the end of the war, his body was unidentifiable.
Rob Allison, former Managing Director of TJ Andrews, offered his services to the Australian War Memorial as an honorary consultant. He acted as a funeral director in the ceremonies at Villers-Bretonneux, at the Menin Gate at Ypres in Belgium and at Cambrai Air Base in the north of France.
After these services, the unknown soldier’s remains were boarded onto a specially named Qantas 747, 'The Spirit of Remembrance', for the return to Australia.
The final and most important ceremony began on the morning of November 11, exactly 75 years after the end of the war in which he had fought. It was on this day, the then Prime Minister, Paul Keating read the eulogy and the ‘Unknown Soldier’ was entombed in the Hall of Memory in the Australian War Memorial, coming to be officially recognised as a poignant and powerful symbol of all Australians who have died in war.