A FADING band of old soldiers of the 2/23 (Albury’s Own) Battalion will be honoured guests at a big military reunion weekend on August 20-22.
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It will mark the 70th anniversary of the raising of the famous infantry battalion at the Albury Showgrounds in 1940.
Within months the battalion was fighting to defend Tobruk and went on to fight at El Alamein and in the Pacific Islands right to the end of World War II in 1945.
More than 300 were killed in action and another 800 became casualties of one kind or another.
Survivors of the battalion are in their 90s or late 80s and, while about 80 might still be living, probably only a quarter of those will be able to attend the weekend.
One of the reunion organisers, Helen Shiele, said yesterday that the weekend would begin with the Regent Cinemas showing the Chips Rafferty movie Rats of Tobruk on the Friday.
Saturday morning would see an official ceremony at The Scots School, site of the showgrounds in 1940, followed by a Freedom of the City march in Dean Street marshalled by Major Graham Docksey.
The battalion association was granted the symbolic freedom many years ago and will exercise its right to march through the city with banners flying and drums beating.
Father Peter McLeod-Miller will give a blessing in a short service in QEII Square to be attended by Colonel Andrew Adams, association president Neil Graham and mayor Alice Glachan.
The Commercial Club, which permanently displays the battle-scarred battalion drums, will host a dinner that evening.
St Matthews Church, where the battalion colours were destroyed in the fire of 1992, will hold a special service for the reunion on Sunday morning and former association president Don Tibbits, 85, will read a lesson.
Mr Tibbits, 85, served in the 2/23 from 1943-45 alongside the fathers of Ms Shiele and Mr Graham.
Wreaths will be laid at the battalion’s stained glass window at the church and a visit made to the Bandiana Army Museum.