Remembering fallen comrades

By SQNLDR Steve Laredo

CPL Elizabeth Crean, 92WGDETA, and CPL Barney Hayward, 324CSS, reflect at Penang’s Commonwealth memorial to the fallen of the First Malayan Emergency.

Photo provided by 324CSS

From Yorkshire to Malaysia is a long way, but for English veterans, the journey to commemorate fallen mates has been made easy by Air Force members.

On an oppressively hot Sunday morning on June 5, in the Western Road Cemetery in Penang, members of No. 324 Combat Support Squadron Butterworth and No. 92 Wing Detachment Alpha joined with former members of The 2nd Battalion, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI), and their families, to celebrate their annual pilgrimage to the site of their service during the First Malayan Emergency of 1947-1951.

A shining black marble memorial lists the names of the fallen KOYLI members as well as others from Australia, the UK and Nepal, and some of their dependants who are interred at the cemetery.

On the day, 324CSS’s padre, Chaplain Mark Willis, led the service with a reflection on the conflict read by the CO, Wing Commander Peter Viggers.

Sergeant Bob Ausic laid a wreath on behalf of the ADF, and Dave Green, a local expatriate Australian, sounded a stirring Last Post.

Greater funding from the UK will mean that even more former servicemen will be able to make the pilgrimage to Penang in 2006, and the personnel at Butterworth said they were looking forward to the next visit.

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