Flashback: Lasting link to lost Diggers

Images courtesy of City of Moreton Bay, reference number PRLPC-P0001. 

Sources: The Story of Anzac Memorial Avenue (2014 edition), History Redcliffe archives.

These days, Anzac Memorial Avenue is a major arterial road linking Redcliffe to Petrie but when it was first imagined, it aimed to serve as a link to the homegrown Diggers who gave their lives in WW1.

The idea for a memorial to honour local fallen soldiers was mooted shortly after the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.

The overwhelming consensus was that it needed to be something of grand magnitude that would benefit the community for years to come. A road for the growing number of motor vehicles being used by locals and visitors was a popular option.

In 1921, Royal Automobile Club of Queensland President TJ Rothwell put the proposal to his members and the Redcliffe Road was selected. An organising committee was established seeking support from motorists and the public.

The project not only aimed to honour fallen Diggers, it was designed to create employment for returned soldiers and others struggling to find work in tough times.

A notice was published in the Daily Mail on July 1, 1922.

“The result will be at least one good road in the metropolitan area, and this will doubtless be the forerunner of many more,” it read.

Later that month, the same publication reported there had been a meeting in Redcliffe during which Mr Rothwell outlined the proposal. A committee was formed to get the ball rolling and seek support from Main Roads.

It was decided that, as well as building a road, the project would plant trees lining the route to honour individual fallen soldiers and make it a landmark. Donations were sought and badges sold to raise money.

A sign was erected outside the Commonwealth Bank in Queen Street to monitor fundraising progress.

Reports in The Steering Wheel publication in December 1922 said work on the road, with 25 returned soldiers, had started. By March 1923, 50 soldiers were toiling on the project.

In November 1923, the Brisbane Courier reported the road was slowly taking shape including the bridge over Hays Inlet, which was expected to open the following month. It said total expenditure had been more than £30,000.

On March 4, 1925, The Brisbane Telegraph printed an article about a ceremony to celebrate the planting of the first trees.

The ‘Pioneer Trees of Anzac Memorial Avenue’, included palm trees donated by the widow of Tom Petrie, which were planted at the School of Arts at Petrie. She received a certificate for the first tree, a Firewheel Tree, planted at the corner of White’s Road.

Anzac Memorial Avenue was officially opened on December 5, 1925, with Queensland Premier Mr W Forgan-Smith performing the honours.

The first tree planting ceremony in Redcliffe was held on July 7, 1926.

Less than two years later, TJ Rothwell died. A memorial recognising his contribution was erected in 1933 ‘in the triangle at the junction of the roads to Petrie, Redcliffe and Caboolture’.

This memorial, to the man who lobbied for the project, is among a number of war memorials now dotted along Anzac Avenue.

One of these is a model of the HMAS AE2, opened in 2014, which was the first submarine to penetrate the Dardanelles in Turkey during WWI on April 24, 1915.

The vessel was scuttled a week after its Dardanelles heroics by its commanding officer after sustaining damage from an Ottoman torpedo boat. It was sunk in the Sea of Marmara.

Its sister submarine HMAS AE1 was lost patrolling New Guinea waters in September 1914. The crew included 14 Australians and among them was Ernest Robert Blake, the youngest of six children to Mary Nichols and her second husband Edward Blake. Ernest was Queensland’s first Great War casualty.

Two of his brothers, Fredrick Alfred Herbert Blake and Walter Henry Blake enlisted after his death. They were both killed at Gallipoli.

The three Blake brothers were honoured by the donation of trees numbered 1242, 1244 and 1246 by Jacob and Mary Uhlmann, which were planted on Anzac Memorial Avenue. The young men were Mary’s half brothers

About 1700 trees were planted along the 18km stretch of road, at a cost of just over £1 per tree.

Images courtesy of City of Moreton Bay, reference number PRLPC-P0001.