Anzac Memorial Ave Certificate

History

In the period after the First World War a grief stricken country erected thousands of memorials to the fallen. One of the most poignant was ANZAC Memorial Avenue, the 18 kilometre road that connects Petrie in North Brisbane to Redcliffe on Moreton Bay.  Built by ex-servicemen, the road was lined with 1700 trees funded by public donations at a cost of £1/1s (just over $60 in today’s money) per tree, and each could be dedicated to a fallen digger.

One donor was Mary Uhlmann who paid for trees to be planted in memory of her three half-brothers killed during the war; Ernest, Walter and Frederick Blake from Norman Park in Brisbane’s south.

Walter and Frederick were both killed in 1915 on Gallipoli.

On 14th September, a day after the official German surrender, the AE1 left Rabaul Harbour accompanied by the destroyer HMAS Parramatta, to patrol Cape Gazelle to the south.  At 3.20 in the afternoon Parramatta lost sight of the AE1 in the haze and the boat was never seen again.  The disappearance was Australia’s first major loss of World War I, earning poor Ernest the unenviable title of Queensland’s first Great War casualty.  He was just 22 years old.

This Certificate is for three trees for the three Servicemen who were killed in WW1.

Yvonne Chapman – Mayor of the Pine River Shire Council presented the original Certificate to the Pine Rivers RSL Sub-Branch at Kallangur, Qld

One Serviceman was –

Ernest Blake – Individual File

Ernest Blake – Commonwealth War Graves Commission “Debt of Honour” Certificate

Qld Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages – The Trees of Anzac Ave