THE STORY of the Australian Army’s first Aboriginal Commissioned Officer, Captain Reginald Saunders, now takes pride of place in the recently opened Main Entrance of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Born near Purnim, Victoria, on the Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve in 1920, Captain Saunders was a Gunditjmara man who served in both the Second World War and in the Korean War.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese marked the occasion saying the new entrance was “A place of light. It is a physical rendering of the Ode of Remembrance,” he said.

“For nearly eight and a half decades, the Australian War Memorial has kept the memory. It is one of our most precious national treasures.

“And in honouring Captain Reginald Saunders, the first Australian Aboriginal commissioned officer in the Australian Army, it honours a spirit of courage so deeply ingrained in this continent that all Australians can be proud.” …