Cenotaph guns to be restored by veterans

Both of the iconic World War II artillery guns at the Wonthaggi Cenotaph are set to receive some upgrades, scheduled to be removed in August for a refurbishment project led by Afghanistan veterans.

The Wonthaggi RSL is collaborating with members of The Fallen 41, an Afghanistan veteran-led group named in honour of the 41 Australian soldiers who died during operations in Afghanistan.

The project is expected to be completed and signed off by the end of November, when the two guns will be returned to the cenotaph.

Fallen 41 member Paul Ford told the Sentinel-Times that the group had secured a Department of Veterans’ Affairs grant to support the restoration work to be carried out by veterans.

“The Fallen 41 group is a group of Afghanistan veterans,” Mr Ford said.

“They served in task forces overseas, but don’t really have an organisation to come back to so much for things like Anzac Day or Remembrance Day.”

The group has established a project at Neerim Junction, where Afghanistan veterans can work together to restore vehicles and other military-related items.

Mr Ford said the work gives veterans a shared purpose.

“That gives them a common purpose to come and work on a project with people who understand their background,” he said.

“They build trust with that group, and then they’ll start to talk about the individual issues that they’re facing as a veteran, which could be isolation, lack of support, or something like that.”

The two guns from Wonthaggi will be picked up in the first week of August before being taken to a contractor for sandblasting.

They’ll then be relocated to the Neerim junction workshop, where Afghanistan veterans will carry out preservation and repair works.

The work will include various restoration methods, such as treating rust, removing sharp edges, replacing worn plates, fitting new seats and potentially replacing the circular base mount on one of the guns.

“It will be the veterans themselves doing the work,” Mr Ford said.

“A lot of them have been in engineering units within the army and are well aware of what’s going on.”

The project is expected to cost about $16,000, which will be funded through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs grant.

Mr Ford said the Fallen 41 members would also be contributing about 350 hours of labour, valued at around a further $16,000.

Wonthaggi RSL President Kevin Walsh said the RSL technically owns the guns via heritage control.

“We have heritage control,” Mr Walsh said.

“We work in conjunction with council, but technically we own them.”

The works won’t end with the refurbishments, though, as Wonthaggi RSL vice president Dan Lucas said the RSL was also looking to relocate the guns when they returned, moving them to the front lower corners of the cenotaph, which would require new concrete slabs, with the existing concrete needing replacement before the guns were reinstalled.

Mr Lucas said the RSL will also be looking at potential future grants to fully restore the guns, with the hope they could one day blank fire for Anzac Day.

Mr Walsh said the RSL wished to provide clarity to the community on why the guns will be removed.

“We don’t want people saying they’ve been stolen or anything like that,” he said.

“But the second thing is that we want to make sure that people understand that service today is the same as World War II service.

“We would like to explain ourselves a bit more in that space, so that people know how to support us and know what we get up to.”