In his address to the commemorative service in memory of the 26 sappers (engineers) killed in the Kapooka tragedy of May 21, 1945, Commandant Colonel Mick Garraway, gave some historical WWII examples of sappers’ exploits, some of whom would have trained earlier at the Australian Engineers Training Centre, Kapooka.

Australian sappers featured prominently during operation OBOE 1 which included the battle to capture and take Tarakan island off Borneo. On May 1, 1945 (20 days before the Kapooka tragedy), as American landing ships and craft hit the beach, the Australian engineers went in first and cleared gaps through the beach defences with explosives before the main assault.

"So these men (at Kapooka) were very aware of the operations they were being prepared for," Colonel Garraway reminded those present last Sunday.

On July 1 the engineers played another major role in the largest ever Australian-led amphibious assault by 33,000 allied troops who attacked Balikpapan; they cleared enemy minefields, destroyed traps, pill-boxes and other Japanese defensive obstacles.

Sunday's service was the largest held with, for the first time, a sappers' platoon from Kapooka marching on; one of them, Sapper Curtis Harris, read The Soldiers Prayer; he was the first of Kapooka's Indigenous trainees to attend the TAFE education program and marched out last Friday to start his engineer training in Sydney.

The service grows in stature each year and was marked last Sunday by the presence of a large number of relatives and friends of the young men killed at Kapooka.

Colonel Garraway referred to Wagga as "very much a garrison town" in the war years with the Army's engineers camp, the RAAF's Forest Hill base and the flying training school at Uranquinty; there were also flying schools at Temora, Narrandera and Deniliquin and an air observers school at Cootamundra.

Wagga remains a garrison town today continuing the proud tradition we, as citizens, should remember always. As the Commandant reminded us, the tragedy was a loss for the community as well; those men were involved in social and sports activities, often invited into homes for a meal, as they continue to be today. The day the 26 sappers were buried, my mother took me to be among the thousands lining Edward Street to watch four semi-trailers bearing the coffins pass on the way to Wagga war cemetery; my father, Bill, also a sapper, served with the RAE firstly in Moratoi, then, at the time of the Kapooka tragedy, in New Guinea.

Council's lesson

IT IS hoped council never again follows the practice of seeking reports, studies and consultancies from outside "experts" where they can be sourced and less expensively so by professionals within the city.  The controversial Integrated Transport Strategy could have been done, as former deputy mayor, Lindsay Vidler said, by any number of competent people within Wagga.

Instead, vital decisions affecting the city have been further delayed  As for the parking and traffic disasters surrounding the hospitals precinct, these might have been averted if the base hospital had been re-built on a green field site as most of us wanted.