I MMS'd the images to my mother today. She showed her mother, who cried when she saw them.
She has now asked me to revamp the medal display for my Great Grandfather (2nd Lt. Thomas Endymion Lewis, MM, MID), my grandfather Kenneth Walter Powell (survivor of Milne Bay, bombed in Darwin and the shelling of Townsville) and my grandmother, Betty Joyce Powell (nee Lewis. She was a transport driver).
On my fathers side there were several, but my Grandfather, Gordon John Burnett Maynard, was the last surviving WW2 veteran in the North Burnett, and the last Light Horseman in QLD (he died only 2 years ago)
https://www.centralnorthburnetttimes...heart/2722246/
Very long military tradition in our family going back to the Boer War.
Below is a photo of my Great Grandfather Thom Lewis when he was a 2nd Lt in the 13th MG Battalion, taken in France (2nd row, 4th from the left). He survived WW1, rehabilitated in a London hospital (he was gassed and also buried alive when he was seconded to lead the fledgling American forces ), returned to Australia in 1919, then signed up again in WW2, and lead the district VDC as he was deemed too old and medically unfit (because of the gassing) to serve front line. I still have his VDC Sam Browne belt and Rising Sun badges. he died in 1954 from pneumonia, undoubtedly grossly exacerbated by the gassing he got.