Australian Machine Gun CorpsPrint Page

An ornate marble and bronze  tablet which displays five enamelled unit colour patches, representing the five battalions attached to the five Australian Divisions during World War One.

It commemorates the Queensland members of the Australian Machine Gun Corps who died in service or were killed in action during World War One. 

The tablet in the Memorial Chamber at Anzac Square, Brisbane, erected by the Machine Gunners' Association of Queensland to the memory of machine gunners who were killed during the war, was unveiled by the Governor (Sir Leslie Wilson) yesterday morning. Colonel E. G. Radford, Patron of the association, said the tablet had been designed and made by machine gunners-men who had been members of what had come to be called the suicide club. The association was formed 10 years ago, and now had between 300 and 400 members. Machine gunners, said the Governor, in unveiling the tablet, had seen more front line trench warfare than any other unit.

He thought that Queensland should be proud of the fact that it had had 13 machine gun companies, for there were no men throughout the length and breadth of the army who did more arduous work than the machine gunners. A service was conducted by the Rev. R. St. George, and members of the association formed a guard of honour for the Governor. Mrs. E. Costin, mother of Lieut. W. J. Costin, who was the first Australian machine gunner to be killed at Gallipoli, placed a wreath at the foot of the tablet on behalf of the relatives of machine gunners who fell during the war.
Queensland Times (Ipswich) (Qld), 22 August 1935.

Location

Details

Dedication