Community
17 April, 2026
Panmure to expand honour for soldiers
THE names of three additional soldiers will be memorialised in Panmure as part of this year’s Anzac Day commemorations on Saturday, April 25.
Anzac Day services in Panmure have centred around a theme each year, which last year saw the descendants of nine prisoners of war in attendance to see their loved ones memorialised.
Panmure Action Group president Ian Wallace said this year an additional three names would be added to the memorial; Murray Jobling from Grassmere, Dave Brown from Warrnambool and Vincent Mathieson from Nullawarre.
Each of the three faced unimaginable experiences during the service in World War II, which Mr Wallace has meticulously researched over the past eight months to be read out at the service.
Murray Jobling had been captured by the Japanese in 1942 while serving in Java.
“Murray was taken prisoner by the Japanese before being transported on an unmarked Japanese troop ship, the Tomohoku Maru, which was torpedoed.
“He and around 200 other Australians, because they were on the top deck of the ship, ended up in the water.
“The other poor devils below went down with the ship.
“They were adrift all night before one lot was picked up by the Americans and one lot was picked up by the Japanese the next day.”
Murray was among those who survived the sinking of the ship but was retrieved by the Japanese and transported to a prisoner camp outside Nagasaki – where he would be among those to experience one of the most devastating events in global history.
“He was taken to a prison camp on the outskirts of Nagasaki, where they were working in the mines, and Murray saw the atomic bomb go off,” Mr Wallace said.
“Being soldiers they knew what the percussion was all about so they dived back into the mines where they were working and that’s how they survived the heat, percussion and radiation.
“Not long after that the war was declared, and he returned to set up a settlement block in Grassmere to raise a family.”
Mr Wallace said the second prisoner of war to be memorialised, Vincent Mathieson was one of five family members to enlist when he joined the war effort in 1940.
“One of the brothers, Doug, went through training and was sent to Rabaul, and started getting the Australian defence up as the Japanese were preparing to invade it,” Mr Wallace said.
“Vincent, who was slowed in his training after being hospitalised with mumps, went through his training and hooked up with the group called Lark force, specialist jungle forces, who were also deployed to Rabaul.
“The two brothers ended up fighting side by side.
“Doug ended up with tropical ulcers, so he was sent to Darwin, but Vince fought on and, consequently, they were overrun by the Japanese and taken prisoner.”
The ‘Fall of Rabaul’ was one of Australia’s worst losses in war – with a Japanese invasion of the key strategic advancement position outnumbering the Australians five-to-one, 28 soldiers were killed and more than 1000 were taken captive.
“What the Japanese did to a lot of those soldiers was round them up, march them into the jungle and massacre them (160 soldiers in total were killed),” Mr Wallace said.
“Vince survived among the remaining prisoners of war in 1942, where he was transported on a ship called the Montevideo Maru in the south china sea – where it was torpedoed and sunk within three minutes.
“Over 1000 soldiers on it went down with the ship, and Vince was one of them.”
The final solider set to be memorialised, Dave Brown from Warrnambool, had served in Palestine, Greece and Crete.
“He was wounded in the back of the neck on the right-hand side, with the bullet coming out of his cheek on the left hand side,” Mr Wallace said.
“The bullet missed vital areas but he was in a fair bit of trouble.
“He was in a trench and, as he was coming to, there were six German soldiers with rifles trained on him.
“He surrendered and was worked on by the medical crew, where he was sent to Greece to a German hospital where they patched him up and sent him off to a Stalag camp (camp for prisoners of war) for three and a half years.
“The tide of the war was turning and the Russians were heading to let all 30,000 prisoners of war out.”
Sensing the turning of the war, the prisoners of war were all moved – where Mr Brown would be part of what is known as the Lamsdorf Death March.
“The Germans rounded them all up and marched them through the minus-15-degree winter in knee-deep snow,” Mr Wallace said.
“As the poor devils fell, they would be shot.
“That went on for four-and-a-half months, where they would travel for 350 miles.
“In the end, they lost 3000 soldiers.
“Dave survived that, came back to Warrnambool and lived out his days.”
The history of these soldiers will be read out at the Panmure Anzac Day service.
The commemorations will begin at 2pm with a march along the Harris Street service road from the corner of Church Lane, before the service begins immediately following at approximately 2.15pm.
“This year we’ll have a flyover with two aircraft – a 1914 biplane and a Russian plane used in the Korean war, a 1951 YAK,” Mr Wallace said.
“The Country Fire Authority will be doing the flag monitoring, Jack Kenna from The Sisters will be doing a poem, Moyne Shire Council mayor Cr Jordan Lockett will read the ode, Don Cowling will be singing and a choir will sing the national anthem.”
