AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22459, 21 July 1938, Page 18

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL

UNVEILING BY KING CEREMONY AT VILLERS BRETONNEUX ' To be unveiled by the King during his visit to France, the Australian war memorial at Villers Bretonneux was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the famous architect, who designed the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. Villers Bretonneux is the village on the main road between Amiens and Lerbnne where, in the spring of 1918, the Australian corps made a gallant stand to stop the German advance on Amiens. The memorial consists of a tower 103 feet high, within which is a staircase leading up to an exit to an outside platform on the front face of *the tower, at a level of 64 feet. From this platform there are stairways to entrances on the right and left to an observation room occupying the whole of the upper part of the tower. The floor of this room is 75 feet from the ground, and four large windows afford views in all directions of the surrounding country and battlefields. Flanking the central tower on either side- are walls in ashlar formation forming three sides of a courtyard, and bearing the names of 11,000 Australian soldiers who have no known graves. The names of 6141 Australians who fell in Belgium are already inscribed in the Menin Gate. The walls are terminated by loggias which give dignity to the central tower and harmonise with the loggias.on either side of the entrance to Villers Bretonneux cemetery, which gives access to the memorial. During the unveiling ceremony, the ashes of memorial wreath ribbons burned after Anzac Day ceremonies on cenotaphs in Australia will be scattered over the graves of Australian Soldiers in the Villers Bretonneux cemetery.