One Family Anzac Story by John Tognolini

This is an Anzac Day story of two family members who both died in France in two different wars.

My Uncle Henry Phillips was stretcher bearer on the Western Front, France and Belgium. Also serving there were his brothers Stephen, Andrew, who were both Gallipoli Veterans and Jack/John Tognolini. Jack/John Tognolini was killed on the fourth Anzac Day at the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. He was was either 15 or 16 when he died. Fifteen hundred Australian died that Anzac Day in that victory against the German Army that liberated the village of Villers-Bretonneux.

Henry survived the War and had a family. His son Victor Phillips joined the Air Force in World War Two and was in Australian 466 Squadron in Bomber Command, based in Yorkshire, England.

                                                                           A Halifax Bomber

Victor Phillips was a Flight Sergeant and a mid-upper machine gunner on the top of one these bombers. On 2 June 1944, the bomber Victor was on crashed on a bombing raid, he was killed with two other crewmates, the rest of crew survived and became prisoners of war. Victor was only 19. Their bombing raid with twenty bombers was on the railway yards west of Paris and prevented the Nazis from moving troops and tanks by train to the D-Day Allied Invasion at Normandy.

 My mother Connie served in the Air Force in Australia and knew a lot of young men who died in Bomber Command in England. Twenty Thousand Australian airmen served with the Bomber Command, 3,486 were killed in it, fighting the Nazis in Germany and Nazi Occupied Europe.

Victor Phillips in London’s Trafalgar Square.

John/Jack Tognolini