Patrick Tiernan
Flight Sergeant Patrick Edward Thomas Tiernan

March 20, 2014

South Burnett councillors will contribute $15,250 towards the cost of sending nine delegates to Dodewaard in the Netherlands in May this year to attend a special commemoration honouring Murgon’s WWII hero Patrick Tiernan.

The group have been invited to the town by the Mayor of the Dutch municipality of Neder-Betuwe, Burgemeester Kees Veerhoek, for the 70th anniversary of the deaths of Patrick Tiernan and fellow crewman Alfred Burns (from Lidcombe, NSW).

Both men died when their Halifax bomber was shot down over the skies of Dodewaard on June 17, 1944. Their bodies are buried in Dodewaard cemetery.

In 2012, the South Burnett Regional Council received a request from Burgemeester Veerhoek to participate in a commemoration of the Tiernan burial site, which in Dodewaard symbolises the allied forces’ contribution to the liberation of Europe from the Nazis.

Each year on May 4 – Dutch Remembrance Day – members of the Dodewaard Town Council, children from two elementary schools, veterans of Dodewaard and the local WWII Memorial Committee visit the graves of Patrick Tiernan and Alfred Burns to lay flowers and hold two minutes silence.

2014 marks the 70th anniversary of their deaths, and is also the centenary of the commencement of World War I.

A community committee was formed in the South Burnett in February last year to honour Patrick Tiernan and show gratitude to the Dodewaard community for looking after the two airmen’s graves for seven decades, and it has arranged the trip.

The committee sought financial assistance from various organisations and Government agencies to fund the trip in its entirety.

While some funding was received from the Murgon and Kingaroy RSL Sub-Branches, Education Queensland and the Federal Government, the upcoming Anzac Day centenary celebrations in 2015 meant that less was forthcoming from the Federal Government than had been expected.

Because of this, the original planned delegation of a dozen has now been reduced to nine.

The delegation will now comprise:

  • SBRC Mayor Wayne Kratzmann and his wife Eleanor
  • One representative from the Kingaroy RSL Sub-Branch
  • One representative from the Murgon RSL Sub-Branch
  • Murgon State High School 2014 captains Kirsten Upton and Geoffrey Kinsella
  • Murgon State High School principal Greg Smith
  • Murgon Business and Development Association president Leo Geraghty
  • South Burnett historian Liz Caffery
  • South Burnett Regional Council CEO Ken McLoughlin and his partner Bev Mariner

SBRC Mayor Wayne Kratzmann’s wife Eleanor, Murgon State High School’s Principal Greg Smith and SBRC CEO Ken McLoughlin and his partner will be attending the event at their own expense.

At Wednesday’s monthly SBRC meeting, Councillors voted to fund the $15,250 shortfall from their own Councillors Conference/Community Discretionary Projects funds, and to self fund their own discretionary conference and training costs for the remainder of the financial year.

The Council will also invite South Burnett relatives of fallen service persons who may be buried at the Menin Gate, Buttes, Tyne Cot and Flanders Field war cemeteries to contact Council so that delegates can participate in a public recognition at their relatives’ grave site while the group is in the Netherlands.

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