History Club Wins Anzac Day Schools Award for NSW - Presented by Dr Freelander
On the 21 August 2023, the Hon Matt Keogh MP, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel announced that St. Patrick’s College History Club was the NSW State Winner in the Anzac Day Schools Award.
This year the awards focused on the Vietnam War, as it is the 50th anniversary of the Australian withdrawal from Vietnam in 2023. This is the fourth time the College has received a prize in these prestigious awards. We were honoured to have our local Federal MP, Dr Mike Freelander, come and present the award to the students during History Club on the 23 October. The Year 11 students gave a presentation to the audience outlying their research method and findings.
The project was entirely student driven, primarily by the Year 11 members of History Club, with the aims to:
1. Educate their peers beyond the classroom about the Vietnam War.
2. Create a website that recognises Campbelltown’s contribution to the Vietnam War to be used as a classroom learning tool and ultimately become publicly available for all in our community.
3. Engage with our local Vietnam Veteran community and video personal accounts of the Vietnam War for posterity.
To achieve these aims, the following projects were undertaken:
1 Anzac Day School Assembly - ‘Remembering the Vietnam War’ This was a student driven multimedia assembly to educate peers about the causes, nature and impact of the Vietnam War on Australia and our local community of Campbelltown. The students paid tribute to the five local men killed in Vietnam, particularly, Kevin ‘Dasher’ Wheatley, the first Victoria Cross recipient in Vietnam. Students also looked at the anti-Vietnam protests in Australia by discussing a Campbelltown woman, Nadine Jensen, who threw red paint on the 1st Battalion whilst marching in Sydney in 1966.
2. Interviewing Vietnam Veterans from Campbelltown – After writing a letter of request to our local RSL sub branch, students staged two sessions interviewing and video recording veterans. Questions ranged from experiences at Nui Dat, combat, entertainers in Vietnam, American soldiers and returning home and PTSD. The wife of a veteran was also interviewed to get the perspective of a woman of the time. The Local Studies Team of Campbelltown Library was also involved as these interviews will be donated to its oral history collection for posterity. We were fortunate to interview veterans Denis Wass, Ray Ezzy and Colin Noonan and the wife of a veteran, Mrs Elaine Monkcom to get a women's perspective.
3. Creation of a website ‘The Vietnam War in Campbelltown’ – A Google Drive Folder was created and students were allocated a topic relating to the service of people from Campbelltown. Students researched online primary sources from the Australian War Memorial, Anzac Portal and digitised newspapers through Trove. The videoed interviews were also an important part of this research. Each student was responsible for a page of the website and researched this for two months.
4. Campbelltown and Camden Anzac Day Marches 2023.
We held a small gathering on the 23 October at lunchtime where Dr Freelander presented the award and certificates to each of the Year 11 students involved. Dr Freelander also presented certificates to our veterans Ray Ezzy, Colin Noonan and Denis Wass for being part of this project, and Elaine Monkcom, ex staff member and wife of a veteran, for being interviewed. Certificates of thanks were also issued to Andrew Allen and Michael Sullivan of the Local Studies Team, Campbelltown Library.
We also thank Mr Iain Richard-Evan, President of Camden RSL sub branch for attending.
The $3000 prize money will be re-invested into the History Club aiming to have more historical costumes made including World War I VADs, and nurse uniforms from World War II and the Vietnam War.
Fran Musico Rullo - History Club Coordinator
