🚨 HE SPENT HIS ENTIRE LIFE SERVING HIS COUNTRY… BUT NOW, AUSTRALIA IS SAYING GOODBYE TO ITS LAST LIVING KOKODA VETERAN, A MAN HONORED AND REMEMBERED BY GENERATIONS
‘Your legacy is all around us.’
Australia’s last surviving veteran of the Kokoda campaign, Reg Chard, has died aged 102.
Chard, a brave digger who never wanted to be known as a hero, passed away peacefully at Campbelltown Hospital in Sydney on Friday morning.
“With heavy hearts, we farewell Reg Chard,” RSL Australia said.
“We extend our deepest condolences to Reg’s family, friends and all the lives he touched throughout his incredible life.
“Rest easy, Reg. Your courage lives on in every step along that track.”
A spokesperson for the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway, where Chard was “one of the central characters”, said he was devoted to ensuring “his generation’s courage and sacrifice in WWII would be honoured always”.
“Well done Reg — a life of service comes to an end but your legacy is all around us at the Walkway. RIP,” they said.
Chard previously told 7NEWS how important the memorial was to him, saying it was a place that helped him heal and gave him purpose following the death of his wife, Betty.
“This is (a part of me). As my son says, take your bloody bed over there, dad,” he said.
A Facebook page run by descendants of diggers who served in the 55/53 Australian Infantry Battalion said Chard was a “proud veteran”.
“Those who had the privilege of knowing Reg will remember a kind and generous man whose quiet strength, wisdom and integrity earned the respect of all who met him,” the page said.
“His life was one of service — not only during wartime, but throughout the many decades that followed.
“While we mourn the loss of a truly remarkable Australian, we also celebrate a life extraordinarily well lived.
“Reg leaves behind a legacy of service, honour and remembrance that will continue to inspire for many years to come.”
Chard left his job as an apprentice baker to enlist in the army as an 18-year-old in 1942.
“They kitted us out with a pair of boots, pair of socks, pair of khaki shorts, khaki shirt, gators, tin hat, felt hat, rifle, bayonet, 200 rounds of ammunition, 24 hand grenades, pen knife, tin of wax Vesta matches, and two bandages,” he recounted previously.
“The bandages were too small for anything bigger than a cigarette burn. That’s what we went away with.”
He and other recruits boarded a ship in Townsville bound for Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, where he said they were given “three days to acclimatise to the unbearable heat” before they were sleeping on the ground with “no tents and no beds”.
During his service, he was struck down with malaria, and woke up thinking he was a prisoner of war.
‘We couldn’t retreat any further’
He was nursed back to health and sent back into the jungle, where the famous campaign vital to stopping the Japanese from advancing across the Pacific towards Australia was taking place.
“You just jumped in with whoever you found. No one knew which Battalion you were in,” he said.
“We were pushing the Japanese back at Kokoda. At Imita Ridge we couldn’t retreat any further.
“From there it was only 1.5 days to Port Moresby. If they made it to Moresby we would have been wiped out.
“But at Imita Ridge the Japanese retreated.
“We thought they had run out of supplies and gone back to get reinforcements, but they had moved their resources to Bougainville and the Solomon Islands where the Americans were.”
More than 600 Australians were killed during the Kokoda campaign, and more than 1600 were wounded.
Chard had made it clear on numerous occasions he did not want to be referred to as a “hero”, saying that was a title he reserved for soldiers “who didn’t come home”.
His biography The digger of Kokoda: The official biography of Reg Chard was published in 2022.
SOURCE: https://7news.com.au/news/reg-chard-australias-last-surviving-kokoda-veteran-dies-aged-102-c-22623825