Soldier and artist: Trevor Youngman and Murray Ross in front of the Vietnam mural which the Tongala artist partially created from photos supplied by his friend.
Tongala’s status as one of Australia’s most celebrated war memorial towns has been enhanced with a mural that has been pieced together by a series of photographs by renowned artist and community leader Murray Ross.
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Last week’s unveiling of the mural, attached to the Mangan St facing wall of the RSL building at the Old Tongala Pub roundabout, could not be in a more visible location and is the latest in a series of memorials constructed in honour of Australian servicemen and women through the ages.
Just a few hundred metres down the street are a number of other war memorials which will eventually link together Australia’s war-time involvement from World War I to the modern-day conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Vietnam mural is a painting delivered by Murray Ross from a series of photographs (and his own research), several provided by a close friend of his who served in Vietnam.
Trevor Youngman, a friend of Murray’s from Castlemaine, was in the crowd for the opening and was able to easily recognise the scene that features several soldiers making their way through the open fields of Vietnam.
“Youngy gave me some photos, which I used as the base of the mural,” the artist said
“It’s not perfect. I’ve changed the tank and a couple of small things to piece it together.’’
Murray and Trevor’s wives were together at university, which is how they became friends.
Trevor Youngman joined the army in 1968 and spent 11 months in Victoria, before being injured and flown home by medivac. He woke up in a Sydney hospital.
The purpose of the mural is to tell the story of the Vietnam veterans and was started a month ago by the mural specialist, who has work hanging all around his home town.
Mural memories: Member for Murray Plains Peter Walsh, RSL Victoria’s Des Callaghan, artist Murray Ross and Vietnam veteran Alan Wallace at the opening of the mural in Tongala last week.
His latest creation features soldiers, helicopters and tanks, slotted between a pair of plaques explaining Australia’s involvement in Vietnam and a unique jungle scene which has running water to depict the rainfall of the tropical setting that greeted the soldiers.
Alan Wallace, a member of the Echuca Moama Vietnam Veterans and of the Tongala RSL sub-branch, was a Petty Officer in the Australian Navy for 11 years and served through the entire Vietnam conflict on the HMAS Vendetta and Yarra, having initially been on the HMAS Rushcutter.
He arrived at Tongala in 1972 and bought a dairy farm in 1974.
He said he and wife Jeanette had travelled a lot and had never seen anything like what Tongala had on offer, in regard to its murals.
After finishing a course in clearance diving he was deployed to Vietnam in August 1965, among the first Australia troops to deliver helicopters, tanks, supplies and ammunition.
Part of his role was to search at the ship’s hull for explosives, more often that not in the dark of night in the dirty and fast-flowing waters of Vietnam.
He spent much of his deployment on the HMAS Vendetta patrolling the Malacca Straights and witnessed first hand, on his return to Melbourne, the response of a section of the Australian population to the country’s involvement in the conflict
“The Vietnam war was not popular with people in Australia. In 1972 I was drafted to work in the Melbourne defence recruiting office.
“I spent more than two years there and protestors were a consistent issue. At one point we were ordered not to travel to work in our uniform,” he said.
Mr Wallace said things like this memorial allowed people to properly recognise those who served in Vietnam.
Reflections: When Trevor Youngman returned to Australia, after Vietnam, he became a member of the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club as a way of fitting back into society — due to the unpopular nature of the conflict with Australians at the time.
