Aussie girl pays respect to great-great-grandfather hero

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Taylor Ferguson, the great-great-granddaughter of Reginald Paul Ferguson, attending a ceremony to commemorate fallen Australian soldiers in Sabah.

BEAUFORT: A 14-year-old girl has flown all the way from Down Under to pay her respect to her great-great-grandfather, a fallen war hero who died in the then North Borneo during the Second World War (WWII).

Taylor Ferguson, the fifth generation and a direct descendent of Private Reginald Paul Ferguson, brought her mother to Sabah to trace back the journey and struggle of Australian soldiers who fought and died in North Borneo during the War.

Yesterday, Taylor and her mother, Elizabeth together with a group of Australians visited the war memorial in Labuan, where the name of Private Reginald Paul Ferguson was immortalized.

The group also attended a memorial service to pay tribute to another brave Australian soldier, Private Leslie Thomas “Tom” Starcevich at the Startevich Memorial here.

On Monday, Taylor and her group will join thousands of other Australians and New Zealanders to commemorate their fallen countrymen at the annual Anzac Day to be hosted at the Sandakan War Memorial Park and at the Kundasang War Memorial.

Originally, Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. It was the anniversary of the landing on Gallipoli in 1915.

But today, Anzac Day is not just the landing on Gallipoli. It is mainly recognized as the day Australians remember their countrymen who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations throughout history.

Anzac Day remains one of the most important national occasions to both Australia and New Zealand. This is a rare instance of two sovereign nations not only sharing the same remembrance day but also making reference to both countries in its name.

The acronym ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, whose soldiers were known as Anzacs.

For Sabah, Anzac Day, which is organized yearly by the Sandakan Municipal Council and the Office of Australian War Graves of Canberra, is mainly to pay gratitude and respect to Australians and New Zealanders who fought in Sabah Borneo during World War II, particularly prisoners-of-war (POW) who took part in the Death March from Sandakan to Ranau in 1945.

To the relatives of those fallen heroes, like Taylor and her mother Elizabeth, Anzac Day is more personal, a day to remember those who came and went before them and to take pride and comfort in their bravery, struggle and good deeds.

The Sandakan Death March is widely considered to be the single worst atrocity suffered by Australian servicemen during WWII.

Some 2,400 Allied prisoners of war held captive by the Japanese Imperial Army were forced to march from Sandakan to Ranau. Few survived the journey and not many managed to reach Ranau alive.

Those who reached Ranau eventually died due to starvation and the brutal treatment of their captors, except for six Australians who survived after they escaped from the Japanese.

Taylor’s great-great-grandfather was in the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion of the Australian Infantry and was among those who died in Ranau during the Death March.

Official record for the Western Australia POWs in Borneo stated he died on 23 March 1945 due to acute entretis at the age of 32.

Reginald Paul Ferguson was born on 8 March 1913 in Toodyay, Western Australia and enlisted with the infantry at Melville Camp in Toodyay.