Their bodies are buried in peace; but their names liveth for evermore.

Their Duty Done

A tribute to the men and women of the East Gippsland Region who Died as a result of their participation in World War One : 1914 -1919

The eldest of four children, Richard, or “young Dick” as he was known, was the son of Richard and Catherine Vine of Glen Wills. He was born in 1897 and grew up, and went to school in the East Gippsland mountains. The Vine family left the Glen Wills district about 1911 when he would have been about fourteen years old and moved to Ouyen. In 1912 his literary skills were recognised when the British and Foreign Sailors Society invited essays on “Britain’s Dominions” and he was one of the six recipients of the award. He submitted the second best paper of arithmetic at the Junior Teachers’ Annual Examination in 1913. While discovering his passion for teaching he also discovered a passion for God and was a trainee preacher of the gospel with the local Methodists. He enlisted on 4 November 1915 and proceeded overseas on the Suffolk, disembarking at the Suez on 11 May 1916. While on board he was promoted to Acting Lance Corporal for the duration of training for attachment to the 57 th   Battalion. Two months later they left for Marseilles but on arriving in France, Richard contracted German Measles and was hospitalised for five weeks and re-joined his unit on 12 August 1917.  Richard was killed while attached for duty with the 5 th  Australia Divisional Observation party. He was ahead of the Battalion in a pill box when killed by a shell on Broodseinde Ridge.  When news of his death reached home in 1917 he was remembered as being of a bright and cheery disposition, an earnest Christian, A Sunday school superintendent and an untiring worker who had endeared himself to all. Richard must have left a deep impression on his fellow soldiers as even they, at the end of the war, were wanting to mark his grave.  Despite various reports of where Richard had been buried, in 1926 the Department very much regretted that despite the most searching enquiry and investigation they had been unsuccessful in recovering his remains. Five of Richard’s cousins served and returned home including George Bingham, who was also born at Omeo, and spent time as a Prisoner of War. Richard Vine is remembered at Ouyen and on the Menin Gate memorial. He was twenty years old.