In Memory of

JOSEPH BURNS

Stoker (1st Class)

C/KX 144990

H.M.S. Vengeance, Royal Navy

who died on

Wednesday 16th January 1946. Age 23.

Additional Information:

Son of Mary Burns of Liverpool, England. Ships Company HMS. Vengeance. Struck by a tram/train in Sydney, Australia. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Casualty No. 2967987. War Grave photo below. (Enlarged)

 

Commemorative Information

Cemetery: SYDNEY WAR CEMETERY, New South Wales, Australia.  War Cemetery Plan.
Grave Reference/Panel Number: 3A. A. 13.
Location: Sydney War Cemetery is in the grounds of Rookwood Necropolis, about 17 kilometres west of Sydney. By road the route is along the Great Western Highway (Parramatta Road), turning south into Marlborough Road which continues direct to the cemetery. The main entrance is at the western side, on the necropolis roadway. Within a three-arched, roofed building which forms this entrance is a lectern on which is kept the register containing the names and service particulars of those buried here, and the visitors book. Opposite the lectern is the New South Wales Cremation Memorial. In the rear corner of the cemetery, to the right (south) of the Cross of Sacrifice, is the Sydney Memorial. It stands on a terrace approached by three shallow steps, and commemorates men and women of the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Air Force and the Australian Merchant Navy who lost their lives during the 1939-1945 War in the eastern and southern regions of Australia, and in adjacent waters south of 20 degrees S. latitude, and have no known grave. Men of the Royal Australian Navy lost in these regions who have no grave but the sea are commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial in England, along with many of their comrades of the Royal Navy and of other Commonwealth Naval Forces.-
Historical Information: This large war cemetery was established by the military authorities in 1942 as the last resting place of servicemen and women who gave their lives during the 1939-1945 War. It contains mainly the graves of those who died in the Concord Military Hospital, either of wounds received in operational areas, or through sickness or accident. There are over 700, 1939-45 war casualties commemorated in this cemetery. The casualties of the United Kingdom Forces died while prisoners of war in Japanese hands and were cremated. After the war the Army Graves Service arranged for their ashes to be brought by H.M.A.S. NEWFOUNDLAND to Sydney for interment in the war cemetery, where burial services were conducted. The civilian died while in the employment of the Admiralty during the war, and for this reason was buried among the servicemen. The war cemetery was taken over by the Commission in December, 1946.

Inscription: 'R.I.P. A star shines on the grave of a son I loved but could not save. Our Joe'