Fed: War memorial visit uncovers Australia s Saving Private Ryan

AAP General News (Australia)
04-22-2001
Fed: War memorial visit uncovers Australia s Saving Private Ryan

A chance visit to the Australian War Memorial has uncovered Australia's own version
of Saving Private Ryan.

TRACEY O'HARA of Canberra visited the memorial when her sister was down from Queensland
five years ago, touching off a search for relations who'd fought overseas.

She uncovered a previously unknown history of the Queensland KEID family which lost
four sons to World War One - one on Gallipoli and three on the battlefields of France
and Belgium.

Six brothers - HARRY, 31, BILL, 29, LEONARD, 28, TED, 25, WALTER, 22, and GUY, 19 -
went off to the First World War.

BILL died on Gallipoli in June 1915, while LEONARD and WALTER died in France on the
same day in September 1916.

GUY, a field ambulanceman, vainly searched the battlefield for the remains of LEONARD
and WALTER, and was discharged from the army six months later.

A year later, TED died of wounds after the bloody Passchendaele offensive in Ypres
in Belgium and HARRY was summoned home for "family reasons".

Unlike the STEVEN SPIELBERG movie, saving HARRY KEID didn't involve a rescue mission
behind enemy lines.

He was found recuperating in England, a victim of the lung disease pleurisy.

AAP RTV mb/jg/jmt

KEYWORD: ANZAC KEID (CANBERRA)

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