Moree ANZAC Mural

As the country embraced and remembered our brave service personnel for ANZAC Day, Moree Plains Shire Council, officially declared the Moree ANZAC Mural opened.

The concept and delivery of this stunning artwork is attributed to several individuals and organisations who have worked together with the artist, Tim Bowtell to produce historical accuracy depicting a variety of period uniforms, kit, weaponry and battle conditions.

Mayor, Mark Johnson introduced Julia Waters, who came to Moree to honour her late father, Warrant Officer Leonard Victor Waters, who is depicted in the mural (L-R image five).

Fondly, known as Jules, spoke about her father’s legacy and his recognition for his military service to Australia from August 1942 to January 1946.

Born in 1924 on the Euraba Aboriginal Mission, Leonard Waters was the fourth of Donald and Grace Waters’ eleven children. Len, as he was known, developed a fascination with aviation from a young age, listening with admiration to news of the exploits of Charles Kingsford-Smith and Amy Johnson.

Waters left school before his 14th birthday to help his family, working as a shearer before volunteering for service in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1942. Desperate for manpower to support the air war in Europe and the Pacific, the RAAF’s rules regarding Indigenous Australian enlistment were far less restrictive than those for the Second Australian Imperial Force.

Waters was initially trained as an aircraft mechanic but dreamed of becoming a pilot like his childhood heroes. Len studied at night before sitting for the pilot’s test as he really wanted to excel in this test. His application was accepted in 1943 and he undertook training across New South Wales before graduating as a pilot in 1944.

Later that year Waters was posted to No. 78 Squadron, which was stationed on the island of Noemfoor off Dutch New Guinea. He flew 95 sorties from here over the next year and later flew from air bases in Borneo. On one flight his aircraft was struck by a Japanese 37-millimetre cannon shell, which wedged between the fuselage and Len’s seat without detonating. Waters flew for another two hours before landing safely with the shell still intact. The image of Len in the mural from a photo taken after safely landing with the bomb.

At the end of the war, Waters was discharged from the RAAF as a Warrant Officer. He returned to Queensland and never flew again. He hoped to start a regional airline but was unable to secure financial or government support, and soon returned to his pre-war life of shearing to provide for his wife and six children. He died 24 August 1993, aged 69, it was his 51st anniversary of having joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

In 2019, Jules privately published “I’m just a fly boy” her father’s journal plus his official logbook to promote his legacy across Australia and overseas. When Jules was reviewing her dad’s journal before it was published, she realised that her father wanted to continue to fly but the society of the late 1940s through to the 1960s wanted to keep an Aboriginal man as a manual labourer and not to strive for the heights of a pilot.

Jules has donated copies of her father’s journal to the Moree Community Library and the Moree RSL.

Copies of “I’m just a fly boy” are available at www.shop.qm.qld.gov.au

Image, Mayor Mark Johnson and Julia Waters 

The mural is a tribute to all past and present service personnel.

Defence personnel depicted from left to right are:

Trooper William Henry Rankin was one of the first Light Horsemen to die of wounds on the Gallipoli battlefields in May 1915. Captain Thi Tjanh Tam Tran an army medical officer deployed to Northern Iraq as part of the Australian Humanitarian relief mission. Sergeant Peter Buckney deployed to South Vietnam with the 8th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. Lieutenant Thomas Harold Bissett served and died on the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea in 1942. Sergeant Leonard Victor Waters was a fighter pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force.  Petty Officer Aircrewman Leeann Mumby of the Royal Australian Navy has served as both a Combat Systems Officer on HMA ships and later as an Aircrewman on helicopters.

The concept can be attributed to the President of the Chamber of Commerce, Dibs Cush and would not be possible without the efforts of the Moree RSL sub-Branch, working with the Australian War Memorial Archives and Department of Defence to gather the necessary information and images.