In June 1940, a young man from Anzac Parade in Newcastle signed up to fight for Australia.
Just 24 years old, Barrymore (Barry) Teape-Davis was a radio technician.
He was assigned to the 7th Division Cavalry Regiment, formed mainly of men from New South Wales and Queensland.
After training, Sergeant Teape-Davis left Sydney with his Regiment on board HMT Queen Mary on Boxing Day in 1940, bound for the Middle East.
The Regiment helped to defend the Suez Canal, then served in Cyprus and Syria, before returning to Australia for further training.
They were then sent to New Guinea, and took part in the bitter fighting along the Sanananda Track and village.
The battles around Sanananda were among the toughest fights of the war, and the fighting took a terrible toll on the 7th Division Cavalry Regiment.
Sergeant Barry Teape-Davis was killed in action on 3rd January 1943, one of fifty-four men killed in the fighting from his Regiment alone, while another died of wounds. 67 soldiers had been wounded, three more had died from scrub typhus and over 240 were sick with malaria.
His official photograph held at the Australian War Memorial shows a handsome young man, with twinkling eyes, an engaging smile and a dapper, sharply clipped moustache.
Sergeant Teape-Davis was killed at just 26 years of age. Today he lies at rest at Bomana War Cemetery, outside Port Moresby.
He is one of 3,300 Australians buried there – more than in any other war cemetery in the world.
Australians still travel to Bomana Cemetery to pay their respects to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our country.
I was honoured to attend a service at Bomana on Anzac Day this year. It was a deeply moving experience and it brought home the nature of the sacrifice by these young Australian soldiers and the depth of the bonds between Australia and Papua New Guinea.
At Bomana, at Gallipoli, at memorials around the world and here at home in Australia, on the 11th of November – Remembrance Day – we remember the more than 103,000 Australians who have died or suffered for Australia’s cause in all wars and armed conflicts.
We acknowledge with sorrow the grief and suffering of their families, like Edward and Una Teape-Davis, and the terrible day they received the news at their home on Anzac Parade in Newcastle that their son, Barry, would never come back to them.
Australia’s war dead comprise countless stories like that of Barry Teape-Davis; tens of thousands of lives cut short in far-flung locations in the cause of defending Australia and its vital national interests.
We must never make the mistake of thinking that these are but fading memories of long-ago conflicts, memories that are no longer relevant today.
Those terrible battles of the Second World War fought on land, water and in the air; in New Guinea, in the Coral Sea and across the islands and expanses of the Pacific Ocean turned back an existential threat to our nation.
The Australia we live in today is a free, open, democratic and tolerant society in no small part because of the sacrifices made by so many of our soldiers, sailors and aviators over so many decades.
And their commitment to protect and defend Australia has been passed down over the generations to the men and women who serve in uniform today.
As Minister for Defence Industry, I am humbled to work with members of the Australian Defence Force.
As a Parliamentarian whose job is to represent my local community, I say on behalf of the people of the Hunter region – to those who have fallen, we remember you; and to those who serve today, we thank you.
I hope people in the Hunter will join me and pause at 11 am on the 11th of November to observe one minute’s silence as a mark of respect to those who have lost their lives in the service of Australia.
I hope their families and their descendants will think not of the way they passed, but of the way they lived - standing by their mates, loving their families, serving their nation.
Lest We Forget.