ABC Radio Canberra AM

SABRA LANE: As night falls every evening at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, a soldier’s history is read out during the Last Post Ceremony. Tonight, Private Patrick Thomas Pyne’s story will be shared. He was amongst the first wave of diggers to land at Gallipoli in 1915. His grand-nephew is the Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne, who joined me earlier.

[Excerpt]

SABRA LANE: Mr Pyne, thanks for joining AM. Your grandfathers’ brother Patrick, your great uncle, was killed during the landing at Gallipoli 102 years ago. Tonight he’ll be honoured at the War Memorial What do you know about what happened to him?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I know that he and another of my great uncles’ Octavius signed up very early in the piece to go to war. And they’re amongst the first people to be at Gallipoli. Unfortunately great uncle Patrick was killed on the first day in Gallipoli – probably getting out of the boats on the beaches and he was buried at Beach Cemetery. And his brother Octavius went onto the Western Front where he was also killed at the Battle of the Somme two years later. So we’ve a long history of involvement in supporting Australia and being part of our family story.

SABRA LANE: And last year you visited Gallipoli and tried to find his grave, not knowing exactly where it was amongst the various 60-odd burial sites along the Peninsula there, but you found it apparently, just by pure luck?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes it was an act of fate really, Sabra, because when I arrived I thought I’d find his grave site I thought it would probably be pretty easy, given they’d be alphabetical by now and they’d be spread out amongst few cemeteries. I discovered there are about 60 cemeteries and it wasn’t quite so easy. But I knew that he’d been killed on the first day and one of the earliest cemeteries used was Beach Cemetery, so my family and I visited there. And while they wandered in one direction, I thought while I’ll just have a squiz in a different part of the cemetery and within 10 metres of where I was walking I looked down and there was his grave site amongst six others in the 10th Battalion from South Australia. So it was a pure act of fate and I was meant to find it.

SABRA LANE: How do you feel that tonight he will be honoured?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it’s a real privilege and I’m absolutely delighted that the War Memorial is reading out his citation. They do it every day at the Last Post and I’m very glad that Patrick Pyne is being remembered in this way. I think the overwhelming feeling that I had at Gallipoli – and I think almost every Australian has who visits war cemeteries around the world – is that they were very young. He was 19 years old and I’m now 49 and 30 years later I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to have not had the opportunity to live the life that I’ve had and yet he and all of his comrades were very young men and women who died far too soon.

SABRA LANE: Your father, Remington, also served during the Korean War, he was a doctor. Did he talk about what he endured there?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah he did. He was a medical captain in the Korean War and he served as well. He volunteered in the early 1950’s and it’s part of the Australian story, isn’t it, that families have been involved in conflicts, because we are a country that believes in fighting for our values. We believe in spreading freedom and democracy and liberty around the world. And if you believe that, you have to put your money where your mouth is, as they say. And so my family’s been amongst those in Australia who served in that way and I’m very proud that they have.

SABRA LANE: Korea is back in the news now, North Korea’s state newspaper has singled out the US deployment of marines to Darwin to claim that America is preparing for nuclear war. How do you respond to that claim?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the rotation of US marines through Darwin- through the base there has been a longstanding Government policy. It’s not in any way a preparation for a conflagration on the Korean Peninsula. Obviously we want to avoid any such military action and we want the North Koreans to behave as well as they can, like reasonable international citizens. That means ending their missile testing and not preparing for a nuclear war with either the United States, Japan, South Korea, or anyone else for that matter.

SABRA LANE: The ramped up rhetoric though in recent days from Pyongyang, warning that Australia could be a nuclear target – what should Australians make of all of that talk, given the heightened tensions in the region now?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well North Korea doesn’t yet have the capability to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile that would reach Australia. And one of the reasons why the Trump administration is strengthening its attitude to North Korea is to avoid North Korea ever having that capability. And for that reason Australia, supports the United States actions very strongly. And we’ve call on China to take the lead role as the nation with the most influence over North Korea, in bringing that about.

SABRA LANE: Mr Pyne, thanks for talking to AM.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s always a pleasure Sabra, thank you.

[End of excerpt].

SABRA LANE: The Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne.