Page 66 - Memorial Groves

PLAQUE NO 106:
PLAQUE NO 105: George Alexander

Athol Claud Kennedy Smith Bremner (1918)

(1929-31)

George came from a farming family
in Beverley. He entered Hale School
Athol attended Hale School from 1929 to 1931 as a
boarder. He had an outstanding scholastic record and was in 1918 when the boarders were still
usually the top of his class each year, though it is recorded using the old Pensioner Guards'
that he was not particularly good at sport. hospital in George Street, West
Perth. After leaving school he took up
farming with his brother at Corrigin.
On leaving School he joined the AMP Society and pursued
actuarial studies, which eventually took him to Sydney He later married Elizabeth Bussell,
and then to London. At the outbreak of war he joined a member of the early Western
the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and subsequently Australian pioneering family.
served on the HMS Stork in the North Sea before being
transferred to HMS Fairmiles at Falmouth in the south of After the outbreak of war, He joined
England. He was appointed liaison officer of the flotilla the army in 1942 and served with the
but while on exercises with the Royal Air Force he was 2/16th Battalion in the Middle Eastern
involved in a plane crash over the Bristol Channel and lost The Headmaster’s chair was theatre of operations. After returning
his life on 7 October 1941. He was 25 years of age. to Australia with his unit early in 1942,
he and his contemporaries were
donated to the School after sent to fight the Japanese along
Placed by brother, Mr Geoff Smith (1930-32).
the Kokoda Track in August and
the war by the Smith family September of that year.
He was promoted to the rank of
in memory of their two boys. Sergeant and was transferred to the
2/5th Infantry Battalion and while
It has now graced our School serving with them in New Guinea he
died of wounds on the 15 February,
assemblies for over 50 years. 1943. He was 40 years of age.

Placed by his Haleian nephew, Mr
Peter Bremner (1941) of Beverley.