Nowra World War I soldiers' unmarked graves finally receive military headstones

Decades after their respective deaths, Acting Corporal Alfred Charles McMillan and Driver Charles Stanley Werninck were finally given military headstones to mark their final resting place.

They were honoured by local veterans, ex-service organisations, serving military personnel, and community members on Wednesday (November 30), in a ceremony at Nowra Cemetery.

The service was organised by members of the Keith Payne VC Veterans Benefit Group.

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A team of group members, led by resident historian Robyn Florance OAM, have spent countless months conducting research to locate Nowra soldiers' unmarked graves.

Werninck and McMillan's are among 14 they have found, putting in a great deal of legwork (both metaphorical and literal) to prove the local soldiers were buried in Nowra Cemetery.

"When I started doing work on the war graves in the cemetery, I just got a list of them - heaps of them," Mrs Florance said.

"I went through to try and find their graves, and when I couldn't find their graves... we started walking around the cemetery.

"Shoalhaven Cemeteries gave us a layout so we could pick where the sites were."

After collecting evidence and making applications through the Office of Australian War Graves, the group has been gradually rededicating the previously unmarked plots.

Like their counterparts buried in Nowra, Werninck and McMillian each made it back home after the war.

There is even record of them crossing paths at a community celebration for local soldiers, held in June 1918.

On June 21, 1918, the Nowra Leader reported on a welcome home for three returning men, including Werninck; the party was also a send-off for McMillan and another soldier, who had just enlisted.

Werninck was 22 when he enlisted in October 1915; he sailed from Sydney in December, bound for Egypt.

He was trained as a specialist artillery driver, and deployed to France and Belgium.

In September 1917, he was medically evacuated from Polygon Wood, Belgium, after being injured by German artillery.

Werninck spent time in English military hospitals, until he was sent home in April 1918, and officially discharged in August that year.

McMillan enlisted at age 27, in May 1918; he sailed for Conford, England, that year to start his infantry training.

He was set to be posted to France, but the war ended before he could deploy. Instead, McMillan was reallocated to the repatriation effort, and later a convalescent camp.

In July 1919, McMillan was finally sent home - has was discharged in September that year.

McMillan was awarded the British War Medal.

Both men died in 1971.

Werninck was buried next to his wife and son, Rose and Thomas; he outlived both of them by a quarter century.

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Living relatives of Charles Stanley Werninck attended the rededication service for the soldiers.

Ken Werninck said it had been fascinating to learn so much about his relative.

"I remember meeting him once, when I was very young, he said

"I didn't know anything about where he went or what happened to him, except that they had a farm over at Nowra Hill.

"[The service] was brilliant, everything about it today was just so good to see."

Following the service, Mrs Florance expressed the group's gratitude to Nowra's veteran community.

"I'd like to say thank you to all of the ex-service organisations, and to Murphy Family Funerals, who support the rededication services," she said.

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