Lest We Forget, Reg Chard and the Heroes Who Didn’t Return

Staff members of the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) visited the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway at Concord in the lead up to Anzac Day to hear 99 year old World War II veteran, Reg Chard OAM, recall his experiences of fighting in Papua New Guinea.

Mr Chard, who was only a few months from completing his bakery and pastry chef apprenticeship when he joined the Australian Militia Force as an 18 year old in 1942, suffered dysentery, scrub typhus, and malaria as a digger.

Staff were stunned to hear that 81-years after Private Chard (fifth from the left) served as an infantryman in the tropics he still suffers from debilitating bouts of malaria.

“I know when it’s coming, so I just cover myself with a few blankets and sweat it out,” he said of the remedy he has finetuned.

This war veteran – who’ll turn 100 in October – also made it clear he did not want to be described as a ‘hero’.

“Heroes are the ones who didn’t come home,” he said. “Not me. “I’ve had a good life, those poor men, they had nothing.

“And that’s hard . . .  what I’ve had and what they missed. They had no life.

“They were all ages, and they had all different sorts of religions; different sorts of jobs . . .   many of them were young men, you know.”

NSWIS staff member Mitch Soames described meeting Mr Chard, and being present when the NSWIS wreath was laid at the Walkway’s granite centrepieces which commemorate the Kokoda campaign, as a ‘privilege.’

“Being able to draw on Reg’s firsthand experiences through the stories he shared with us, it hit home to how lucky we are and how much we take for granted,” he said.

“It gave me a chance to reflect on the horrific things that he and our forefathers endured.”

Mr Chard, who became a volunteer guide at the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway when Betty, his childhood sweetheart and wife of 66-years passed away 12 years ago, is doing a wonderful job of educating young Australians about the horrors of World War II.

“We have to remember,” he said of the price his mates and the courageous nursing sisters who treated the wounded and dying paid. “They gave everything they possibly could.”