26 Facts About Reg Saunders

Reg Saunders came from a military family, his forebears having served in the Boer War and the First World War.

Reg Saunders later served as a company commander with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment during the Korean War, where he fought at the Battle of Kapyong.

Reg Saunders left the Army in 1954 and worked in the logging and metal industries, before joining the Office of Aboriginal Affairs as a liaison officer in 1969.

Reg Saunders was born near Purnim on the Aboriginal Reserve at Framlingham in western Victoria on 7 August 1920.

Reg Saunders's father, Chris, was a veteran of the First World War, having served as a machine gunner in the Australian Imperial Force.

One of his uncles, William Reginald Rawlings, who was killed in action and after whom Saunders was named, had been awarded the Military Medal for service with the 29th Battalion in France.

Reg Saunders' mother died in 1924 from complications caused by pneumonia while giving birth to her third child, a girl who died.

Reg Saunders attended the local mission school at Lake Condah, where he did well in maths, geometry and languages.

Employers regularly withheld payments for Aboriginal labourers at this time, but Saunders refused to work unless he was paid his full entitlement, and his employer relented.

Reg Saunders worked and furthered his education until 1937, when he went into business with his father and brother, operating a sawmill in Portland, Victoria; the sawmill was destroyed in a bushfire in 1939.

The armed forces later adopted a policy to accept only persons "substantially of European origin or descent", but at the time Reg Saunders encountered no barriers to his enlistment.

Reg Saunders recalled that his fellow soldiers "were not colour-conscious", and that during training in northern Queensland his white mates would sit alongside him in the "Aboriginal" section of movie theatres.

Reg Saunders's natural leadership qualities gained him temporary promotions in quick succession: within six weeks of enlistment he was a lance corporal, and after three months he made sergeant.

Reg Saunders was among a party of men evacuated from southern Crete in May 1942, and returned to Australia in October.

Reg Saunders went before an officer selection board that had been set up on the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland, where the units of the 6th Division had been based following their return from New Guinea.

Reg Saunders was found to be an acceptable candidate and posted to an officer training unit in Seymour, Victoria.

Reg Saunders was wounded in the knee by Japanese gunfire during fighting around Maprik, and was hospitalised for three weeks as a result.

Reg Saunders spoke publicly against this policy, calling it "narrow-minded and ignorant"; the wartime restriction on non-European enlistments in the armed forces was not lifted until 1949.

Reg Saunders moved to Melbourne with his family, which by this time consisted of his wife Dorothy, whom he had married in 1944, and their three young children.

Reg Saunders volunteered and returned to the Army as a lieutenant.

Reg Saunders served with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, initially as a platoon commander in A Company.

Reg Saunders himself was recommended for a decoration but turned it down.

Reg Saunders went to work in the logging industry in Gippsland, after which he moved to Sydney, where he was employed by the Austral Bronze Company.

Reg Saunders continued to serve with the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in Canberra until retiring in 1980.

Reg Saunders was involved in the RSL, though he fell out with leaders Alf Garland and Bruce Ruxton over Garland's suggestion that Aborigines be blood-tested to determine their entitlement to government benefits.

Reg Saunders's ashes were scattered on Lake Condah, traditional territory of the Gunditjmara people.