A cartoon made for Wesley Mission in Lonsdale Street by Brooks, Robinson & Co. became a popular version of St. George for commemorative stained glass and a window to this design, measuring approximately 88 x 24 inches , was ordered by Mr. George Holford fromthe firmin March 1950. The decision to order a Second World War memorial may have been prompted by the installation of the Good Samaritan window to two First World War men only one year before; the pair of windows makes a fitting tribute to servicemen in the transept of the church.All thosemen commemorated in the window at St. John's were from around the Bairnsdale district andas far as Sale and Traralgon.
Private Wilson 2/24 Battalion and Corporal Collings of 8 Armoured Regiment died of illness in Australia. Three of the men died in the Pacific War: Private Sedgwick with the 2/21 Battalion on Ambon Island; Captain William Harry Wild on Bougaineville Island and Lance Corporal Raymond George Rosenbrock when the ship on which he was prison with others in the 2/10 Field Company RAE, the Rakuyo Maru, was sunk in the South China Sea. Private Robert Charles Jackson, 2/24 Battalion was killed in action on 1 May 1941 and buried at Knightsbidge War Cemetery, Acroma Libya, and Lieutenant Eric McLeod, also of 2/24 Battalion was killed in action 31 October 1942 and is remembered at El Alamein War Cemetery, Egypt. Two men, Flying Officer Arthur Maurice Welch of 10 Squadron RAAF and Flying Officer William Henry Long of 80 Squadron RAF lost their lives in the European theatre: F/O Welch was missing presumed dead when the crew of Sunderland D W4020 was lost in the Bay of Biscay chasing an enemy submarine; F/O Long lost his life in a battle over Bocholt, Germany with the crew of Tempest SN138 and is buried in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery.
References & Acknowledgements
AWM Roll of Honour; NAA: B883, VX52372; NAA: B833, VX25215; NAA: B833, VX28426; NAA: B833, VX20162; NAA: B883, VX29189; NAA: B883, VX26294; NAA: B833, VX52893; NAA: A705, 166/25/290; NAA: A705, 166/43/278; Brooks, Robinson & Co. job books (1923-c1966)
