TENTERFIELD'S Kneipp family is harbouring an Australian military treasure set to be unveiled to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli next year.
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Terry Kneipp has safeguarded his uncle Norman Kneipp’s bugle returned to the family from the battlefields at Palestine by Lieutenant Colonel MF Bruxner after Norman was killed in action in 1917.
Terry said the bugle has been passed down from his grandparents and holds a great deal of sentimental value.
“Norman was my father’s eldest brother,” he said, addressing the battered instrument last week.
“(He) enlisted in about 1915, or thereabouts and he was killed in action in the Middle East in 1917 and was in the 6th Light horse, a Trooper and I guess he was also the company bugler.”
Trooper Kneipp embarked from Sydney on November 1, 1915, aboard the HMAS Euripides, bound for service in the Middle East. He was around 20 years old and had joined the 6th Australian Light Horse Regiment in September of that year.
According to Terry’s research, the Kneipp family sons were known to play brass band instruments, which was likely how the trooper was appointed company bugler.
“My father had it and he passed it down to me. Now it sits quietly on its own,” he said.
By December 1917, the young trooper had been wounded and died in active service.
“We didn’t know all that much about it,” Terry said.
“Families didn’t talk much about the war in those times. Uncle Norm, he enlisted, he died in Palestine, this is his bugle and that was the end of the story.”
After a century, the bugle will be play The Last Post on Anzac Day 2015. Local musician Murray Hovey said it would be an honour.
“The anniversary is huge in itself, but to have that piece of history, and it still works,” he said.
“Murray is a very good musician and he has been blowing his bugle military related occasions in Tenterfield. He plays at Anzac Day, he plays at 11/11 and plays at military funerals as well,” Terry said.
He said it will be the appropriate time to see the family bugle in action again.
“The fact that it is a bugle from that era and belonged to a trooper who came from Tenterfield and who was a saddler like the rest of my family, went off to war,” he said.
“I never thought of it as having much intrinsic value, but it certainly has a lot of sentimental value to my family.”
He said at one time there was the idea of having the instrument restored, but he said the family treasure was in its proper condition.
“I was talked out of that,” he said.
“It’s just quite appropriate that it is battered and knocked around—I think by family members, rather than by Norman who would have looked after it pretty carefully I would imagine.”
The bugle will highlight local Anzac celebrations next year, as community members collect artefacts from Australia’s military history.