The Australian 3 March 2003
“it 15 amazing what a coalition of the willing can achieve even on the home front. “
For almost two decades, Queensland pensioner Roy Thompson, 73, tried in vain for compensation, or at least an apology from Washington for a tragic accident in which one child was killed and seven injured when a discarded US mortar shell exploded in an Ipswich (Goodna) schoolyard 60 years ago.
And now, while Australian forces fight beside US troops in Iraq, the US has finally acknowledged the schoolyard tragedy, promising an investigation….
Mr Thompson was 13 when his 12-year-old friend John Watson found two discarded mortar shells at an unguarded US firing range and brought them to school. One shell exploded, killing Watson and seriously injuring Mr Thompson, who was, standing a metre away
“Wanting compensation for himself and fellow survivors, he said the State Department response was the only glimmer of light on the horizon we’ve had in 60 years.”
After spending $10,000 in legal fees and travelling to the US in a futile bid for compensation in 1986, Mr Thompson said no American even bothered to visit the injured children in hospital after, the blast.”
Irene Waters remembers
“There were other accidents with live ammunition. The Rinaldi family lived on the farm next to ours at. Poo Cornet-, Wacol. They were building the Prison houses at that time, so it was probably the late 1950. Young Fred was playing on their property when a shell left behind by the Americans exploded – and he lost his arm….”