Local journalist to Gallipoli pilgrim

Now, more than ever, young people are making the trip to Turkey to remember those who have fallen and reflect on a defining period in Australia’s history. 

Someone who was a driving force behind the pilgrimages, well before it was common place, was Young man - and journalist at this paper - Fred Cahill.

A soldier himself, Fred Cahill served with the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) between 1916 to 1919.

He was gassed in France during the war, but later served in the air force between 1939 and 1941 in the Second World War. 

Former Young resident Michael Giuliano remembers him fondly.

He recalls Fred moved to Young in 1923 as a reporter for the Young Daily Witness.

Michael’s father was the editor of the paper at the time.

“...Fred was a gentleman’s gentleman! He dressed immaculately in a suit; he talked directly; he was precise in his planning and perfect in his execution,” Michael said on Facebook. 

 “Freddie Cahill was an outstanding character at Young and I remember the day he came to our house at 44 (as it was then numbered) Wombat Street (we are now number 42; I don’t know how, but it is) to tell Vincent (my father; the editor of the Young Witness where Fred was the major journalist), that he was retiring, dad always held him in the highest regard. I remember dad as editor, was devastated, but Fred had made up his mind.”

Fred went on to enter the State Parliament, where he was the state Labor member of the Legislative Council for Young for almost 20 years, between 1941 and 1959.

He would go on to use his political connections and influence to organise and managed a pilgrimage tour for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux.

Michael says Fred was integral to the now strong tradition of Australians making the pilgrimage back to Gallipoli.

“ It is my personal observation that he began the pilgrimages to ANZAC Cove which today number in the 10s of thousands. I remember years ago, seeing the Freddie Cahill advertisements in the Sunday Telegraph — offering escorted tours to ANZAC Cove — long before anyone else began the same idea,” he said.

“Almost as an “afterthought”, some years after Fred Cahill retired from politics he began organised tours of ANZAC Cove and other WWI sites. As a man who had been there when bullets were whizzing by and his immature mates (some as young as 15) dying horribly, who better to arrange escorted tours of WW I battle scenes?

“ Fred Cahill was one of those “larger than life” people you read about. 

"He was a real hero from Young: wounded in the first World War, yet he volunteered for the Second World War! 

"What an exemplary record: Freddie Cahill: War hero WWI; Volunteer WWII; reporter; politician; escort to WWI battle scenes. 

"Tough as nails? Most persons could not endure the pain to speak about their war experiences, yet Fred Cahill not only served in two world wars, he took other people to the sites and told them all about the privations, the heroism and the sheer bloody-mindedness and pain of day-to-day “living” in the trenches.”