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The City of Wagga Wagga has a proud military history that extends back more than 120 years.

It arguably started in 1884 with the birth of Australia's only Field Marshal, Sir Thomas Blamey, who led the Australian forces during the Second World War.

One year later in 1885 a number of young Wagga Wagga men enlisted to fight in the Sudan War with Wagga Wagga men and women involved in all Australian military campaigns since that time.

This has  included the Boer War (1899-1902), World War 1 (1914-18), World War 11 (1939-45), Korea (1950-53), Vietnam (1962-72), Borneo (1963-66), Gulf War (1990-91) and the war in Iraq.

Today Wagga Wagga has two military establishments.

1st Recruit Training Battalion of  the Australian Army is located at Kapooka, just south of the city and is known throughout the country as the Home of the Australian Soldier.

All basic training of non commissioned officers starts at Kapooka before graduating recruits are posted to other military units.

Kapooka is also the base of the Kapooka Military Band which has a close association with the Wagga Wagga community performing at a number of functions throughout the year.

The Forest Hill Royal Australian Air Force Base is located east of the city and provides specialist training for Air Force, Army and Naval personnel. (A public display of former RAAF aircraft is featured at the front of the Base.)

Although a non-flying training establishment, the Base from time to time plays host to visiting helicopter and fixed wing training schools.

Apart from the two military bases, there are a number of other military sites around the city.

One of the biggest and certainly the most popular is the Victory Memorial Gardens fronting Wollundry Lagoon in the centre of the city.

Victory Memorial Gardens

The Gardens were originally established to honour the men and women who served in Australia's armed forced during the First World War and have been extended to honour all military personnel who served in all conflicts since

The Gardens have a number of features including a Cenotaph built in 1922 and a memorial archway built in 1927.

To compliment the archway, an Eternal Flame to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the landing of Australian soldiers at Gallipoli was completed in 1990.

Eternal Flame

Other features include:

• A commemorative plaque to mark the centenary of the birth of Field Marshal, Sir Thomas Blamey
• A mounted propeller and plaque commemorating the 50th anniversary of the RAAF Base at Forest Hill
• A three inch mortar and plaque to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Kapooka Military Area
• An anchor and plaque commemorating HMAS Wagga, a naval corvette commissioned in 1942 which served during the Second World War
• A Sandakan monument remembering the 1800 Australians of the 8th Division AIF and the 750 British soldiers who lost their lives in the defence of Malaya and Singapore during the Second World War
• A garden of peace roses to mark the International Year of Peace in 1986
• A derrick from HMAS Sydney which still contains the scar made by the German cruiser Emden during a battle off Cocos Island on November 9 1914
• Another significant site is the Wagga Wagga War Cemetery located on Kooringal Road
  -It contains 82 graves consisting of 40 Australian Army and 42 Royal Australian Airforce airmen and one post-war grave
• Many of the RAAF crew died in air training accidents
  -Included among the Australian Army personnel are 26 soldiers of the School of Military Engineering who died in a grenade training accident near Kapooka on May 21 1945.  The soldiers were receiving instruction in demolition work in a bunker three metres below the ground when an explosion took place.  Two days after the tragic accident the city witnessed the largest military funeral ever to take place in Australia when an estimated 7000 people lined Edward Street as the 26 coffins were taken to the War Cemetery
• Another memorial worth visiting is the Palazzi  memorial erected in Collins Park in 1901 in remembrance of Joseph Palazzi, the first soldier from Wagga Wagga to be killed in the Anglo-Boer War (South Africa)