Dedication to new Australian WWII memorial

SHOTLIST 1. Wide street scene with shops 2. Wide of event venue 3. Various of Australian World War II veterans getting off bus 4. Wide of Australian Ambassador to Malaysia Penny Williams (in black dress) greeting veterans 5. Various of veterans talking 6. Australian army marching into memorial compound 7. Wide of Australian army standing around veiled memorial stone 8. Various of audience 9. Wide of opening ceremony with Williams and two veterans unveiling memorial stone 10. Close-up of memorial stone 11. Mid shot of man playing bag pipes 12. Australian Army Chief Lieutenant General Peter Leahy laying wreath 13. Close-up of Australian soldier 14. Zoom our of Williams laying wreath 15. Malaysian Brigadier General laying wreath 16. Various of guests and relatives laying wreaths 17. Various of Malaysians in audience 18. Wide of memorial board STORYLINE A group of Australian World War II veterans attended on Tuesday the unveiling of a war memorial in Parit Sulong, Malaysia, at the location of what has been described as one of the worst atrocities perpetrated on Australian forces during the Malayan campaign. Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia Penny Williams hosted the dedication ceremony, which took place at the Parit Sulong Community Park. The memorial was erected by the Australian government. Seven veterans on the Malaya campaign and two war widows made the trip to Malaysia to attend the ceremony. For Australia, the Malayan campaign between December 1941 and February 1942 was one of the toughest and most costly of the war. More than one thousand and 780 nationals were killed, 13-hundred wounded and 15-thousand taken prisoner. The victims of the atrocity at Parit Sulong were wounded and exhausted men left behind as some Allied soldiers fighting fled the Japanese push towards Singapore. Their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Anderson, had left them in order to transfer able bodied soldiers back to British lines for the final defence of Singapore. Anderson reached British lines with less than one-third of his original force and was later awarded the Victoria Cross for his leadership and gallantry - the first VC to have been awarded to an Australian during the war in the Pacific. The men that were left behind had no choice but to surrender to the Imperial Guards Division of the Japanese army at Parit Sulong and expected to be treated as prisoners of war. Instead, the soldiers - 110 Australians and 35 soldiers from other British Empire Units - were killed that same day. Only three soldiers are known to have survived the massacre; all are now deceased. The villagers of Parit Sulong also suffered and many Malaysians were executed or severely mistreated, while others were forced to flee. The man who ordered the killing of the soldiers, General Takuma Nishimura, was later found guilty of ordering the atrocity and was hanged for it in 1951. His commander, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who would himself be executed for war crimes, called the