Honouring the Men who gave their lives whilst serving in the Merchant Navy
and whose names are on the Australian War Memorial Commemorative Roll

S.S. WYREEMA  -  WW1

She was a passenger liner that was hired to transport Australian Army Nursing Service nurses to Europe during World War I. However, with the end of the war, she was recalled from South Africa. Nurses from the ship were then volunteers at the Woodman Point Quarantine Station in Western Australia, nursing soldiers who were Spanish flu victims who landed from the ship Boonah.

The West Australian (Perth, W.A.)  12-4-1919
MATSEN.—In sad and loving memory of our dear son and brother, Charlie, who died with pneumonic influenza about April 4, 1919, on troopship Wyreema, at England. Aged 19 years and 3 months.
He left his home in perfect health,
Little thinking death was near.
One of the best that God could send.
A better son and brother never lived.
Far, far away from those who loved him,
Comrades laid him down to rest;
In a true and honoured lad's grave he is sleeping,
Our dear son and brother Charlie, one of the best.
No one knows how we will miss him;
Only those who knew his worth.
In the dawn of a splendid manhood,
When the tide of life ran high,
With courage in his bearings,
As he waved his last good-bye.
He always had a pleasant word and smile for everyone.
'Tis only a mother who knows the sorrow,
'Tis only a mother who knows the pain
Of losing a son she loved so dearly,
But hopes in Heaven to meet him again.
Though the sea divides his grave from us,
Our dear son and brother Charlie will never be forgot.
Inserted by his loving mother, father, sisters, and brothers, Lydia, Elsie, Vera, Jocie, Hazel, Marrie, Harold, Francis, Clarence, and Victor (on active service), East Fremantle.