Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles has described the moment he walked in the footsteps of his grandfather, Percy Pearce, who fought in the Battle of Pozières in 1916.

Marles told Today about a trip he took to Pozières in 2022, when a local historian took him to the site where his grandfather won his Military Cross for exemplary gallantry.

“At first I thought it was a joke… but as he started talking through the battle I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is really it’,” Marles said.

“By the time he finished speaking, I was in tears, the chief of the defence force was in tears…

“He was a young man who was faced with just the most terrifying moment: a retreat, as the Germans had basically pierced the line.

“It’s an enormous moment of pride for me but to be there and to see it was incredible.”

The Battle of Pozières, part of the Somme offensive of the First World War, was a costly and brutal campaign that saw 23,000 Australian casualties, 6800 of whom died, in just weeks of conflict.

Marles said his grandfather seldom spoke about his time at war.

“This is a man I knew, I can remember sitting with grandpa watching the cricket so I have memories with this person.

“This is not a distant figure whose name is only in history, it’s a person who I share memories with in my own life.

“I never saw him in the context of someone who fought in war. He didn’t like talking about it.”

He said he understood the outrage felt across the country but did not want to give airtime to the “appalling” act.

”I was here this morning and witnessed it and I absolutely feel that sense of outrage and I know that people in the crowd did today as well.

“It is a small number of people, and you know what, we should not be giving them airtime.

“Today was a beautiful service.”