CANBERRA’S Centenary has allowed the Australian War Memorial to do something it ordinarily wouldn’t, and present an exhibition focused entirely on local experiences of war and military service.

Visitors can explore the personal stories of 20 Canberrans, including World War II fighter pilot Lindsay Knowles, a champion swimmer who was killed in a dogfight over Libya in 1941, aged 24.

His father Sir George Knowles (who would become Australia’s Solicitor General, head of the Attorney General’s Department and Parliamentary Draftsman all at once) had already played a central role in Australia’s federation, the drafting of the Constitution and the creation of Canberra, by the time the family moved here in 1928.

In the same year Sir George’s membership in the Order of the British Empire (OBE) was upgraded to Commander (CBE) for his tireless work in the young nation’s public service. His efforts earned him his knighthood in 1939, the same year Lindsay told him he wanted to fly.

The pilot’s younger brother Mervyn, 91, remembers a man in the prime of his life, blessed with athletic and academic gifts, who became a family hero for later generations to look up to.

“He was a hell of a good brother,” recalls Mervyn, flipping through one of many incredible photo albums that fill the family home in Forrest where he lives with Beth, his wife of 68 years.

“I was the kid brother because I was four years younger, but yeah, Lindsay was a leader in many ways. He was dux of the school, he got a scholarship to Sydney Uni and did arts; he was going to do arts-law but then he got to the end of arts and he said: ‘Dad, I want to fly,’ so fly he did. Bloody good pilot, too.”

The middle child, Lindsay was the first of three Knowles boys to enlist and serve in World War II.

“George, the eldest, got to be a flight lieutenant and he survived,” says Mervyn. “There were three of us in the services and we would have all been in the Air Force – if I could have seen straight.”

Mervyn enlisted in the Army after the Air Force turned him down but, to his disappointment, ended up in administrative jobs. The war in Papua New Guinea took its toll nonetheless and he was discharged on medical grounds.

“There were two branches of the Army I didn’t want to be in; one was the Pay Office and the other was medical, and I finished up with both,” he says with a smile.

When Mervyn was five the family moved into his father’s nearly-finished house in Red Hill. “They sold it to the Dutch in the middle of the war,” he says, and it is the Dutch Ambassador’s residence to this day.

The Knowles family name is around town in various places, like the address of the ACT’s courts, but it is the connections between Lindsay and the city’s living residents that feature in the new War Memorial exhibition, entitled “Salute: Canberra’s Military Heritage”.

Its curator, Amanda Rebbeck, expects a lot of visitors who live locally and hopes they will see themselves in the personal stories, each of which is filled with familiar names of Canberra institutions such as schools, clubs and churches.

“With Lindsay’s story I wanted to focus on all the locations around Canberra where he’s remembered,” says Amanda. “The family donated a memorial to the local family church – the Uniting Church in Forrest – and there’s a memorial swimming trophy [from the Canberra Amateur Swimming Club] in the exhibition.”

Swimming was important in the Knowles household, and the ebullient 91-year-old Mervyn still does laps every day. The first memory of his big brother that comes to mind is of “a bloody good swimmer” who once knocked 14 seconds off the 400m record for university competition.

“Our old man was an early president of the swimming club, then its patron,” he says. “Lindsay was club champion, I was club champion twice and so it goes on. I’ve been swimming all my life and it’s a good way to be.”

As well as the personal stories of Lindsay Knowles and 19 others, “Salute” will examine the military’s presence in Canberra, recent local veterans and life in the ACT during wartime.

“Salute: Canberra’s Military Heritage” is at the Australian War Memorial until November 20.