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What is it about these three words that stopped me cold every time I hear them?
Growing up in Australia, we were surrounded by the ghosts of the ANZACs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp - coined during the first world war as an acronym to be used on maps). From an early age the importance of Australia’s sacrifice in all the wars was heavily reinforced and great respect show for all those who served.
The personal loss that I carry with me is that he died the year before I was born and so never got the chance to meet him or get to know him and ask him all the questions I still have for him. My mum would sometime regale me with stories, although now that I reflect back on those conversations it was never about his First World War service. It was as if those years had been stricken from his memory and the years after seen through a different lens.
I can’t even imagine the feelings of utter terror and frenzied chaos that he and his mates must have felt and endured leading up to being ordered, “to go over the top” and into, what for many…was oblivion.
How do you make sense of one minute shaking hands with your mate next to you, hearing the shrill sound of the whistle and then clambering up and over the sandbag parapets into what surely must be certain death as you cross a boggy, churned up battle field - and for what? A few yards of mud... Can you imagine losing your best friends day in, day out until there was no one left? How do you get up and over that bloody parapet just one more time knowing that perhaps this time it’s you who won’t be coming back? The futility of the situation must have been almost too much to bear.
I always wondered how grandfather kept his nerve under such impossibly trying conditions; did he just keep his head down and steel himself to the daily task at hand? Or had he made peace and accepted his fate come what may?
Grandfather bore the physical brunt of being wounded when he received a nasty gunshot wound to the face during the battle of Messines Ridge near Ypres in June 1917 and was repatriated back to England to rest and recover. And although this was a brief respite from the immediate dangers of being in the front line, he recovered just in time to go back into the line for the battle for Polygon Wood in late September. Tempting fate just one too many times must have played on his mind - no doubt!
How many thousands of families, the world over, lost generations to come from being either one-inch too far left or right… Makes you think doesn’t it? These questions and a hundred more I’ll never be able to
ask, but they still play on my mind and particularly on days like today.
There are two days that bear special reverence in Australia.
The first is April 25th - ANZAC day in which all Australians pay their respects to those who fought and died in all wars. The day itself signifies the first time Australia went into battle as a recognized and independent nation against the strongly held Gallipoli Peninsula in modern day Turkey. And although the campaign was a stunning loss for the combined Allied forces over a protracted eight month period it's still regarded as the moment we came of age as a nation.
Over the years the importance of this day has changed significantly, in that its become much more mainstream and popular across all generations bringing everyone together in this national day of mourning.
The second is November 11th - Remembrance Day. This is the day I think about Grandfather most, and how surprised he must have felt having survived the war. What must have gone through his mind on November 11th, 1918 when the firing finally stopped at 11:00am?
I guess no one will ever know for sure but he and every other soldier irrespective of side during the conflict, and everyone since has became a casualty of war, with the wounds being both physical and mental in almost every combatant.
So to you Grandfather and all of your mates who didn't make it home - thank you for your service, courage and sacrifice.
Lest we forget!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Hanoi Posting” A series of fictional micro-stories by Terence Wallis
Come visit "Hanoi Posting" at its new home!
No words....
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Growing up in Australia, we were surrounded by the ghosts of the ANZACs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp - coined during the first world war as an acronym to be used on maps). From an early age the importance of Australia’s sacrifice in all the wars was heavily reinforced and great respect show for all those who served.
Its much more personal for me as my grandfather was an ANZAC, and although he didn’t wade ashore on April 25th
at Gallipoli he was a soldier of the First World War who fought on the Western
Front in France for more than two years and somehow survived, albeit wounded
and gassed in one of the most horrific wars of our time...but then again,
aren’t they all?
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the date he enlisted - 11th November, 1916...how ironic.
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the date he enlisted - 11th November, 1916...how ironic.
The personal loss that I carry with me is that he died the year before I was born and so never got the chance to meet him or get to know him and ask him all the questions I still have for him. My mum would sometime regale me with stories, although now that I reflect back on those conversations it was never about his First World War service. It was as if those years had been stricken from his memory and the years after seen through a different lens.
I can’t even imagine the feelings of utter terror and frenzied chaos that he and his mates must have felt and endured leading up to being ordered, “to go over the top” and into, what for many…was oblivion.
How do you make sense of one minute shaking hands with your mate next to you, hearing the shrill sound of the whistle and then clambering up and over the sandbag parapets into what surely must be certain death as you cross a boggy, churned up battle field - and for what? A few yards of mud... Can you imagine losing your best friends day in, day out until there was no one left? How do you get up and over that bloody parapet just one more time knowing that perhaps this time it’s you who won’t be coming back? The futility of the situation must have been almost too much to bear.
I always wondered how grandfather kept his nerve under such impossibly trying conditions; did he just keep his head down and steel himself to the daily task at hand? Or had he made peace and accepted his fate come what may?
Grandfather bore the physical brunt of being wounded when he received a nasty gunshot wound to the face during the battle of Messines Ridge near Ypres in June 1917 and was repatriated back to England to rest and recover. And although this was a brief respite from the immediate dangers of being in the front line, he recovered just in time to go back into the line for the battle for Polygon Wood in late September. Tempting fate just one too many times must have played on his mind - no doubt!
How many thousands of families, the world over, lost generations to come from being either one-inch too far left or right… Makes you think doesn’t it?
There are two days that bear special reverence in Australia.
The first is April 25th - ANZAC day in which all Australians pay their respects to those who fought and died in all wars. The day itself signifies the first time Australia went into battle as a recognized and independent nation against the strongly held Gallipoli Peninsula in modern day Turkey. And although the campaign was a stunning loss for the combined Allied forces over a protracted eight month period it's still regarded as the moment we came of age as a nation.
Over the years the importance of this day has changed significantly, in that its become much more mainstream and popular across all generations bringing everyone together in this national day of mourning.
The second is November 11th - Remembrance Day. This is the day I think about Grandfather most, and how surprised he must have felt having survived the war. What must have gone through his mind on November 11th, 1918 when the firing finally stopped at 11:00am?
I guess no one will ever know for sure but he and every other soldier irrespective of side during the conflict, and everyone since has became a casualty of war, with the wounds being both physical and mental in almost every combatant.
So to you Grandfather and all of your mates who didn't make it home - thank you for your service, courage and sacrifice.
Lest we forget!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Hanoi Posting” A series of fictional micro-stories by Terence Wallis
Come visit "Hanoi Posting" at its new home!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No words....
 |
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