‘In the heart of the land they loved’: The Anzac centenary in the locality of Reedy Flat, Victoria

“It’s a bit out of the way; do you need directions?”, the local RSL sub-branch president asks. It’s the night before Anzac Day and we’re ringing to confirm arrangements for the dawn service. New to this part of Gippsland, five hours east of Melbourne, we gladly take the directions, and a good thing, too. They require a left-hand turn at the pub, veering right at a fork, turning left onto a No Through Road… Our destination in the early hours of 25 April 2015 is the Reedy Flat war memorial, which bears the names of 33 townsmen who served during the First World War. The town is gone, but the names remain.

Some descendants remain as well. In a fitting speech, Carey Mudge sketches the stories of six of his relatives listed on the memorial. Three died and three returned. Mudge thanks the members of the nearest RSL sub-branch, Ensay-Swifts Creek, for their efforts to retore the memorial and hold the first service in living memory here: these men, too, are remembered today. Early media reports this Anzac Day suggest record attendances at the central capital city services, especially at Martin Place in Sydney, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. But how many other war memorials, I wonder, stand alone?

Russell Adams, the Ensay-Swifts Creek RSL Sub-Branch President, says at the end of the service that he’s ‘overwhelmed’ by the turnout. The sub-branch has only about 20 financial members, and they’d expected fewer than a third of the dawn service attendees at the end of this No Through Road. Later, as indefatigable country women cook sausages, bacon and eggs in frying pans at the Ensay war memorial hall, he worries he’s frightened people off by cautioning that the breakfast may be under-catered. “It’s alright,” he’s reassured. “Everyone’s probably just having a chat out there.”

Chatting they are: about the great-uncles and grandfathers and great-grandfathers listed on the memorial; about school; about the weather. A community that has offered its quiet contemplation, and now goes about its day.

 

The title of this post is drawn from CEW Bean’s words about the Australian War Memorial:  “Here is their spirit, in the heart of the land they loved; and here we guard the record which they themselves made.”

Where are contemporary veterans in the Anzac Centenary’s ‘Century of Service’?

One of the most striking aspects of Australia’s Anzac Centenary in comparison with other countries’ First World War centenaries is the number of anniversaries that will be commemorated.

In the United Kingdom, the First World War Centenary is shaped around six key dates; in Canada, 100 Years: First World War 1914-1918 will mark 12 centennials [1]; and in New Zealand, WW100 consists of 12 national commemorations.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Anzac Centenary will mark no fewer than 36 significant commemorative dates, so that a commemoration will occur, on average, once every 43 days.

Only ten of these ‘significant commemorative dates’ relate to the First World War. The others are drawn from the Second World War, Korea, the Malayan Emergency, Indonesian Confrontation, Vietnam, the First Gulf War, and Somalia. This is in keeping with the Anzac Centenary theme ‘Century of Service’, which “has been developed to give Australians the opportunity to commemorate their fellow countrymen and women who have fought and served, and continue to fight and serve, in all wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.” The ‘Century of Service’ recognises “the more than 100 years of other [non-First World War] service since the Boer War to the present day and how this continues the Anzac tradition” (my emphasis). [2]

If we accept the premise that all servicemen and -women since Federation have served in “the Anzac tradition” and must be recognised during the Anzac Centenary, it becomes difficult to explain why the last ‘significant commemorative dates’ chosen are the 25th anniversary of the end of the First Gulf War in February 2016 and the 25th anniversary of the arrival of 1RAR task group in Somalia in January 2018. 

Do you have a right to be on Team Anzac?

It’s quite possible that my first exposure to Australian war history was through music. As a child, when I was bundled into the car for family road trips, there was one sure companion: my Dad’s mix cassette tape collection, with liberal sprinklings of Eric Bogle’s 1971 song And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, a story told in the voice of a wounded Gallipoli veteran. Whenever I read something about Anzac Day parades, like last month’s article in the Adelaide Advertiser about Indian-Australians seeking permission to march next year, I can’t help but remember Bogle’s concluding verses:

And so now every April, I sit on me porch,

And I watch the parades pass before me.

And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,

Reviving old dreams of past glories.

And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore,

They’re tired old heroes from a forgotten war.

And the young people ask, ‘What are they marching for?’

And I ask myself the same question.

But the band plays Waltzing Matilda, and the old men still answer the call,

But as year follows year, more old men disappear.

Someday no one will march there at all.

“Someday no one will march there at all.” Bogle wrote in the context of the Vietnam anti-war movement and well before the resurgence of interest in Anzac of the 1980s and after. I don’t think he could have imagined the transformation of Anzac Day parades we’ve seen since, when the question of young people and others hasn’t been “What are they marching for?” but “Can we march too?”

Soldiers’ names, children’s voices: The Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour Soundscape project

This week Honest History published a piece by Dr David Stephens (@honesthistory1) about the Australian War Memorial’s Anzac centenary project Roll of Honour Soundscape. From early 2014, the Memorial will invite Year 6 students from around Australia to record the names and ages at death of the 62,000 Australians who died during the First World War. The recordings will then be broadcast in the Roll of Honour cloister during the centenary years. As heard in the Memorial’s video about the project, below, “Thomas Noonan, age 23… James Ashton Taylor, age 23… James Ellaby Abbott, age 18…”

Stephens’ piece is a valuable overview of the Soundscape project and asks some important questions about the context, purpose, and ethics of the primary school students’ involvement. I am also interested in the impact the project will have on visitors’ experience of the Memorial, in particular of the Roll of Honour. The project brings to mind my own experience of a similar undertaking at Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium.

Spotted: “ANZAC Run. Exercise your freedom”

In 2014 the First World War centenary – or, as it’s officially being called in Australia, the Anzac centenary – really is everywhere.

Lately I’ve been seeing ads for “ANZAC Runs” to take place on either side of Anzac Day this year, in Melbourne on 21 April 2014 and Brisbane on 27 April 2014.