Great Anzac Stories

By Graham Seal

Over the years, the experiences of soldiers at war become the stuff of legend: tales of great bravery, battlefield wins, and also the tragic losses and poignant moments. Great ANZAC Stories gathers iconic stories of Australian experience in the major wars the country has fought: World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam, and also tales from the home front. Here we relive the horror of the first day on Gallipoli, acutely aware of what was to come. We admire the courage of the Rats of Tobruk, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, and the Vietnam Tunnelers. We remember the nurses from the Vyner Brooke tragedy and some of the most daring men the country has ever produced. With jokes from the front, yarns about the slouch hat, the Lone Pine, and the real origin of the Anzac biscuit, Great ANZAC Stories also reveals a distinctively Australian way to remember the nation's years at war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Unwin
• Release date: Feb 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781743430361

Graham Seal

Graham Seal is the author of THESE FEW LINES, which won the National Biography Award in 2008. Professor of Folklore at Curtin University in WA, he is married with two daughters.

Book preview

ALSO BY GRAHAM SEAL

Dog’s Eye and Dead Horse: The Complete Guide to Australian Rhyming Slang

Great Australian Stories: Legends, Yarns and Tall Tales

Inventing ANZAC: The Digger and National Mythology

Outlaw Heroes in Myth and History

Tell ’Em I Died Game: The Legend of Ned Kelly

These Few Lines: A Convict Story

(ed.) Echoes of Anzac: The Voice of Australians at War

THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO CREATED

THE DIGGER LEGEND

GRAHAM SEAL

While every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material in this book, the publisher welcomes further information from copyright holders so they can be acknowledged in future editions.

First published in 2013

Copyright © Graham Seal 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

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Cover photo: Australian War Memorial, Negative Number CAM/68/0144/VN (E00233)

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Foundations of Anzac

Digger

First to fall

The forgotten island

The silent Anzac

The first day on Gallipoli

Talk about go!

The landing

Parables of Anzac

Silence of the guns

Furphy

Leaving Gallipoli

At Pozières

We did all that was asked of us

The charge at Beersheba

Heroes of Anzac

They just poured into the wards all day

Everyone was as cheerful as possible

Private Punch

A soldier of the cross

Fromelles

The Australians are here!

The Roo de Kanga

The only gleams of sunshine

The underground artillery

Matilda goes to war

Tobruk Rats

‘Bluey’ Truscott

Angels of the Owen Stanley Range

Australia’s secret submariners

The home front

Scots of the Riverina

The Durban Signaller

The chalk Rising Sun

Blighty

Homecoming

Very irritated

Death’s soldier

A stitch in time

The Nackeroos

Yanks Down Under

The Brisbane Line

Miss Luckman’s journal

Laughter

A million cat-calls

The Pommies and the Yanks

Religion

Monocles

Food and drink

Babbling brooks

Army biscuits

The casual digger

Officers

Birdie

The piece of paper

Baldy becomes mobile

Characters

‘The Unofficial History of the AIF’

Please Let Us Take Tobruk

Parable of the kit inspection

The Air Force wife

Legends of Anzac

The Eureka sword

The lost submarine

The vanished battalion

The two men with donkeys

Murphy’s daughter

The souvenir king

The crucified soldier

The walers

ANZAC to Anzac

Anzac and the Rising Sun

The first and the last

Memories

No. 008 Trooper J. Redgum

The first Anzac Days

Return to Gallipoli

After the war

The lonely Anzac

The longest memorial

The lone pines

Mrs Kim’s commemoration

The long aftermath of Fromelles

The Unknown Sailor

The Long Tan cross

Flowers of remembrance

The lady of violets

Sound and silence

Hugo Throssell’s VC

Do you remember?

Select sources and references

Picture credits

Introduction

SINCE 25 APRIL 1915, Australians have progressively expanded and deepened the significance of Gallipoli, the battles of the western front, Tobruk, Kokoda and Long Tan, in addition to many other engagements in the Middle East, Korea, Malaya, Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan. The national community’s awareness also encompasses the many peacekeeping operations around the world in which Australian troops have taken part. The death and injury of hundreds of thousands of Australians, together with the resulting grief and ongoing suffering within their families, have left a permanent and profound imprint on the nation. This is recorded in stone, wood and metal on memorials and honour boards in almost every community in the country and in many places abroad.

The term that embodies this combination of sacrifice, duty, loss and meaning is ‘Anzac’, formed from the telegraphic address of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps—ANZAC. This ‘one little word’ has come to resonate many things Australians consider to be profoundly symbolic of their identity: courage, determination, anti-authoritarianism, egalitarianism and a larrikin attitude to the grim realities of war and so, of life and death in general. Whether these characteristics are genuine or not is a question that is often debated. Certainly, the fact that the concept of ‘Anzac’ has persisted for almost a century and shows every sign of strengthening into the future as a popular focus of national identity, among the young as well as the old, suggests that it has wide support in the community.

Through the decades following World War I, during which Anzac has become an inescapable aspect of our society, innumerable stories have been told about those who contributed to its making. These spoken and written memorials include tales of heroism, suffering and endurance. Perhaps surprisingly to some, Anzac tales are often humorous, for laughter is an essential element in coping with the realities of war and its long aftermath. Many are widely known, in one version or another, and are told and retold in books, newspapers, films and even in schoolrooms. Many other Anzac stories are known only to particular groups or to the inhabitants of particular communities, perhaps only to a family. Whatever their provenance, these stories together make up an intangible web of knowledge about the Australian experience of war and the way we understand it through Anzac. They form a network of shared meaning that is publicly reaffirmed every year on 25 April at memorials around the country and, increasingly, around the world.

It is these stories, told whenever possible in the words of those who were there—at the front line or at home—that appear in Great Anzac Stories. At least, a few of them appear. Anzac’s long existence and wide appeal has generated a vast body of anecdote, legend, reminiscence and yarn and this book can only represent a small selection of these many tales.

In telling these stories, the book begins with ‘Foundations’, a selection of accounts from Gallipoli, the western front and the Middle East. This is followed by ‘Heroes’, which tells of courageous deeds in many of Australia’s wars. Home fronts are as important as battlefronts, and a selection of tales from Australia and ‘Blighty’—the United Kingdom—next appears here. The large body of digger humour is given due representation under the heading of ‘Laughter’, followed by a collection of Anzac ‘Legends’. The book concludes with a section titled ‘Memories’, which focuses on the commemoration of war and its consequences for all, at home and at the front.

The concept of ‘Anzac’ is treated broadly. As well as stories about the army and the original diggers—the largely citizen foot soldiers of the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF)—the book includes those of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). As well as tales of men at war it includes those of nurses, doctors and even animals. While the ‘NZ’ in Anzac is often overlooked, there are also a few stories specifically about the Kiwi experience of war and the considerable significance of Anzac in that country.

Anzac is an idea that is a vital element of the Australian consciousness. It has been with us for almost a century, sometimes referred to as ‘the spirit of Anzac’, or the ‘legend of Anzac’. Over that time it has increased and decreased in popularity, with the lowest level of public observance occurring on the Anzac days between the late 1960s and late 1980s. Since then we have seen a strong resurgence of interest in the day and, consequently, the meaning of Anzac itself. This has been particularly marked among young adults, although older Australians have also been flocking to Anzac Day events—especially the Dawn Service—as well as travelling to the various sites of Anzac memory in Britain, Turkey, France, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea and Singapore, to name only some of the more popular destinations for these ‘pilgrimages’, as they are often called.

This enthusiasm for what some consider to be a glorification of war has generated controversy from time to time, with various groups, including anti-war organisations, voicing their opposition to aspects of Anzac. Arguments that Anzac and its day are about acknowledging sacrifice and remembering those who made it are not accepted by all Australians. Whatever the view taken, though, it is very difficult not to have a position for or against Anzac, so completely does it pervade our society.

This book seeks to present the Anzac stories it contains as straightforwardly as possible, allowing readers to make their own judgements. The stories are left largely to speak for themselves, with only a minimum of explanation and background detail to provide context for today’s reader. Spellings, punctuation and other usages have been variously standardised and corrected, except where it is necessary to retain the original to preserve the sense of the quotation. A glossary of military acronyms, specialised terms and slang has also been provided. Military titles, ranks and honours are generally those possessed by the individual at the time of the events witnessed or experienced.

To convey the immediacy of the events as they were experienced, many eyewitness accounts taken from letters, diaries and other contemporary documents have been included. These sources resonate with the attitudes and values of the day, and the emotions of the moment—and they are often rich in Australian Introduction ‘slanguage’, giving them colour and impact, even after many decades. The downside of this is that these accounts sometimes contain terms and represent attitudes that are no longer socially acceptable.

Some pieces written in reflection, after the events they describe, are also included to show the always-developing significance of Anzac, not only in war but also in the periods between them that we call ‘peace’.

Acknowledgements

MAUREEN SEAL, JOHN Stephens, Alan Williams and the Fovant Badge Preservation Society, and the staff at Allen & Unwin. A portion of the royalties generated by this book will be donated to Legacy, a volunteer organisation formed by war veterans in 1923 to care for the dependants of deceased Australian servicemen and women—a great Anzac story of its own.

Glossary

THE MILITARY, TECHNICAL and slang terms that sometimes appear in the documents used for this book may not be familiar to most readers. The following list should be helpful.

AB able bodied seaman

Ack emma am, the morning

ADS advanced dressing station

ASC army service corps

Batman personal assistant to an officer

Billyjim or Billjim terms sometimes used for an Australian soldier in World War I

Blanky euphemism for ‘bloody’, or any other swear word

Bn, or Bat Battalion

(the) Boche (sometimes as Bosche) Germans

CO commanding officer

DCM Distinguished Conduct Medal

DSO Distinguished Service Order

‘Eggsers’ 28th Battalion AIF, from their battle cry ‘Eggs-a-cook’

Enfilade to fire into a trench or enemy position from a number of sides at once

Minenwerfer German artillery piece, World War I

MM military medal

NCO non-commissioned officer

OC officer in charge

Pip emma pm, the afternoon

QMS quartermaster’s store

Sap a tunnel or trench

TB torpedo boat

VC Victoria Cross

WAAC (sometimes as ‘Waacs’) Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps

Woodbine derogatory term for the British, derived from the brand name of the cheap cigarettes they usually smoked

WT wireless telegraph

8 chevaux ou 40 hommes French for ‘8 horses or 40 men’, a sign commonly stencilled to the side of French rail wagons in which many troops were transported in World War I

Foundations of Anzac

AUSTRALIA’S EXPERIENCE OF World War I, from September 1914 to the armistice of 11 November 1918, is the basis of the Anzac tradition. The high drama of the Dardanelles landings in Turkey on 25 April 1915, and the dogged fighting of the next eight months, meant that Gallipoli (Gelibolou) quickly became the originating location of Anzac and all it has come to stand for. Other events and locations—sometimes not so dramatic or formative, but all contributing to the evolution of the digger—have disappeared from our general knowledge of the war. The fighting in German New Guinea the year before Gallipoli, the importance of the Greek island of Lemnos and the significant role of submarine AE2 in 1915 have suffered this fate of being largely forgotten. On the western front, meaning the trench lines that ran the breadth of Belgium (‘Flanders’) and France, further feats of bravery, endurance and sometimes incomprehensible sacrifice burnished the legends of Gallipoli and the digger, in the minds both of the Anzacs themselves and of those waiting and worrying at home in Australia and New Zealand. Pozières in France and Passchendaele in Belgium are among the places that still draw large numbers of visiting Australians and which are recorded on war memorials around Australia. In the region now known as ‘the Middle East’, some serious battles were fought, now mostly forgotten, with the exception of Beersheba in 1917. These events, a handful among the many that took place in four years of fighting, are the foundations of Anzac.

Digger

The term ‘digger’, meaning the rank-and-file Australian foot soldier, is closely tied to the significance of ‘Anzac’. Together, these two words have been at the centre of popular ideas about national identity since World War I (1914–18).

The term Anzac is derived from ANZAC, the telegraphic abbreviation of ‘Australian and New Zealand Army Corps’. It seems to have become a self-descriptive word in use among members of the First AIF during training in Egypt, perhaps even earlier, and was immediately applied to the beach where the Australian and New Zealand troops first landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. At this time, the soldiers were often referred to as ‘Anzacs’, sometimes as ‘Billjims’, with the term ‘digger’ not becoming an accepted denomination until 1917 on the western front. Nevertheless, the term is commonly employed retrospectively to refer to Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought from the beginning of World War I.

The image of the digger draws on the nineteenth-century romance and mythology of the Australian bush and its heroes. These include the pioneer, the free selector, the gold prospector or ‘digger’, the shearer, even the bushranger, as well as many similar characters who feature in bush verse and song, and in the literature and art of writers Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson and Henry Lawson and painter Tom Roberts, among many others. From the 1890s, these archetypal figures were closely associated with popular ideals concerning Australian identity. When the country went to war, most Australians considered that this event represented the emotional ‘birth of a nation’. Through the experiences of the AIF, the ideal of the bushman effortlessly morphed into that of the digger. Instead of driving cattle overland, shearing sheep or rounding up herds of brumbies, the bushman now wore a uniform—more or less—and employed his bush skills and nous in excavating ‘dugouts’ and ‘possies’, making jam tin bombs, sniping and generally trying to outfox a wily enemy resisting an invasion of its homeland (in the case of Turkey). Even though many members of the First AIF came from the city rather than the country (contrary to a popular and persistent myth), as a body they demonstrated the bushman’s independence and ingrained disdain for authority, as well as pursuing—frequently to excess—the masculine pastimes of drinking, fighting and gambling. The digger’s symbolic status, rooted in these available traditions of the bush, was immediate and enduring.

With this background it is not surprising that the origins of the term for the Australian infantryman have been the cause of ongoing controversy. It has been argued that the term was derived from the mid-nineteenth-century gold rushes in the eastern colonies, in which the men who hastened to the goldfields to seek their fortunes came to be known as ‘diggers’. It has also been suggested that the word originated at Gallipoli, because the Anzacs who landed there were quickly compelled by the Turkish resistance to ‘dig in’; they were famously commanded by General Sir Ian Hamilton to ‘dig, dig, dig’. New Zealand variations of the story include the suggestion that it came from the local term ‘gum diggers’ for fossickers of the fossilised resin of kauri trees. Another claim has been made for the origin of the term among members of the 3rd Division’s 11th Brigade, training and digging on England’s Salisbury Plain in September and October 1916.

There are numerous other folkloric accounts that claim to pinpoint the origins of the word. The only certainty is that Australian troops did not begin to call themselves ‘diggers’—or to be called so by others—until at least early 1917, two years after the Anzac landings at Gallipoli. From the moment the term first appeared it was, and continues to be, frequently debated in letters to the editors of newspapers and within the ranks of ex-service associations around the country.

Writing in 1944, Lieutenant Colonel C. Dennis Horne gave this version:

Just before the last war I was employed in the PWD Tasmanian Railway Construction Branch. In one of the day-labour gangs a typical old bowyanged navy (ex-N.Z. gum digger), Digger Cowley, always greeted you with ‘Good-day, digger.’ The timekeeper on these works, W H Sandy and I drifted to World War I.

After Gallipoli we went to France. On a typical grey sloppy Flanders morn, early 1917, Captain Sandy (now Lt-Col Sandy, DSO), and I were plodding through Poperhinge near the original Toc H building [a comforts facility in the Belgian town of Poperinghe]. I was surprised and impressed by ‘old Sandy’s’ greeting to each passing lad—‘Good-day, digger.’ Like magic the term became mass-produced. From every estaminet, urged by the vin rouge or vin blanc plonk, oozed the expression, ‘Good-day, dig’, or, more slangishly, ‘How’s she, dig.’

I often think of ‘old Sandy’, that cheerful unorthodox soldier with the persistent bubble in his Adam’s apple, and I feel that many, knowing him, will say: ‘Well, now you come to think of it, he is just the likeliest old b—— in the first AIF to have been the originator of digger. ’

A Major T. A. Connor responded to this version.

Imust join issue with Lt-Col Horne on the origin and application of the word ‘digger’ in the first AIF. At least two years prior to 1917 this greeting was in general use, and I submit that its origin may be traced to the later days at Gallipoli.

Following the unsuccessful battles of early August 1915, the bulk of the Australian forces was engaged in constructing and improving trenches. The 7th Brigade (2 Division) was on Cheshire Ridge, The Apex and Durrant’s Post, and it was a general source of merriment to other units to inquire of our boys their ‘present occupation’, to which the reply was generally ‘Digging, digging, always b—— well digging.’ My own battalion (27 battalion) became well known as the ‘3 D’s’ (‘Dellman’s Dugout Diggers’) to which we added the then popular ‘dinkum’, and so caused the battalion to be known as ‘Dellman’s Dinkum Dugout Diggers.’

I suggest that the greeting ‘digger’ originated at this time and not, as suggested by Lt-Col Horne, in the early part of 1917.

The controversy continues today.

First to fall

The first Australian engagements—and casualties—of World War I took place not in 1915 at Gallipoli but during the year before in what was then known as German New Guinea. In September 1914 a combined Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force attacked German forces and wireless installations at and near Herbertshöhe (now Kokopo, East New Britain province in Papua New Guinea). These installations were considered dangerous because they formed the communications hub for Germany’s East Asian Cruising Squadron. A month or so after the engagement, First Class petty officer C. Hoffman wrote home to Rockhampton in Queensland about his experiences, giving an on-the-ground account of the fighting.

You know that we left Rocky and everything was a whisper. When Max Jeffries and myself reached Brisbane we were ordered to Sydney by the same train that brought us from Rocky, along with over fifty Queenslanders bound for Sydney. Still everything done in a whisper. When we got to Sydney there was no secret about it. All along the line the people were at the stations to give us a cheer, right up to 2 am. We were a queer looking crowd, only one third of the boys in uniform. On arriving in Sydney we were run to Edgecliff. Some were fitted out with uniform and boots, and webbing gear similar to the soldiers. I was not fitted with clothes until we were at sea in the Berrima. We had a fine passage right through. We anchored ten days in the Palm Islands, going on shore in the ship’s boats, skirmishing and rifle practice. There were about 500 naval reserves and over 1200 soldiers with two machine guns.

. . . When we arrived off here at 7 am on the 11th we had orders to go on shore for the great ceremonial as the Germans had surrendered, but we very soon found out that they had not.

The Governor said that he could not surrender and the navals were landed. The run to the wireless station, called Kabakaul, about six miles from the landing, was a dangerous piece of work. It was one open road with thick jungle on both sides, with a trench across the road which was mined in places. We lost the best naval officer of the expedition, Lieutenant Commander Elwell, a real ‘toff’, Captain Pockley of the Army Medical Corps, another ‘toff’, and four of our reserves, all AB’s, along with three other reserves wounded.

Landing parties from the destroyers also landed and did good work. We also had one naval officer, Lieutenant Bowen, wounded, but he has since rejoined. Our boys fought like tigers; no holding them back. The Germans themselves did not do much damage. They cocktailed [failed to fight]. The native armed police did most of the damage. They were posted in trees. We got a number of German officers and non coms, also thirty-six native police besides those that were sent to the boneyard. The two officers that were shot, also the AB’s, were shot with soft-nosed bullets, the lead standing out about a quarter of inch above the nickel. Some of the nickel bullets were filed like a cross over the point of the bullet, and others were sharp-pointed. There would be no chance of living if any of them went through you. The bullet-holes in Lieutenant Elwell and Captain Pockley on the one side were very small, but where they came out you could drop a billiard ball in.

After the wireless was taken we had to look for the Governor, forty Germans, and 200 armed native police in another part of the island. The Encounter shelled in the direction where the force was supposed to be, about six miles in a straight line, and that put the fear of God and old England into their hearts. They had retreated to another place. We had been in the bush all day, and just about dusk located them up a bit of a mountain. Two shots from our field gun into the ridge and out came a white flag with word that the Governor and his troops would surrender. On the Thursday the Governor came in and surrendered on condition that they got full honours of war.

On the Monday it was a grand sight to see the Germans coming in with their black police. Their drilling was something lovely, just like a piece of machinery. Three days after the battle I was made a first-class petty officer for services,

Reviews for Great Anzac Stories

[lamour_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a collection of essays, memories, poems, etc. of the effects of war and after on soldiers from Australia and a few from New Zea;and. The book starts with a history of Anzac the word and where it came from. Australian soldiers are known as Diggers and we are entertained with several explanations of where the term came from.The main content of Seal's book is the brief memories of the main battles in which the Australian military took part. Gallipoli of course provides the majority of the stories followed by Flanders. New Britain and Vietnam are included but because they seem to be minor events overshadowed by the fighting in Gallipoli and Belgium and thus seem to get short shift here.There are chapters on the home front as well which illustrate the impact of war on the folks back home. This is an entertaining volume and very readable. Large parts of it were in the soldiers own words taken from their letters and memoirs.