ANZAC day: Ship after ship

Ship after ship, crammed with soldiers, moved slowly out of harbour, in the lovely day, and felt again the heave of the sea. No such gathering of fine ships has ever been seen upon this earth, and the beauty and the exaltation of the youth upon them made them like sacred things as they moved away.

As they passed from moorings to the man-of-war anchorage on their way to the sea, their feeling that they had done with life and were going out to something new, welled up in those battalions; they cheered and cheered till the harbour rang with cheering.

As each ship crammed with soldiers drew near the battleships, the men swung their caps and cheered again, and the sailors answered, and the noise of cheering swelled, and the men in the ships not yet moving joined in, and the men ashore, till all the life in the harbour was giving thanks that it could go to death rejoicing.

By the night of the second day, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps had won and fortified their position. Men writing or reporting on service about them referred to them as the A.N.Z.A.C.(From "Gallipoli" by John Masefield)

Lest we forget

The Soul of Australia

In the light of dawn, the break of day,
Through the waters chill they fought their way;
Like their sires of old, to the Motherland
They came o’er the sea, and they sprang to the strand;
And the blood of the Angles, the Scot, and the Celt
Grew hot in their veins as the war fire they felt.

In the light of noon, in the bright sunlight,
They fought up the cliffs from height to height;
And the sun shone down on that scene of strife
Where the ‘Soul of Australia’ came to life,
As the blood of Australians was shed on the sod,
For Australia, for Britain, Humanity, God.

Shall Australia mourn for the sons she has lost-
Should Australians weep? Nay! Great though the cost,
Joy mingles with grief, and pride mingles with pain,
For our boys died like heroes, and died not in vain.
And the ‘Soul of Australia’, new-born on that day
When her sons died at ANZAC, shall never decay.

J.H.M.
The Brisbane Courier, 25 April 1916

ANZAC DAY

We read two picture books as part of our study this year for ANZAC Day. The first would more properly be read on Remembrance Day here in Australia as it talks about the symbolism of wearing individual poppies but in New Zealand this is (or was when I was a child) an Anzac Day tradition and
so we read the first book and I explained the New Zealand connection.

Also a "significant" memory for me surrounding Anzac Day was my Std 4 teacher reading

an extract

from the book "Gallipoli" by John Masefield. Of course I didn't know at 10 that he was Poet Laureate for England at that time or that he wrote the book as a counter foil

to German propaganda that was spreading in the States around the time of the Gallipoli offensive

But the lyrical and emotive style(better than any enlistment poster as far as my 10 year old personality was concerned) have always remained as a vague shadow imprinted in my mind as so much of childhood is.And so I bequeathed to the boys this ANZAC day rememberance tradition .

Finally we read this picture book which had such a positive take on community and building memories(deliberate but poor play on story)



Of course no post in our family on ANZAC day would be complete without mentioning in passing the interesting discussions/debates/conversations on the remembering with older children and just how we should observe this remembering.

ANZAC DAY 2008

In rememberance of those who "took a stand"; lest we forget

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
--Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)Dachau Concentration Camp survivor