Great Anzac Stories

by Graham Seal

  AUSTRALIANS ’ FINE RECORD

  It is only my intention at present to cover a period of the first 20 weeks of the company in France, in which period the combined effort of the Australians and the enemy resulted in the explosion of 35 mines, 24 of which were blown by the former and 11 by the latter; or, in other words, the Australians blew twice as often as the Huns, plus a shade to spare. And when one comes to realise the explosion on an average of over a mine per week it must be admitted that it was a very creditable performance for human energy can only do its best. In addition, the geological conditions and otherwise were not the best.

  For several weeks the enemy had been heard working up in the direction of a certain sap, and it was decided to allow him to come as close up as advisable, and a week after our last blow we fired at half-past 7 in the morning. The listeners had a most anxious and exciting time, for minute after minute and hour after hour they could hear the enemy getting closer and closer. Anyhow, all went well for the miners exploded their mine just as the enemy were about to break through into our subway. This was an exciting piece of work, and proved to be most profitable, by reason of the certainty of the proximity of the enemy’s working. After this punishment, and the apparent useless efforts of the enemy miners to get the best of the Australians underground, the Hun subjected this particular part of the workings to a heavy minenwerfer [short-range mortar] fire of the heaviest calibre. These large-sized ‘Minnies’ are capable of penetrating the ground for some distance, and on explosion blow a crater up to 20ft. deep by 40ft. to 50ft. wide, so that it will be apparent the amount of head-cover necessary for safety in running galleries under no man’s land. The attempt was, however, abortive, and no damage was done.

  TREMENDOUS EXPLOSIONS

  A week after these last desperate attempts of the enemy, as the result of careful preparation and more hard and enduring work, the Australians fired another mine and with a success that was anticipated. Our luck was in, so everyone said, but I firmly believe that, whilst a certain amount of it was in our favour, we had grasped from the very beginning the secret of defensive mining. What evidently perplexed the Huns most was that they were of the opinion that at this particular point our policy was offensive work. Instead it was defensive. The Australian miners’ work was to cut Fritz off and let him have it and to wait for him at other places and hand him out the usual medicine.

  For a week there was quietude on both sides, the Australians enjoying themselves in addition to exercising great care as to Hun movements in carrying out a tactical move by preparing a mine on the left as the signal for attack on the right of the Australian division in the Battle of Fromelles. It was at 6 p.m. at this strategical point that a large mine was blown, forming an excellent crater in which many Australian infantry took cover, maintaining a withering and punishing fire on the enemy. Six days following this affair the enemy exploded another mine in the vicinity of our workings, doing neither damage nor causing any casualties.

  Almost three weeks elapsed before any more activity took place, when early one morning the enemy fired a charge which caused slight damage to our galleries and killed two men. These were the Australians’ first casualties underground and were men from an Australian pioneer battalion attached to the company. The same day the Australians replied with a powerful charge and gained their objective. In this part of the sector nothing more was heard from the enemy in the matter of blowing mines for six weeks.

  By this time it was generally accepted that in this point of the mining system we had also mastered the Hun. Anyhow, during that period three powerful mines were exploded with great destructive force, having in mind two things, first, to let the enemy know we were still active, and, secondly, to point out to him that he was beaten and that it was useless for him to continue the repairing of the wreckage caused. However, at the end of the time stated, the enemy blew another mine which caused slight damage to our workings but no casualties. It was his last explosion in this part, and as it was the second vital spot of the mining system that had been completely defeated, he had to give the game up.

  A week later, after this last effort, we gave him a final charge, which was the end of active mining in a sector which had asked for the best that human energy and endurance could give. After making certain that the Hun had been completely defeated, the company took its departure to a certain place to assist in the good work that was being done in the ground preparations for Messines. And on their departure the officer commanding received a letter from the high command eulogising the patience and perseverance, energy and gallantry of all ranks of the company, and asking that congratulations be conveyed to all for having ‘so completely mastered the enemy mining system.’ During the period referred to the company had placed to its credit one mention in despatches, one D.C.M., and five Military Medals.

  Matilda goes to war

  Although Australia’s unofficial national anthem was composed by A. B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson and Christina Macpherson twenty years before the Gallipoli landings, its journey to the status of national and international musical icon was closely tied to Anzac.

  The song began its close association with war when troops from Queensland reportedly sang a version of it during the Boer War (1899–1902). By 1916, C. J. Dennis’s The Moods of Ginger Mick puts the rabbit-seller mate of ‘The Sentimental Bloke’ fame on Gallipoli with ‘the little AIF’, an experience that he says has made us ‘all Orstalians now’. As the sequel to the enormously popular The Sentimental Bloke, published just before the war began, The Moods of Ginger Mick was a great hit with the diggers. One of its poems, ‘The Singing Soldiers’, has Mick mentioning the song in his letter back home to the Bloke:

  ‘When I’m sittin’ in me dug-out wiv the bullets droppin’ near,’ Writes ole Ginger; ‘an’ a chorus smacks me in the flamin’ ear: P’raps a song that Rickards billed, or p’raps a line o’ Waltz Matilder’,

  Then I feel I’m in Australia, took an’ shifted over ’ere. Till the music sort o’ gits me, an’ I lets me top notes roam While I treats the gentle foeman to a chunk uv “Ome, Sweet ’Ome”.’

  The sheet music of the song was also distributed to troops during the war for the community singing that was such a popular pastime of the era. But ‘Waltzing Matilda’ was not on everyone’s lips. It was not until the singer Peter Dawson recorded a hit version of it in the late 1930s that it began to take off, and it took another world war for it to become the national song it is today. By the early 1940s it seems that the song had become widely popular and was recognised as an expression of Australian identity. In 1940, Movietone News covered the arrival at Mascot airport of a Halifax Bomber called ‘Waltzing Matilda’. From 1942, British tanks named ‘Waltzing Matildas’ were used in North Africa, then in Russia and also in New Guinea. The same year, in a guide to Australian manners and customs for American service personnel based in Australia, it was stated that:

  A standard favorite all over the country is Australia’s own folk song, ‘Waltzing Matilda’. In fact, the Aussies have made it a classic all over the world. When the Anzac troops made their first assault on Bardia, they did it to the tune of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. They sang it in the heat and fever of Malaya.

  The lyrics, with translations, were printed on the following pages.

  The song was so well known by this time that it was used as the basis of a new song composed by diggers about their experience of the disastrous campaign in Crete in May 1941. Over 28 000 British, Australian and New Zealand troops were stationed there to repel a determined German air attack for which their commanders had not prepared. A chaotic retreat to the south of the island ensued. At great cost, the Royal Navy managed to save just over half of these troops, leaving the rest as a rear guard to face the advancing Germans. Over 2500 Australian and New Zealand troops were killed and over 5000 captured. This song uses ‘Waltzing Matilda’ to create a new and different composition with its own significance, deriving from that of the original song and its stature as Australia’s uno
fficial anthem, as well as the dire circumstances in which the Australian troops—including those in the Australian Army Ordnance Corps (AAOC)—found themselves.

  Once a private soldier was sitting in his Ordnance store

  Down by the shore of the Aegean Sea;

  And he said when they asked him what he was a-doing of,

  ‘I’m just a bloke in the AAOC.’

  Working in Ordnance, working in Ordnance,

  Handling the stores of the infantry;

  Truck for your transport, uniforms to clothe you in,

  Fixing the guns for the artillery.

  Down came the Heinkels and down came the eight-eights,

  Came down in thousands—one, two three!

  And they blasted the island ’cos they owned the upper air,

  So we withdrew to a new country.

  Blew up our vehicles, ruined our Ordnance,

  Men, we withdrew the majority.

  But the Private stood while the transports were pulling out:

  ‘I’ll always fight with the rear guard’, said he.

  So the private soldier burnt down his Ordnance store;

  Blew up his workshop with TNT.

  And he smiled as he bent to buckle his equipment on:

  ‘I’ll always fight with the rear guard’ said he.

  ‘Fight with the rear guard, fight with the En Zeds,

  Fight with the men of the Sixth Divvy.’

  And his ghost may be heard ’round the seas where Ulysses

  sailed,

  He is the pride of the AAOC.

  Tobruk Rats

  Together with British and Indian troops, around 14 000 Australians withstood the siege of Tobruk in North Africa from April to August 1941. An army of German and Italian troops commanded by General Erwin Rommel, sometimes known as the ‘Desert Fox’, aimed to gain access to the Suez Canal to avoid bringing troops and supplies across a large expanse of desert. ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ (an alias adopted by American-born and Ireland-raised William Joyce), broadcast Nazi propaganda in which he referred to the defenders of the Tobruk garrison as ‘rats’. They gladly accepted the insult and turned it back on their enemy, becoming ‘the Rats of Tobruk’. Joyce was executed for treason in 1946.

  During the siege, Gunner J. M. Stephens wrote home with a graphic account.

  Life is just going on the same old way. Any time now we are expecting to get news from home telling us that the war is over and that we have been left here and forgotten. But here we are, all types of guys thrown together and going on as if we could walk out at any time. In a way it’s rather a lot of fun being besieged. You never know when there will begin a hell of a rumpus and the boys from the other end will march in to relieve us with all the glamour of historic occasions, bands playing, flags flying and a general welcoming committee to greet them.

  On the other hand, we never know when Jerry will start the same sort of rumpus and get tired of being left out in the cold for so long. But if he does, there will be a decent sort of welcoming committee awaiting him.

  Of course, we are extremely lucky in a way, because our mail comes in by sea fairly regularly and we hear the news each night on Army wireless which, by the way, are certainly not intended to be put to that use.

  It is distinctly not in the rules and regulations of the A.I.F., but each night there is a ‘national hook-up’ which should make technicians of the A.B.C. turn green with envy. Imagine a regiment scattered over the country-headquarters back a bit, gun positions half-way to the front line and the observation posts right up forward with the infantry. All these parts are connected by army phones.

  At night the signaller on duty at headquarters gets an especially hot programme on the Army wireless, mugs it in somehow to his exchange and it is thereby relayed through the phones to all those places I mentioned. The place where I enjoy this relay most of all is at the O’-pip observation post, as only two at a time go there, we have to do rather long watches as one man must be awake at all times. You can imagine the experience of listening to a programme of Harry Roy or someone equally famous—within a thousand yards or so of Jerry’s front line. This arrangement and our mail are the only ways we are in touch with the outside world so you can imagine how it is appreciated. Those simple things of life, which we all took for granted at one time, we are learning to appreciate pretty fast.

  In my opinion, there is nothing better these days than a cup of tea boiled on a primus stove round about midnight and a good yarn about old times. War has really taught me two things, appreciation and patience, two valuable assets in the periods to come after it is all over. That is about the main thing in our lives these days—just thinking of what we will do when the war is over. I look forward to that time more than I looked forward to Christmas or birthdays when I was a kid.

  About four days ago I saw the best air show I have ever seen. As Jerry doesn’t seem to be able to shell us out with his artillery, he sent over what I thought must have been his whole Air Force to try and bomb us out. The only thing he accomplished was to provide an exciting half hour’s entertainment for the troops. When Goering taught his Huns to fly he did a good job, but he didn’t concentrate enough on teaching them to drop bombs accurately.

  There were all types of planes everywhere you looked, diving and mucking around like two-year-olds at the barrier. They must have dropped tons of bombs, but I don’t think they did anything but stir up a few desert fleas. When they see that the bombs have no effect they get very liverish and dive at us in an endeavour to machine-gun civility into us. But we were well in the comparative safety of our slit trenches and he drew a blank. When they come over in droves like that everyone gets into a slit trench and blazes away with any weapon he can lay hands on.

  There are some duds among the stuff Jerry drops and I can’t think of a more uncomfortable experience than to be lying in bed, hear a plane go over, hear that very unwelcome whistle of a falling bomb (the blasted things seem to take an hour to land), increasing in sound as it comes nearer, and then, when you are all keyed up for the bang, all you hear is a dull plop. You get the same sort of feeling during the shelling.

  There is a popular saying of the last war that you never hear the shell that gets you. I used to wonder how that could be, but I know it is true now because it is the same with a near miss. The other night we heard the guns and in an instant everything went black. I expected to find myself flitting around the clouds with a brand new pair of wings, but the blackness was due to the blast, dust and, I suppose, momentary concussion. But we didn’t hear the whistle at all because the shell travels faster than the noise.

  I have just had my nightly cup of tea and listened to the B.B.C. news which never seems to be any different. It is just about midnight and I am writing in the light of a well shaded hurricane lamp, the reason being that that man is around again. It is bright moonlight outside and Jerry thrives on that, so I don’t want to have a beacon to light him on his way.

  It is funny in a way the manner in which we disregard his nightly visits. Every night without fail we have a raid, and at any time of the night you like to go outside you can bet on one of these crates being overhead. If ever we got to London I am afraid that we would be the worry of the air warden’s life as we have got so used to visits. Of course, being in open country makes us feel safe, and it would doubtless be vastly different in a thickly populated town.

  One thing in particular I will appreciate when I get back is unrestricted lighting without some raucous voice bellowing through the night, ‘Put that ——— light out. Where do you think you are; Luna Park?’ Except on one or two occasions I don’t think I’ve seen a car with head lights on since I left Australia. Those occasions were in Palestine a long way from here.

  By the way, in the letter I just received you mentioned that you had sent over some more parcels. Parcel delivery is rather awkward here, but we get them all in time, though they take a while longer than other places. It’s great to know we are not forgotten and your thoughts
are appreciated more than you can think.

  For the first time in weeks, the horrible ’un has begun booping off his big guns at night. He must be getting a little excited over something, or is trying to frighten us. At this moment he is landing them about a thousand yards away and until he begins to land them within yards of us we can afford to be blase.

  Well, I seem to have run out of any more to say, so, in the words of Fitzpatrick, the travel expert, we say goodbye to this glamorous city of the Western Desert and, to the music of our jovial friend Herman’s bung bungs [artillery], we come to the close of another perfect day and hope to shake the dust of this gigantic, enormous and magnificent b—— place off our army boots very shortly. V for Victory, or something.

  P.S.—He seems to be getting closer. Always like a tense and dramatic finish to my letters.

  ‘Bluey’ Truscott

  Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott was one of Melbourne Football Club’s finest players and a scoring member of the club’s 1939 premiership team. When he joined the RAAF in July 1940, his enlistment was widely publicised in the press, with even more coverage when he returned to play in his club’s next grand final win in September 1940. He joined the Empire Air Training Scheme and then flew Spitfires in Britain, where he was promoted and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) after shooting down six enemy planes. He continued to destroy German aircraft, was promoted to squadron leader and gained a bar to his DFC. Truscott’s winning personality, auburn hair and flying skills made him a celebrity in Britain, where a fund was organised to raise money to buy a Spitfire for ‘Bluey’.