Great Anzac Stories

by Graham Seal

  In 1935 he published his memoir under the title There and Back. It is an unvarnished account of his suffering and survival, which is described by the journalist, soldier and historian F. M. Cutlack in his original review of the book.

  When the doctors opened up his chest in the field hospital, the full extent of Lording’s dreadful wounds was revealed. His left lung was shattered and the remnants collapsed. His heart had moved and was visible through the gunshot wound in his left chest. His right elbow was smashed and the four shrapnel wounds in his back had partially paralysed the spine.

  He was operated on incessantly, sometimes daily, and sometimes without anaesthetic because his condition was too precarious for the doctors to render him unconscious. During one of these operations a four inches (ten centimetres) section of his ribs was removed. The pus in the chest cavity, ‘which sometimes amounted to as much as a kidney-dish full’ had to be drained twice daily, involving an incredibly painful procedure of rolling him on his side. During the course of his treatment, Lording developed tetanus; needed to be force fed; and had the blood of others injected into his veins.

  The medical authorities got him back alive to Blighty, where he had to be cut up again to remove pieces of six of his ribs from his opened chest. Recovery from this procedure required rubber tubes to be inserted into his chest and left there for many weeks to drain the area. They were also used to pump in glycerine—‘like a blanky Murrumbidgee irrigation farm’. Lording kept his extracted ribs in a bottle by his bed and insisted that the nurses dusted it every day.

  He was shipped home to Sydney, Australia where he endured more operations at the soldiers’ hospital in Randwick and was discharged with a morphine habit. He later entered Prince Alfred Hospital for yet more operations, survived them and managed to overcome his addiction. He studied to become an accountant but had to return to hospital in 1932 for another series of operations. For weeks he resisted death and finally won the battle, recovering sufficiently to return to everyday life and gain his professional qualification.

  Despite his health, or lack of it, Lording married in 1922 and fathered three children. This relationship eventually ended in divorce and Lording married again in 1943. But the following year, at last overcome by the enormity of his suffering, Lording was admitted to Sydney’s Callan Park Mental Hospital where he died on 1 October. His experience has been accurately described as ‘an epic of human suffering’ and the medical historian of the Australian forces, A. G. Butler, wrote that Lording deserved ‘a special place (if anyone does) among the immortals of the A.I.F’.

  For his gallant service and decades of suffering Lording was given no special military awards, simply a minimal invalid pension and the campaign medals that all soldiers were entitled to receive.

  A stitch in time

  As well as physically supporting soldiers at the front through their involvement in making munitions, providing transport and, of course, making uniforms, women working on the home front found ways to provide a little unofficial moral support. This story dates from World War II and suggests that army equipment and clothing were in short supply. It might even be true.

  Many of the old Diggers will recollect the discovery in their greatcoat pockets of nice little notes from work-girls, whose nimble fingers had stitched the cloth of the garment. Some of these notes were answered, meetings were arranged and romance brightened the lives of soldier lad and lassie.

  Which leads up to the fact that a member of the AIF at Redbank (Q) [Queensland] was issued with a greatcoat which contained such a slip of paper in one of the pockets. But the new digger didn’t write to the girl. The coat was a hangover from the last war, the note bearing the date, 1917.

  The Nackeroos

  In response to Japanese air strikes on Darwin and other northern Australian towns from early 1942, a unique force was raised to protect Australia’s northern boundaries. The North Australia Observer Unit (sometimes titled ‘Observation Unit’, but in either case NAOU) was a 550-strong group of mounted observers who patrolled Australia’s immense northern border in search of enemy activity. Known sometimes as ‘Curtin’s Cowboys’ after John Curtin, the then-prime minister, they referred to themselves as ‘the Nackeroos’, a title that well described their rough and ready nature.

  Operating in small groups, mostly on horseback, they lived off the land. The Aboriginal members, whose knowledge of the harsh country was unequalled, played a vital role. The Nackeroos established food and ammunition dumps across their patrol territory in preparation for the eventuality of a Japanese invasion, in which case they were expected to operate behind enemy lines as a guerilla resistance unit. The unit’s commanding officer was the noted anthropologist W. E. H. Bill Stanner, whose knowledge of the region made him the inevitable choice for the position. The intelligence gathered by the NAOU went by radio to the larger Northern Territory Force, known as ‘Norforce’.

  One of their members, Des Harrison, recollected that the unit had over one thousand horses, donkeys and mules. Sometimes these had to be overlanded across the Top End. During one wet season, five Nackeroos drove eighty horses 700 kilometres across the Northern Territory and Western Australia. They lost four horses to crocodiles but arrived at their destination with the other seventy-six in reasonable condition. Some of the unit’s patrols extended for 800 kilometres and lasted for two months, seeking evidence of enemy infiltration, finding downed airmen and also conducting bush rescues when required. Harrison made a point of recognising the astonishing bush skills of the Aboriginal members of the unit. Their ability to track and to find food and water saved patrols from perishing on more than one occasion.

  The Nackeroos were quietly disbanded at the war’s end and their story is relatively little known. One of the few tangible remnants of their existence is a memorial dedicated to Norforce in Timber Creek, in the Northern Territory. Unveiled in 1999, the memorial is in the form of a boulder on which is mounted a brass plaque reading: ‘Australia Remembers. Norforce Ever Vigilant 1945–1995. They guarded Timber Creek, and the NW coast, from 1942 onwards in the War against Japan. Lest We Forget’.

  There were a total of ninety-seven confirmed Japanese air raids on Australian targets between February 1942 and September 1943, including Broome (three times) Derby, Exmouth Gulf, Wyndham, Port Hedland and Onslow in Western Australia; Darwin, Drysdale, Katherine, Milingimbi and Port Patterson in the Northern Territory; and Townsville, Mossman and Horn Island in Queensland. The Nackeroos may not have been the only response to the bombing of the north. There have long been rumours that another, similar force known colloquially as ‘the black guard’ was established specifically to mount subversive resistance operations in the event of a Japanese invasion. These rumours probably relate to other home-front units formed with largely indigenous members.

  The Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion was tasked with the defence of the Torres Strait region. In 1941 the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit was established under the command of yet another anthropologist, Donald Thomson. The unit consisted of Torres Strait Islanders, Aborigines, South Sea Islanders and a few white members. Like the Nackeroos, they used bush skills to move around and live off the land, ready to conduct a guerilla resistance against any Japanese incursion. The unit patrolled the coastline and engaged in missions into Japanese-occupied Dutch New Guinea. Other indigenous units were formed and it is thought that eventually almost every able-bodied male Torres Strait Islander was in uniform. According to the Australian War Memorial’s account of these activities: ‘In proportion to population, no community in Australia contributed more to the war effort in World War II than the Islanders of the Torres Strait’.

  Yanks Down Under

  After the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Australia turned towards America for strategic support in the Pacific war. Australia rapidly became an extended American base, with hundreds of thousands of US servicemen and women ‘invading’ Australia until the end of the war in 1945. To prepare the American visitors
for their Australian sojourn, the Americans issued a booklet titled Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia 1942. It contained information about the customs, attitudes, manners, likes and dislikes of Australians, as seen from an American perspective.

  The book acknowledged that Australians had ‘through courage and ingenuity made a living and built a great nation out of a harsh, empty land. They built great cities, organized a progressive democracy and established a sound economic system, for all of which they’re justly proud’. The booklet went on to profile ‘The People “Down Under”’.

  And they’re proud too of their British heritage and to be a member of the British Commonwealth—but they still like to run their own business and they take great pride in their independence. They resent being called a colony and think of themselves as a great nation on their own hook, which they are. And it’s natural that they should find themselves drawn closer and closer to Americans because of the many things we have in common. They look at the swift development that has made the United States a great power in a few generations, and compare our growth with theirs. Nearly 40 years ago, an Australian statesman said of the United States: ‘What we are, you were. What you are we will some day be.’ And just a short time ago Australian War Minister Francis Forde said: ‘We feel that our fate and that of America are indissolubly linked. We know that our destinies go hand in hand and that we rise and fall together. And we are proud and confident in that association.’

  You’ll find the Australians an outdoors kind of people, breezy and very democratic. They haven’t much respect for stuffed shirts, their own or anyone else’s. They’re a generation closer to their pioneer ancestors than we are to ours, so it’s natural that they should have a lively sense of independence and ‘rugged individualism’. But they have, too, a strong sense of cooperation. The worst thing an Australian can say about anyone is: ‘He let his cobbers (pals) down.’ A man can be a ‘dag’ (a cutup) or ‘rough as bags’ (a tough guy), but if he sticks with the mob, he’s all right.

  If an Australian ever says to you that you are ‘game as Ned Kelly’, you should feel honored. It’s one of the best things he can say about you. It means that you have the sort of guts he admires, and that there’s something about you that reminds him of Ned Kelly. Kelly was a bushranger (a backwoods highwayman) and not a very good citizen, but he had a lot of courage that makes Australians talk about him as we used to talk about Jesse James or Billy the Kid.

  Of course, the best thing any Australian can say about you is that you’re a ‘bloody fine barstud’.

  You’ll find that the Digger is a rapid, sharp and unsparing kidder, able to hold his own with Americans or anyone else. He doesn’t miss a chance to spar back and forth and he enjoys it all the more if the competition is tough.

  Another thing, the Digger is instantaneously sociable. Riding on the same train with American troops, a mob of Aussies are likely to descend on the Yanks, investigate their equipment, ask every kind of personal question, find out if there’s any liquor to be had, and within 5 minutes be showing pictures of their girls and families.

  One Aussie, a successful kid cartoonist, who got himself transferred to an American unit for a week, could have run for mayor and been elected after 2 days in camp. He knew the first name and history of every man and officer and had drawn portraits of some of the officers.

  Being simple, direct and tough, especially if he comes from ‘Outback’, the Digger is often confused and non-plussed by the ‘manners’ of Americans in mixed company or even in camp. To him those many ‘bloody thank you’s and pleases’ Americans use are a bit sissified. But, on the other side of the fence, if you ask an Australian for an address in a city you happen to be, he won’t just tell you. He’ll walk eight blocks or more to show you.

  There’s one thing about Americans that delights him. That is our mixed ancestry. A taxi driver told an American correspondent about three soldiers he hauled about one night: ‘One was Italian, one was Jewish, and the other told me he was half Scottish and half soda,’ said the hacker, roaring with laughter.

  There’s one thing you’ll run into—Australians know as little about our country as we do theirs. To them all Americans soldiers are ‘Yanks’—and always will be.

  Australians, like Americans again, live pretty much in the present and the future, and pay little mind to the past.

  If they are still in effect, you might get annoyed at the ‘blue laws’ which make Australian cities pretty dull places on Sundays. For all their breeziness, the Australians don’t go in for a lot of drinking or woo-pitching in public, especially on Sundays. So maybe the bars, the movies, and the dance halls won’t be open on Sundays, but there are a lot of places in America where that’s true too.

  There’s no use beefing about it—it’s their country.

  IT’S THE SAME LANGUAGE TOO. We all speak the same language— the British, the Australians, and us—our versions of it. Probably the only difficulty you’ll run into here is the habit Australians have of pronouncing ‘a’ as ‘i’—for instance, ‘the trine is lite today’. Some people say it sounds like the way London Cockneys talk, but good Australians resent that—and it isn’t true anyway.

  Thanks to our movies, the average Australian has some knowledge of our slang, but it’ll take you a while to get on to theirs. To them a ‘right guy’ is a ‘fair dinkum’; a hard worker is a ‘grafter’ and ‘to feel crook’ means to feel lousy; while ‘beaut’, means swell. Australian slang is so colorful, and confusing, that a whole chapter is devoted to it at the end of this book.

  Also, the Australian has few equals in the world at swearing except maybe the famous American mule skinner in World War 1. The commonest swear words are bastard (pronounced ‘barstud’), ‘bugger’, and ‘bloody’, and the Australians have a genius for using the latter nearly every other word. The story is told of an old-timer who was asked when he had come to the continent. He replied ‘I came in nineteen-bloody-eight.’

  The book observed that Australians were keen on community singing and provided the lyrics of ‘Waltzing Matilda’, ‘A standard favorite all over the country’. It went on to describe what Australians liked to eat and drink.

  THE AUSTRALIANS EAT AND DRINK TOO. Australians are great meat eaters—they eat many times as much beef, mutton and lamb as we do—a lot more flour, butter, and tea. But they don’t go in for green vegetables and salads and fruit as much as Americans. Some of the best fruits in the world are grown along the tropical coast of Queensland, but the Australian, nevertheless, is strictly a ‘meat and potatoes guy.’

  There are a couple of libelous stories going around about Australian food. Housewives ‘down under’ are supposed to make coffee with a pinch of salt and a dash of mustard, but that’s probably just another Axis propaganda story. The other one is that ‘outback’, as the Australian call the dry country, when you order your dinner of beef or lamb and two vegetables, the vegetables you get are fried potatoes and roasted potatoes. That probably isn’t true either. You may think it’s a gag, but you will get kangaroo steak or kangaroo tail soup in the ‘outback’, especially if you go hunting yourself. They’re supposed to be tasty.

  Meat pies are the Australian version of the hot dog, and in Melbourne, the substitute for a hamburger is a ‘dim sim’, chopped meat rolled in cabbage leaves which you order ‘to take out’ in Chinese restaurants. But because of the demand, hot dog and hamburger stands are springing up in large numbers. So you’ll probably see signs like this when you get around the country a bit: ‘500 yards ahead. Digger Danny’s Toasted Dachshunds.’ But you won’t find drug stores selling sodas or banana splits.

  Drinking in Australia is usually confined to hotel bars during the few hours they’re allowed to open—they close at 6 pm in most places. The main drink is beer, stronger than ours and not as cold. Hard liquor is fairly expensive and much less commonly drunk than in America. They also make some good light wines.

  But the national drink is still tea, which yo
u will find is a good drink when you get used to it. Along the roads you’ll see ‘hot water’ signs displayed—Australian motorists take along their own tea and for a few pence, from the roadside stands, they can get hot water and a small tin can (billy can) in which they brew their tea. But since the war began, there isn’t any motoring.

  The guidebook also accurately identified the Australian love of sport and a flutter.

  As an outdoor people, the Australians go in for a wide variety of active sports—surf, bathing, cricket, rugby, football, golf and tennis. The national game is cricket and the periodic ‘test matches’ with England are like our World Series. Cricket isn’t a very lively game to watch, but it’s difficult to play well. Not much cricket is being played nowadays.

  The Australians have another national game called Australian Rules Football, which is rough, tough, and exciting. There are a lot of rules—the referee carries a rule book the size of an ordinary Webster’s Dictionary. Unlike cricket, which is a polite game, Australian Rules Football creates a desire on the part of the crowd to tear someone apart, usually the referee—some parks have runways covered over, so the referee can escape more or less intact, after the game is over. The crowd is apt to yell ‘Wake up melon head’ or some such pleasantry at the umpire, but they don’t think it good sportsmanship to heckle the teams. Australian soldiers play it at every chance. In one camp the boys used Bren gun carriers to clear a field to play on and that afternoon 500 out of an outfit of 700 got into the game.