Great Anzac Stories
Page 24
The Unknown Sailor
Early in February 1942, a ship’s life raft washed ashore on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. In the raft—known as a ‘Carley float’—was the badly decomposed body of a white male in the remains of a boiler suit. The body was examined by the local doctor and then buried with military honours in the old European cemetery. An inquest was arranged, though the findings were apparently lost when Japanese forces occupied the island at the end of March that year. Over the succeeding years the rough grave itself also disappeared.
But a question remained unanswered—where did the raft and its grim cargo come from?
There has been a strong belief that the body was that of a sailor from HMAS Sydney (II), sunk with all hands by the German raider Kormoran in one of the great mysteries of Australia’s wartime experience.
On 19 November 1941, Sydney apparently approached the auxiliary cruiser HSK Kormoran, which was disguised as a Dutch merchant vessel. Before the true identity of Kormoran could be determined, the German ship fired on Sydney at close quarters. The Australian ship, badly damaged, fired back, disabling the raider. The ships drifted apart. Sydney went to a long-unknown grave and Kormoran was scuttled, her surviving crew escaping in lifeboats. No survivors or even evidence of the Sydney were ever found, unless the Christmas Island sailor was one of them.
The seemingly inexplicable elements of this tragedy were many. Did the Australian commander, an experienced sailor, bring the Sydney too close to the disguised raider? How was it possible that all hands were lost without trace? Was the crew of the Kormoran covering up a wartime atrocity? Where did the stricken ships finally sink to their last resting places? And was the body on Christmas Island the only remnant of the tragic event?
These questions, and the many different answers to them, echoed through the national community for decades. Numerous searches for the Sydney were mounted by military and private groups, research was undertaken and conspiracy theories developed. In the meantime, the families of the Sydney’s sailors continued to grieve and to wonder where their loved ones lay.
In 2008, a Royal Commission was established to inquire into the fate of the Sydney and the ongoing mystery of the unknown sailor. The commission considered all the aspects of the case, surveyed the records, publications and other relevant documents, and made the most intensive efforts possible to establish the facts, publishing a weighty volume of its deliberations and findings in 2009.
Even as the Royal Commission deliberated, the wreck of HMAS Sydney II was finally found in March 2008. The news was announced shortly after notification that Kormoran had also been found. There are numerous memorials to the Sydney and her crew around Australia, the most impressive at Geraldton in Western Australia, where there is also a memorial to the Unknown Sailor. In 2006 the remains of the Christmas Island sailor were rediscovered and reinterred with full military honours on the mainland in the Geraldton War Cemetery, beneath a gravestone inscribed:
A Serviceman
of the
1939–1945
War
HMAS Sydney
The original Christmas Island gravesite has also been marked with a plaque. Efforts are being made to determine whether the unknown sailor was from the Sydney using DNA testing. At the time of writing no results have been announced.
The Long Tan cross
The story of the Long Tan cross is rich with the ironies of war, peace and memory. It began in the heat of the fiercest fighting of the Vietnam War during the ‘Tet offensive’, in which Communist North Vietnamese forces mounted large-scale attacks on American, Australian and South Vietnamese positions.
On 18 August 1966, members of D Company 6th Royal Australian Regiment engaged a much larger force of approximately 2500 in the Long Tan rubber plantation in South Vietnam’s Phuoc Tuy province. Many D Company soldiers were National Servicemen, led mainly by professional soldiers. Rain fell throughout the three hours of the savage battle. It ended when the North Vietnamese forces withdrew, leaving 260 dead, with many wounded. Australian casualties were eighteen dead, with twenty-one wounded. D Company was awarded a US Presidential Unit Citation for ‘extraordinary heroism while engaged in military operations against an opposing armed force’.
On the third anniversary of the battle, members of the regiment erected a white cross at the site. Designed by Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) WO1 James ‘Jimmy’ Cruickshank, the distinctive cross with its central lozenge was built by the unit’s Pioneer Platoon. After the war, it seems that the cross fell into decay and was removed to the Bien Hoa museum. But in 2002, as a result of ongoing efforts by the Australian Veterans Vietnam Reconstruction Group (AVVRG) and other bodies, a new cross was erected and unveiled at the same site, recognition by the Vietnamese people of the significance of the memorial for many Australians.
Long Tan has increasingly become the focus of commemorative visits by Vietnam veterans, their families and other Australians, both on Anzac Day and on Vietnam Veterans’ Day (18 August), also known as Long Tan Day. Other Long Tan crosses have been erected in various locations throughout Australia. One can be found in 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park, near Broome, in Western Australia, which was unveiled on Vietnam Veterans’ Day 2009. The impressively simple structure is in the form of a white wooden Long Tan cross, memorial plaques, military insignia and a flagpole set in a grassed garden, all enclosed in a white picket fence. The inscriptions on the cross is ‘Lest We Forget’. The plaque at the bottom of the memorial reads:
THIS MEMORIAL WAS BUILT BY
THE VIETNAM VETERANS OF
80 MILE BEACH TO HONOUR
THOSE MEN AND WOMEN WHO
PAID THE SUPREME SACRIFICE
IN ALL THE WARS AND CONFLICTS
This memorial was instigated by regular holiday-makers Ray and Coral Miles and further developed by holidaying volunteers so that they would have somewhere local to observe Anzac Day and Vietnam Veterans’ Day. Some materials were donated by local businesses. Up to 300 people now attend the Dawn Service there on 25 April, with large numbers attending on Vietnam Veterans’ Day.
While built by and for Vietnam veterans, the memorial honours Australians who have died in all conflicts.
Flowers of remembrance
Certain plants and flowers have long been associated with mourning and remembrance, including the violet and the aromatic herb rosemary. These may be worn at funerals and at ceremonies commemorating the dead, or they may also be woven into commemorative wreaths together with other plants and placed at graves, or other markers of memory. In the Anzac tradition, some flowers have become powerful symbols for remembering the war dead.
Although rosemary has long been associated with remembrance, a specifically Australian and New Zealand floral custom is the wearing of a sprig of rosemary on Anzac Day. The hillsides of Gallipoli were covered with this herb, and for those who were there its pungent aroma became associated with the wartime experience itself. Rosemary subsequently became a commemorative emblem. Those who display medals—their own or a forebear’s—on Anzac Day may wear rosemary beneath them. In recent years, the wearing of rosemary on Anzac Day has become a very widespread custom, necessitating the growth of a small cottage industry engaged in preparing wearable sprigs.
Arrangements of symbolic flowers and/or leaves have a long history and are particularly associated in Western societies with death and mourning. Wreath laying at memorials, graves and plaques was one of the earliest components of Anzac Day observances and remains a central element. Wreaths have often consisted of native flowers, although, in recent years, wreaths consisting of red poppies—previously more closely associated with Remembrance Day—have become popular at Anzac Day ceremonies. Simple bunches of flowers may also be placed at wreath-laying ceremonies, particularly by children.
Perhaps the most potent symbol of the Great War, the poppy is used for commemorative purposes around the world. Soldiers in France and in Belgium (often referred to as ‘Flanders Fields’) were impressed by the spring
time blooming of these flowers in the devastated wasteland of the battlefields. It was not hard to make a connection between the blood red petals of the poppy and the blood-soaked ground on which millions had fought and been killed. The significance of the poppy was captured by a Canadian army doctor, John McCrae, who scribbled a few hurried verses after seeing a good friend die in the Second Battle of Ypres, Belgium, in spring 1915, and sent them off to the English magazine Punch. On its publication in December 1915, McCrae’s ‘In Flanders Fields’ caused a sensation throughout the English-speaking forces and home fronts, so simply but powerfully did the verses capture the sentiments of the moment.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow [‘grow’ in some versions]
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
McCrae died in 1918, worn out from his unremitting labours as an army doctor. But his unpretentious poem lived on and is the basis for much of the meaning attached to the poppy. In Australia, the poppy (usually made of paper or plastic) is worn or displayed on Remembrance (originally Armistice) Day, 11 November. An Australian custom had evolved in which a poppy is placed next to the name of a relation on the Wall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, forming an unofficial but moving visual commemoration.
In the gardens around Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance, a custom combining the symbolism of both the poppy and rosemary can be seen. The wire ‘stalks’ of artificial poppies are wound around the tips of rosemary bushes growing in beds surrounding the memorial and its Eternal Flame of commemoration.
The lady of violets
Through two World Wars the Cheer-Up Society of South Australia brought comfort and practical assistance to soldiers and their families. The society was formed in November 1914 by businesswoman Alexandrine Seager (1870–1950). Mrs Seager had recently visited her son George in camp with the AIF at Morphettville, South Australia, and came away determined to play her part in the war effort. She appealed to the women of South Australia to support her, and rapidly established a large and expanding network of ‘the highest type of womanhood’ who would provide food, conversation and companionship to often lonely young recruits awaiting shipment to the front. Her stated aim was straightforward: ‘to make life brighter for the gallant men’.
One of the society’s first activities was to establish ‘The Cheer-Up Hut’. At the beginning this was simply a tent, but it was soon replaced by a wooden structure located behind Adelaide Railway Station; from here the ‘hut’ later moved to Elder Park on the banks of the River Torrens. As the war progressed, society members also greeted soldiers returning from Gallipoli, the Middle East and the western front. By 1919, an extraordinary 200 000 soldiers would be fed and entertained in these makeshift premises by volunteer women from the society dressed in their bright white uniforms.
The Cheer-Up Society quickly became involved in fundraising to pay for these practical measures, as well as with recruiting for the war. Mrs Seager’s husband, Clarendon, was a recruiting officer and all her three sons fought with the AIF. On 2 July 1915 the Violet Day appeal was established, with the aim of obtaining funds to build a permanent clubhouse for the Cheer-Up Society. Violet flowers have long been associated with death, and this symbolism was adopted by the society as a fitting floral tribute for eternal remembrance of the war dead. Violet bouquets set in purple ribbons printed with the phrase ‘In Memory’ were sold in the streets of Adelaide, together with memorial buttons.
The day was launched with great fanfare and ceremony. Eminent members of the community spoke, bands played and the event concluded with the strains of ‘The Last Post’. Violet Day was a success and became an annual observance throughout the war and long after. A collection of verse written specifically for the day was sold under the title Violet Verses. Alexandrine, herself a keen amateur poet, contributed a memorial poem:
Today we wear the clinging violet
In memory of the brave,
While ever thoughts of fond but proud regret,
Come surging wave on wave.
All proceeds went towards the work of the society, to which Mrs Seager devoted all her considerable energy and organising ability. The Cheer-Up Society also received funding from various other community groups, including the Country Women’s Association. Later in the war, the society entered show business, sending troupes of professional performers to tour the battlefields and entertain the troops.
Not content with these considerable good works, Mrs Seager was primarily responsible for the foundation of the South Australian Returned Soldiers’ Association, funded initially by funds from the Cheer-Up Society. She served as vice-president of the RSA from 1915 to 1919, when she resigned the office to a returned soldier.
In 1920, the work of the Cheer-Up Society was deemed to be no longer necessary and it was dissolved, although Violet Day continued, the date moving in 1928 from July to August. Alexandrine Seager returned to community work again during the Great Depression of the 1930s, although arthritis forced her to retire in 1937.
But only two years later the Cheer-Up Society was reestablished, as a new generation faced up to the challenges of all-in war. The gleaming white ladies of the Great War now became ‘Cheer-Up Girls’ in uniforms similar to those of nurses. Like their predecessors, they volunteered to provide soldiers—including visiting Americans—with company, dance partners and a meal. After the war, the Cheer-Up Society carried on until 1964. Violet Day was held for the last time in 1970.
The energetic and dedicated founder of the Cheer-Up Society and Violet Day had no involvement with the new organisation. Alexandrine Seager died on Kangaroo Island in 1950 and was buried at Kingscote. Her husband had already passed away, but their three daughters attended the funeral, along with two of their sons. George had been killed at Gallipoli.
Sound and silence
Ceremonies of commemoration—religious or secular—usually feature songs, poetry and speeches. These may take the form of hymns or other sacred songs, and appropriate verse and fitting words, whether delivered as sermons or addresses. Instrumental music is often an important element of such events, together with silence in the form of personal prayer or reflection. Certain combinations of these elements have become characteristic of all Anzac commemorations.
A ‘gunfire breakfast’ is said to have been a basic meal taken by British soldiers when under fire, often featuring a tot of rum to instil bravery in the men. When the Dawn Service became a popular feature of Anzac Day observances during the 1930s, Returned Services Clubs instituted the custom of taking a light meal and glass of alcohol before attending the service. It was regarded as being symbolic of the meal that the first Anzacs took while waiting to leave the troopships and land on the beaches of Gallipoli.
While this ritual began as a private returned soldiers’ observance, the gunfire breakfast or similar event is now a frequent feature of pre– or post–Dawn Service events on Anzac Day. As the day has increased in popularity over the last decade or more, so the late gunfire breakfast tradition has spread, being used to fill the time between the ending of the Dawn Service and the start of the morning march that takes place in many cities and towns. As many families now attend, the gunfire breakfast may often take the form of a sausage sizzle or similar non-alcoholic alternative.
The ‘Ode’ that is recited at the Dawn Service is derived from the Laurence Binyon poem ‘For the Fallen’ (1914).
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
These lines gradually became the orthodox form from at least 1921, with the addition of ‘Lest We Forget’ from Kipling’s ‘Recessional’ (1897), a poem popular in the Boer War period and after, particularly as a hymn. These lines are recited at Anzac Day ceremonies, with the participants repeating ‘We will remember them’ and, after a pause, usually intoning ‘Lest we forget’ in the manner of the ‘amen’ at the end of ‘The Lord’s Prayer’.
Althought moments of silence had long been a feature of memorialisation for tragedies such as mining accidents, they were not a feature of wartime commemoration until World War I, the first conflict in which the sacrifice of the many had been recognised. The one- or two-minute silence that is a feature of most Anzac observations is thought to have evolved from a suggestion for five minutes of silence to mark the end of the war, made in the London Evening News of 8 May 1919 by Australian journalist Edward George Honey (1885–1922), using the pen name Warren Foster.
Nothing resulted from this, but some months later a South African politician, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, suggested to the king’s secretary that a few moments of silence be observed by British Empire countries each Armistice Day. According to tradition, the king used the Grenadier Guards to experiment with a commemorative silence and discovered that five minutes was too long a period. Just before Armistice Day 1919, the king proclaimed a two-minute silence so that ‘the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead’. Since then, the silence has also become part of the Returned Services League clubs’ nightly 9 o’clock remembrance ritual and of Anzac Day ceremonies.