What can we learn from Anzac day?

Anzac Biscuits E-mail
Written by Grandma Doffy

Traditional Australian fare.


1 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1 level teaspoon baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
2 tablespoons boiling water

Mix dry ingredients, melt butter & syrup together in small saucepan. Dissolve soda in boiling water, add to dry ingredients. Cook until golden brown on 180c

Here's one encouraging peace and enjoyment of life. Just some kid!!
what would she know ??!

I posted it before on the depression thread.

http://www.wisdomquotes.com
"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature...."

If I tell you the author I think it will mean more.

Here are some clues ....
Only 13 years old in 1942 when the family went into hiding.
wrote a diary which, apart from being translated in most languages, also became an opera.
"Described as the work of a mature and insightful mind.. " - well not bad for 13 anyway.
Lived in Amsterdam , initials AF.
I'm sure you've guessed,

and the irony of that quote .. "the best remedy to being unhappy is to go outside" .....sheesh - as if she could do that.

We can be reminded that war is pain and suffering.Pain and suffering is what everyone will experience in their lives.

An individual or group inflicts pain and suffering on others and these actions are returned.So it is forever but war affects the most.

Far from being a day of patriotism, to me it is a reminder of the effects of blind patriotism and unquestioning belief in an ideology.

Freberg VC of New Zealand - a 1 man landing - awarded DSO.
There are many myths exposed on that (brilliant) digger's website. http://www.diggerhistory2.info/graveyards/pages/history/myths-gallipoli.htm
summary only :-

(Note, I'm surprised at some of these comments myself, especially the fifth one - don't shoot me - I'm just the messenger , just cutting and pasting folks. Minimum of typos that way .. not like the bloke who was told to run to HQ with the message "send reinforcements, we're going to advance" - and being a bit hard of hearing, he dutifully informed HQ "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance."

lets start with this one which is NOT a myth....

"The landing was just the first day in an eight-month campaign that would claim almost 9000 (8000?) Australian lives. The long agony on the peninsula became the most common shared experience of Australian soldiers on Gallipoli. Men hung on through the months of siege warfare in the trenches and tunnels, continuously under fire, exposed to the harsh climate, subsisting on inadequate rations and weakened by disease. From their experience emerged the Anzac legend – celebrating the bravery and sacrifice, endurance, resourcefulness, and humour in adversity of ordinary men – and a story worthy of telling accurately."

Myth 1: The Anzac landing was heavily opposed The blood-stained beach of Anzac Cove, Australian soldiers scrambling ashore under a hail of machine-gun fire, and bodies littering the shoreline. This has been the popular image of the Anzac landing for 90 years.

The reality was very different. When the first wave of 1500 Australian troops landed on April 25, 1915, fewer than 200 Turkish soldiers defended the shore. Two companies guarded the coast in scattered outposts. They had no continuous trench lines or entanglements and no machine-guns in the immediate area. The coastline was lightly defended to avoid heavy losses from naval gunfire. Three Turkish divisions were quartered inland to be rushed forward to meet any large invasion.

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Myth 2: The Anzac troops were landed in the wrong place
The most persistent myth of the Gallipoli campaign is that the Anzacs were landed at the wrong place and that this led directly to the failure of their assault.

The Australians were intended to land on a 3000m front at “Z beach”, 1.6km north of Gaba Tepe. When the first troops were towed ashore in darkness, they found themselves landing almost 2km north of this spot. ... is simply that the landing boats lost direction in the dark and, lacking familiar landmarks, veered northwards.

In fact, the original operation orders were vague, stating simply that the Anzac force was to land between Gaba Tepe and a point known as Fisherman’s Hut, 5km to the north. The actual landing site at Ari Burnu was virtually in the centre of that line.

Despite these problems, the intended landing site of Z Beach was never a feasible option. It was heavily defended by barbed wire and obstructions, two Turkish companies entrenched in well-sited positions and equipped with machine-guns, and a number of nearby gun emplacements, ideally positioned to cover the beach and approaches with artillery fire. Any landing against the well-prepared defences of Z Beach would surely have resulted in slaughter.

Ari Burnu, on the other hand, offered several advantages which outweighed the disadvantages of the harsh terrain. The Turks had not heavily defended the area as they considered the country there too difficult for a landing. Troops landing there were also closer to their intended line of ascent to the main range. Most importantly, the natural features around the landing beach, soon known as Anzac Cove, provided the only protected bay on a long, exposed coastline. .. Anzac Cove became the vital base for the landing and storage of supplies and reinforcements and for the evacuation of the wounded. Without the tiny cove, the entire Anzac position would have proved untenable

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Myth 3: The Anzac commanders displayed superior ability to the British commanders .
Some British commanders on Gallipoli seemed to personify military incompetence, most notably General Sir Ian Hamilton, through his ineffectual command of the combined British armies; Lieutenant General Aylmer Hunter-Weston in his callous squandering of the 29th Division; and the doddering Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stopford, who oversaw the debacle at Suvla. But criticism of British commanders has obscured poor command decisions and failures of command at all levels in the Australian force. Some were apparent from the first hours of the landing.

Colonel Ewen Sinclair-MacLagan, who commanded the 3rd Australian Brigade, the first wave to land, made a crucial decision which thwarted the entire Anzac operation. ... unaccountably halted the advance of his main force on the Second Ridge, just 1km short of their objective. ........
The test of battle also exposed weaknesses in some Australian battalion commanders. The commanding officer of the 9th Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Lee, went back to the beach soon after landing, leaving his men scattered and leaderless. He was evacuated with a sprained ankle and did not return to his battalion on Gallipoli until July 19, only to be evacuated again two days later.

The Anzac landing did not fail solely because of poor command decisions or the inadequacies of some officers, however. The main cause of failure lay in the landing plan and its ambitious objectives. The Anzac force had too few troops to capture and hold a defensive line 10km long in rough and hilly terrain; and to cross the peninsula and secure an objective over exposed lines of communication, 6km from their beachhead. That such a task was given to a force of less than two divisions reveals a serious underestimation of the capabilities of the Turkish forces.

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Myth 4: The Australians overran their objectives
Many soldiers later believed they lost all chance of victory because, in their eagerness, they overran their objectives and pushed too far inland. Some senior officers even used this to explain the failure of the landing. The Australian units consisted largely of hastily prepared volunteers, trained and equipped for open warfare. Their enthusiasm, inexperience and their orders to advance at all costs drove many small groups to advance far from their main units. Several groups got further inland than any Australians would for the rest of the campaign, although they did not hold their positions beyond that first day. Some men reached Scrubby Knoll on Third Ridge – their initial objective. Others climbed the slopes of Baby 700 and Battleship Hill but were either cut off or forced to pull back. The remains of some were still there in 1919 after the war. But these men were few in number. By the 1930s the official historian had discovered most of their names. They were not representative of the Anzacs as a whole. No Australians went beyond the objective set for the landing force and comparatively few even reached it.

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Myth 5: The Anzac soldiers displayed superior fighting spirit to the British soldiers
The bravery of the majority of Australian troops on the first day is unquestioned. A New Zealand soldier who witnessed the Australians on April 25 wrote that they displayed “no orders, no proper military ‘team work’, no instructions, just absolute heroism”.

But there had been doubts about the untested Anzacs. British Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, considered them “good enough if all that is contemplated is a cruise around the Sea of Marmora”.

Because of their inexperience, the Australians were allocated a subsidiary landing operation. The main landings were made by British regular soldiers of the veteran 29th Division at five beaches around the toe of the peninsula.

At two landing sites, the British met heavy opposition. With great bravery and suffering losses of more than 50%, British units fought their way ashore. At the other landing sites, however, the British failed to press their attacks although they greatly outnumbered the Turks, and the assaults foundered.

Most Australians fought as well as the best of the British regulars. But not all were up to the test. As the day wore on and the fighting intensified above Ari Burnu, some Australians wavered under Turkish artillery fire. Men began to leave the firing line and wander back down to the beach.

A British officer later claimed the Anzac rear areas on the afternoon of the landing were crowded by an “endless stream” of Australian stragglers, many of them unwounded men who had shirked the front-line under the strain of their first experience of battle.

This claim was an exaggeration. By the late afternoon, however, there were up to 1000 stragglers among the hundreds of wounded lying on the beach awaiting evacuation. A further 1000 stragglers were in the gullies. Most were not shirking the front-line. They were inexperienced soldiers who had lost their officers or their units and who had returned to the beach to get orders. Many rejoined units in the line.

Through inexperience, Australian soldiers made mistakes. Some had to be restrained from shooting wildly at other Australians up on the heights; others leapt from cover to charge Turkish soldiers, only to be caught when the Turks dropped to the ground to allow their machine-guns to fire over them and into the Australians.

Gallipoli was a hard school. By the end of the campaign, the survivors were consummate professionals. On April 25, British and Australian soldiers (as many as a third of whom were British-born themselves) performed comparably. It was claimed of both that no soldiers could have done better and few could have done as well. ... etc

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chops_a_must said:

Far from being a day of patriotism, to me it is a reminder of the effects of blind patriotism and unquestioning belief in an ideology.

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chops I guess I have equally divided emotions on that score myself - Anzac day and any day
I like to imagine to myself what the diggers would be telling us were they ghosts sitting on our shoulders - and I gotta feeling they would be telling us "beware of war folks, not all that it's made out to be by the pollies (who sit at home throughout)".

I guess you'd have to assume that prayers were offered up by both the Aussies and the Turks. My suspicion is that the various Gods looked on and wondered where they had screwed up , that men would want to slaughter each other like this.

As Napolean said long ago, (paraphrasing) religion is excellent stuff for keeping the common people quiet - and presumably for filling the soldiers with an unrealistic optimism despite the odds.

http://www.diggerhistory2.info/graveyards/pages/history/landing-txt.htm
There's a vague reference here to Keith Murdoch, camparing him with Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, but I don't quite understand that one.

The beachhead looks pretty orderly - I think one of the first casualties was one of the Sappers (engineers) who were sent ashore in the very first boats to start drilling for water. (water became a real problem of course).

Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, the journalist-adventurer from Fleet Street who had more to do with exposing scandals at the Dardanelles than Australia's Keith Murdoch (Father of Rupert Murdoch of newspaper and cable TV fame ).
He was always broke, lived above his means and sometimes forgot that he was supposed to be an observer rather than a participant.

Most of his gloomy predictions about the campaign came true.

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Here's a photo I found on youtube ..
modern warfare waged by kids ....

"How do you judge a small boy born in bedlam, and bought up with bullet and bomb,
and forced to take sides since his age four or five, with rebel or junta or com?
how different from sons who grabbed rusty old guns, and told to report to the Somme?
yet they were our heroes, (?) Aussies or Austrian, Prussian of Polish or Pom...?
...
Empathy mate, he's the victim of fate
Teach him guitar 'stead of military gait,
Half a chance gladly , he'd tone down the hate,
Gladly swap rifle for song ... "etc

http://www.diggerhistory2.info/graveyards/pages/history/18_march.htm
Here's something I (yet again) wasn't aware of - and I share it for what it's worth. There was a previous attempt to attack the Turks at the Dardanelles - Naval power only on 18 March 1915. Apparently
a) it was poorly led, and
b) nevertheless, the Turks who fell are much more revered than those who fell to Anzac bullets .

Speaking of poorly led, one Admiral had a nervous breakdown just thinking about the attack!?

Maybe we refined our sense of humour ?

Maybe, "don't broadcast your punches (?)"...

The Royal Navy made a half hearted attack on the forts in November 1914, instead of forcing the narrows and steaming into the Sea of Marmara. All this achieved was to alert the Turks to their vulnerability and they then laid mines and strengthened the defences so that when the Royal Navy tried again 3 months later it was much more dangerous. The "Spirit of Nelson" was badly missing.

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Maybe, "never promote a stupid man above a capable one on seniority alone" (mainly Britsh casualties at Suvla Bay it seems )

The Suvla landing was to be made by the newly formed British IX Corps, initially comprising two brigades of the 10th (Irish) Division and the entire 11th (Northern) Division. Command of IX Corps was given to Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford. British military historian J.F.C. Fuller said of Stopford that he had "no conception of what generalship meant" and indeed he was appointed not on his experience (he had seen little combat and had never commanded men in battle) or his energy and enthusiasm (he was aged 61 and had retired in 1909) but because of his position on the list of seniority. Hamilton had requested either Lieutenant-General Julian Byng or Lieutenant-General Henry Rawlinson, both experienced Western Front corps commanders, but both were junior to Lieutenant-General Sir Bryan Mahon, commander of the 10th Division and so, by a process of elimination, Stopford was selected. ..... Despite facing light opposition, the landing at Suvla was mismanaged from the outset and quickly reached the same stalemate conditions that prevailed on the Anzac and Helles fronts. On 15 August, after a week of indecision and inactivity, the British commander at Suvla, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford was dismissed
...
The British senior officers were old, inexperienced, dismissive of casualties and did not trust each other. Hamilton was scared of Kitchener, Stopford was in his first ever combat command and out of his depth and Hunter-Weston was a murderous butcher of British troops unrivalled until Haig gained control in France

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Maybe ... have a plan ? (sheesh)
Monash - The Aussie Jew who won WWI

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-heroes/monash.htm
Interesting to read about Sir John Monash - (some say he won WWI) :-
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Revie...004/11/25/1101219665809.html?from=moreStories (Monash: The outsider who won the war)

Field Marshal Montgomery, the famous British army commander in the Second World War (a junior officer in the First World War), later wrote: "I would name Sir John Monash as the best general on the western front in Europe. "

"The main thing is always to have a plan; if it is not the best plan, it is at least better than no plan at all". Monash

Monash wanted to move away from what he considered to be outdated British tactics, believing that "the true role of infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort, not to wither away under merciless machine-gun fire, not to impale itself on hostile bayonets, but on the contrary, to advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machine-guns, tanks, mortars and aeroplanes; to advance with as little impediment as possible; to be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to fight their way forward".
"Monash's first battle as corps commander, a minor one at Hamel, was a spectacular success. The battle plan combined an innovative approach to the use of aviation and armour with the most detailed artillery and administrative preparations yet. This was but the first of a series of great victories, on which Monash's reputation as a great commander now rests. His next battle was a larger one, incorporating all the innovations of Hamel, at Amiens on 8 August 1918. Few battles of the war were so successful, the Australians and Canadians driving all before them. Some 7,925 prisoners were taken and 173 guns were captured was the corps rolled over the German gun lines. In the wake of the victory, Monash was created a Knight Commander of St Michael and St George (KCMG) by King George V in a ceremony at his headquarters at Bertangles."

Monash clashed with the British theorist, Lieutenant General Sir Ivor Maxse over the role of technology. Maxse still thought in terms of a battalion's strength being in its manpower, and that a battalion of 900 was essential. Monash believed that its strength was in its firepower, and had calculated that a battalion of 700 would be just as effective, as the majority of its firepower came from is automatic weapons. Events proved Monash correct.

The role of the Australian Corps in 1918 was indeed a remarkable one. Comprising only 9.5% of the BEF, it captured 18.5% of the German prisoners, 21.5% of the territory and 14% of the guns captured. This represented an effectiveness 1.95, 2.23 and 1.47 times that of the British Army average.

In 1930 he was conferred with the full rank of General, the first Jew in any army to attain that rank. Monash was once described by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George as ‘the most resourceful General in the British army.’ The Times correspondent Liddell C Hart assessed that Monash would have become commander-in-chief of the combined Allied forces had the war lasted beyond 1918.

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI

PS Readers who cling to the simplistic view that British commanders in World War I were bunglers and butchers will find comfort in the hoary old story of Allied infantry as "lions led by donkeys", a story now retold with Monash instructing the donkeys how to win a war. Others, I fear, will recognise another example of what Robert Rhodes James called "a kind of nationalistic paranoia".

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speaking of kids in war, how cool was this kid (and tough - and obviously homesick) -
died of enteric (typhoid) fever), aged 14 y 9 m.

enteric fever :- An acute, highly infectious disease caused by a bacillus (Salmonella typhi) transmitted chiefly by contaminated food or water and characterized by high fever, headache, coughing, intestinal hemorrhaging, and rose-colored spots on the skin

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http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-heroes/young-anzac.htm

Lone Pine (cemetery & memorial) is mostly for the 3,700 Australians and New Zealanders who, like Burton VC, have no known grave and the 1,200 who, like Shout VC, were buried at sea. Their names are on stone panels at the foot of the pylon. Private James Martin is listed here. He was a farmhand from Victoria who left for Gallipoli on June 28 1915.

He spent some hours in the water after the Southland was torpedoed near Lemnos and reached Anzac on September 8.

A month later he picked up a pencil and wrote in a boyish scrawl to his parents in Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.

"Just a line hoping all is well as it leaves me at present. Things are just the same here the only difference we are expecting a bit of rain which will not be welcomed by us. This place will be a mud hole when the rain does come. We had a bit of a shower last night but it was nothing to speak of.

Occording [sic] to an account of a Turkish Officer who gave himself up the other night says that the Turks are getting very badly treated by the Ottoman Officers and are only getting one meal a day and that was in the evening. There was one Turk who tried to give himself up the other night got shot by the sentry. We dragged him into our Trenches to bury him in the morning and you ought to have seen the state he was in. He had no boots on, an old pair of trousers all patched and an old coat.

The pioneers took him down the gully to bury him and one got shot in the thigh by a snipers in the Turks Trenches. We are not doing bad for food, we got that little present from Lady Ferguson [wife of the Australian Governor General] that was 2 fancy biscuits, half stick Chocolate and 2 sardines each. I think I have told you all the news so I must draw to a close with Fondest love to all."

Private Martin craved a letter. Across the top of his letter he scrawled: "Write soon. I have received no letters since I left Victoria and I have been writing often."

A little over a fortnight later he died from heart failure, probably caused by enteric fever, and was buried at sea.

His enlistment papers gave his age as 18. At the time of his death he was 14 years and nine months. Among his effects was a scrap of red and white streamer that he had picked up as his troopship left Melbourne.

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a sense of proportion maybe.
in all 120,000 killed at Gallipoli - horrible but compare Stalingrad in WWII, where the Russians probably lost more civilians than that, plus 1.7 to 2 million soldiers killed (both sides).
Here is the statue to Mother Russia, "biggest monument in the world". Note the acculades given to the people of Stalingrad by King George VI after the war.
Interesting that there are a heap of sister cities around the world, including two in Germany. Again you would have to assume that "time heals all wounds". ... until the next time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamayev_Kurgan The battle saw a decisive Soviet victory over Axis forces on the Eastern front of World War II.

When forces of the German 6th Army launched their attack against the city centre of Stalingrad on 13 September 1942, Mamayev Kurgan (appearing in military maps as "Height 102.0") saw particularly fierce fighting between the German attackers and the defending soldiers of the Soviet 62nd Army. Control of the hill became vitally important, as it offered control over the city. To defend it, the Soviets had built strong defensive lines on the slopes of the hill, including trenches, barbed-wire and minefields. The Germans pushed forward against the hill, taking heavy casualties. When they finally captured the hill, they started firing on the city centre, as well as on the railway station Stalingrad-1 under the hill. They captured the railway station on 14 September.

On the same day, the Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division commanded by Alexander Rodimtsev arrived in the city from across the river Volga under heavy German artillery fire. The division's 10,000 men immediately rushed into the bloody battle. On 16 September they recaptured Mamayev Kurgan and kept fighting for the railway station, taking heavy losses. By the following day, almost all of them had died. The Soviets kept re-inforcing their units in the city as fast as they could. The Germans assaulted up to twelve times a day, and the Soviets would respond with fierce counter-attacks.

The hill changed hands several times. By 27 September 1942, the Germans had again captured half of Mamayev Kurgan. The Soviets held their own positions on the slopes of the hill, as the 284th Rifle Division desperately defended the key stronghold. The defenders held out until 26 January 1943, when the Soviet winter offensive relieved them, trapping and destroying the German forces inside Stalingrad.

When the battle ended, the blood-soaked soil on the hill was plowed and mixed with shrapnel: the soil contained between 500 and 1,250 splinters of metal per square meter. The earth on the hill had remained black in the winter, as the snow kept melting in the many fires and explosions. In the following spring the hill would still remain black, as no grass grew on its scorched soil. The hill's formerly steep slopes had become flattened in months of intense shelling and bombardment. Even today it is possible to find fragments of bone and metallic shrapnel still buried deep throughout the hill.

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next time we do our tipping competition, maybe we should spare a thought for folks in WW2 - remember that prevoius generations had to deal with statistics like this ... I have sorted them high to low percentage deaths per head of population (2.5% of the entire population of the world killed, 62 - 72 million, estimates vary widely etc )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Note East Timor is "right up there" (5th place with 11%; - ahead of Germany even; even ahead of Singapore;
note also Aus well down the list 33rd at 0.58%).

The total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II, irrespective of political alignment, was roughly 72 million people. The civilian toll was around 46 million, the military toll about 26 million. The Allies lost around 61 million people, and the Axis lost 11 million. (Note that some Axis countries switched sides and reentered the war on the side of the Allies; those nations are included in the Allied count, regardless of when the deaths occurred.) There was a disproportionate loss of life and property; some nations had a higher casualty rate than others, due to a number of factors including military tactics, crimes against humanity, economic preparedness and the level of technology.

Casualties by country
The casualties of World War II were suffered disproportionately by the various participants. This is especially true regarding civilian casualties. The following chart gives data on the casualties suffered by each country, along with population information to show the relative impact of losses.

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"He ain't heavy, he's my brother."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7HPqi5uVeo
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/pages-2aif-cmf/fuzzy-wuzzy.htm
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/pages-2aif-cmf/fuzzy-wuzzy2.htm
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/pages-2aif-cmf/fuzzy-wuzzy3.htm
(Note that there are photos on this website of people actually being stretcher-borne by the Fuzzy Wuzzys, but watermarked "do not copy" for some reason. - you'll have to visit that website if you want to see them)

1942 was a terrible time when an invasion of Australia by the Japanese Imperial Forces looked almost inevitable. Diggers were fighting and dying on lonely jungle tracks in almost impenetrable jungle in mountain ranges so high that it was very cold at night time.

It was then that we found a new set of friends. The men of the tribes of Papua and later of New Guinea flocked to help the Aussies.

Some fought independently because the Japanese mistreated them, something that the civilian Australian Patrol Officers had never done. Many were murdered by the Japanese. Naturally this built up a huge degree of loathing for the invaders. Some fought in organised Units and their story is told elsewhere on this website. However, they acted a bearers, mostly. They carried food and ammo forward and the wounded back. By so doing they created a legend. They were often praised as being as "gentle as a bush nurse".

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one of two poems on that website

MOTHER' S REPLY - THE FUZZY WUZZY ANGELS OF PNG
Poem posted on diggers website, anon.

We, the Mother's of Australia
As we kneel each night in prayer
Will be sure to ask God's blessings
On the men with fuzzy hair.

And may the Great Creator
Who made both black and white
Help us to remember how they
Helped our men to win the fight .

For surely He, has used these men
With fuzzy wuzzy hair
To guard and watch our wounded
With tender and loving care.

And perhaps when they are tired
With blistered and aching back
He'll take the Yoke On himself
And help them down the track.

And God will be the Artist
And this picture He will paint
Of a Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel
With the Halo of a Saint.

And His presence shall go with them
In tropic heat and rain
And he'll help them to tend our wounded
In sickness and in pain.

So we thank you Fuzzy Wuzzies
For all that you have done
Not only for Australians
But for Every Mother's Son.

And we are glad to call you friends
Though your faces may be black
For we know that Christ walked
With you - on the Owen Stanley track.

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http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/pidgin/03.htm
Some pidgin on this site

IM I MAN BOLONG SINGSING TRU.
He is a man fond of parties.

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I wonder if they were cocktail parties , lol
and whether there was more **** than tail as usual

This poem also on that website - author given (a sapper / engineer) Sapper H "Bert" Beros of the 7th Div, 2nd AIF

THE "FUZZY WUZZY" ANGELS

Many a mother in Australia
When the busy day is done
Sends a Prayer to the Almighty
For the keeping of her Son.

Asking that an Angel guide him
And bring him safely back
Now we see those prayers are
Answered on the Owen Stanley track.

Tho' they haven't any halos
Only holes slashed through the ear
Their faces marked with tattoo's
And scratch pins in their hair.

Bringing back the badly wounded
Just as steady as a hearse
Using leaves to keep the rain off
And as gentle as a Nurse.

Slow and careful in bad places
On that awful mountain track
And the look upon their faces
Made us think that Christ was black.

Not a move to hurt the carried
As they treat him like a Saint
It's a picture worth recording
That an Artist's yet to paint.

Many a lad will see his mother
and the husbands, weans and wives
Just because the Fuzzy Wuzzies
Carried them to save their lives.

From Mortar or Machine gun fire
Or a chance surprise attack
To safety and the care of Doctors
At the bottom of the track.

May the Mothers of Australia
When they offer up a prayer
Mention these impromptu Angels
With the "Fuzzy Wuzzy " hair.
by NX6925 Sapper H "Bert" Beros of the 7th Division, 2nd AIF; it was actually written on the Kokoda Track/Trail in 1942

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TAIM JAPAN I KUMAP (at the time Japan came)
PLENTY POLISBOI I KOAIT LONG KANAKA (many police boys went into the bush (long kanaka)).
GUT PELA PASIN. (Good fella, person to do this).
NAU GUVMAN SIGAUT IM OL KAM PUTIM NUMBA GEN (Now the Government wants them all to come and put his number (badge) on again (go back to work)).
YU KAM PAINIM MIPELA I NOGAT TROUBLE. (You can find me, I won't make trouble for you).
GUVMAN 1 TOK (The Government is part of your family)

2020hindsight said:

Some pidgin on this site

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DOG E NOGOT GRASS OLESAME PISIN dog doesn't have feathers like a pigeon

"Grass" = feathers in this case apparently
I seem to recall that "FACE GRASS" = beard , and
"ASS GRASS" = pubic hair and nether regions

the concept of "a disastrous victory".

I hope I have most of this correct ( mainly from memory)
If you read Churchill's "Second World War" (6 volumes) you will find he gives everyone concerned at Crete massive praise (Brits Kiwis, Aussies Greeks, local Crete partisans) - but the Kiwis in particular. You start to understand why we (NZ and Aus) are so closely linked , and why , lol we fight cricket matches so vehemently in this corner of the world - we have fought side by side in far distant corners as well.

When it comes to rugby, cricket etc, even the best of families have sibling punchups , lol - half the fun of being in a family

The other thing about Crete and Greece (as Churchill points out) , he was juggling many balls in the air - by going into Greece we were always on a hiding to nothing, but it helped win the world's attention (and the USA domestic attention) to "the cause". Britain was shaming them into the war. They were proving that they were prepared to take the fight to the Nazis - not just defend their island home. Also the thousands killed in Crete took out the creme of the German parachutists, and they were never used again (at least never in anything like those numbers). They also distracted Hitler from a quick assault on Russia , using up precious oil (as I recall). Forgetting Gallipoli (WWI) for a minute, Churchill always had more than one reason for what he did in WW2, and you'd be hard pressed to find a better man for the job. A genius of course. As he used to say "do what you can NOW, with what you've got". (And reading more about Gallipoli, had the navy not piked out twice before calling in the army(Anzacs etc) - and had the army only been used to secure Constantinople - as Churchill originally intended, then maybe history would be kinder to him on that score - just a theory after reading some more on it researching for these posts )

Those volumes of Churchills make a brilliant read by the way - Churchill of course had access to memos and despatches that the rest of the world didn’t. Plus he has such a magic way with words. So when he said "history will be kind to me - I intent to write it" , he wasn't kidding!

It must have been bludy difficult coming to terms with these slaughters (for the loved ones back home) , but as Churchill points out - quoting Duke Of Wellington - it was such a close fought thing. (and reading between the lines in those volumes, stalling the Germans in Crete could well have made the Russian defence of Stalingrad viable, etc.)

http://www.explorecrete.com/preveli/battle-of-crete.html Crete was the scene of the largest German Airborne operation of the war, and the first time in history that an island had been taken by airborne assault. Afterwards, Crete was dubbed the graveyard of the Fallschirmjager (German Parachutists); they suffered nearly 4000 killed and missing in the assault. It was also the first time the Germans had encountered stiff partisan activity, with women and even children getting involved in the battle......

Here the German paratroopers were opposed by New Zealanders who engaged them with small arms and heavy weapons fire from olive groves offering perfect camouflage for snipers and machine gun positions. The isolated German elements made little headway against the well-entrenched enemy forces....

Turning to Student, the Fuhrer said quietly: "Of course, General you know that after Crete we shall never do another Airborne operation. The parachute arm is one that relies entirely on surprise. That surprise factor has now exhausted itself...the day of the Paratroops is over".

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Greece_during_World_War_II By June 1, the evacuation of Crete by the Allies was complete and the island was under German occupation. In light of the heavy casualties suffered by the elite 7th Flieger Division, Adolf Hitler forbade further airborne operations. General Kurt Student would dub Crete "the graveyard of the German paratroopers" and a "disastrous victory."[/quote]

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Further to previous post - concerning the delay that Greece and Crete made to Hitler attacking Russia ...

and how brave were the Greeks to take on the Axis - sheesh , they must've known they'd be cleaned up bigtime. - and at the end of the day, more than 4% of Greeks were killed compared to only 0.6% of aussies (per head of polulation) - see previous tabulated post for that one).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Greece_during_World_War_II Military history of Greece during World War II

Greece dealt the first victory for the allies by resisting initial attempts of Italian invasion and pushing Mussolini's forces back into Albania.[1] Hitler was reluctantly forced to send forces and delay the invasion of the Soviet Union by six weeks. This is considered the turning point of the war as the German invasion was disastrous as a result of the Russian winter.[2] The Germans also met fierce resistance on the island of Crete as the paratroopers suffered almost 7,000 casualties.[3] These heavy losses eliminated the option of a massive airborne invasion of the Soviet Union and further expansion in the Mediterranean saving Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus, and the Suez Canal from airborne invasion.

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sorry if this is boring you - I find it fascinating , and wow , the information on wikipedia etc is phenomenal. Please feel free to share any of your own theories etc of the wars - there are strangely enough positives in the way men behave in these otherwise tragic events.

Weary Dunlop's story of the war for instance, what a read!! the Aussies on the Burma Rail lost far far fewer than the Brits of course - and all due to Weary and his organisational skills which avoided a lot of the disease. Then again, it was obviously indescribably horrific.