#Anzac Parade

[intheshadowofwar]

28 May 2023

On Parade

Anzac Parade 28 May 2023

If there’s one thing every capital city needs, it’s a big ceremonial thoroughfare. Washington has the National Mall, London has the Mall, Paris has the Champs Elysees, and even humble Canberra has Anzac Parade. In times of less construction, one could stand on the steps of the War Memorial and have an unobstructed view of the long avenue, and then, across Lake Burley Griffin, to both the Old and New Parliament Houses.

It’s perhaps odd to consider that nearly none of this was intentional. Anzac Parade was part of Walter Burley Griffin’s plan for Canberra, which I’ll link to here - Griffin, it seemed, really liked his big avenues, and you can see most of the modern Canberra roads there. Looking at drawings by Marion Mahony Griffin, which are in Nicholas Brown’s History of Canberra, there doesn’t really seem to be anything in the spot where the memorial is, and a bizarre domed building that looks like a cross between the US Capitol and the Angkor Wat stands on Capital Hill. Even Old Parliament House was only intended to be temporary. Of course, the First World War intervened, and thus the War Memorial came to sit where it does now at the base of Mount Ainslie, while the permanent parliament house was not constructed until the 1980s, and certainly looks like the product of its decade.

Just as Anzac came to exist, so did Anzac Parade. Like much of Burley Griffin’s plan, it took until later to come into fruition - it was opened in 1965. Over time, it came to be lined with individual war memorials to specific services, battles or wars. They run the gauntlet from the traditional statuary of the Army Memorial to the modern, cubical Peacekeepers Memorial; from the traditional heroic imagery of the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial to the sombre, ambiguous concrete monoliths that form the Vietnam War Memorial.

My uncle has been in town recently, so I took him up and down Anzac Parade to look at the array of memorials. It was a good opportunity to reorientate myself with them - and it’s a fairly good walk besides.

We started on the left side of the road (facing towards Mount Ainslie.) At the start of Anzac Parade there are two giant basket handles on either side of the road, forming the Australia-New Zealand Memorial. It’s perhaps fitting that we start with the oft-forgotten ‘NZ’ part of ANZAC; a healthy reminder that Gallipoli and the Western Front are just as important in Wellington as they are here. Moving along, one passes the Boer War Memorial. This is a very recent addition indeed - it was well into the 21st century before the South African War had its memorial in the national capital. Past that is the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial.

I’m going to go a little deeper into this one, as there’s not much scope for the discussion of the Palestine campaign anywhere else. The Desert Mounted Corps, initially the Desert Column, operated in the Sinai Desert, Palestine and Syria between December 1916 and the end of the war, fighting against the Ottoman Empire. Initially the force was commanded by General Chetwode, but in mid-1917 General Harry Chauvel took command, the first Australian to command a corps. (Lawrence of Arabia, apparently, was not a big fan of him.) The Corps consisted of three divisions - two ANZAC and one British. An additional British division and an Indian brigade were added in mid-1918, and I believe there were detachments of French Colonial troops, although I can’t seem to confirm this right now. I tell you this because you would not know from looking at the memorial, which is entirely an Australian and New Zealand affair. Grumbling about the omitting of nationalities aside, a big reason the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial is of particular interest is because it’s actually a replica. The original was erected at Port Said in Egypt after the war, but during the Suez Crisis, it was targeted and destroyed by Egyptian nationalists as a symbol of the British Empire. The destruction of statutory, despite what some might say, is by no means a 21st century phenomenon.

Moving along, one passes the grey, funereal Vietnam Memorial, which asks visitors to walk inside it, and in which the names of the dead are gathered on a ring above. Then you pass the Korean War Memorial, with its army, navy and air force figures surrounded by tall steel poles that look like rain, and after that the comparatively conventional memorial to the army. At the end of Anzac Parade, nestled into the corner, is the Hellenic Memorial, which commemorates the battles of Greece and Crete during the Second World War. It’s built to resemble an amphitheatre, with a pillar marked with the Greek Orthodox cross and pair of steel beams in the middle. A map of the Aegean, almost stained glass in appearance, is made from tiles on the floor.

Perhaps entertainingly if one knows the history of Greco-Turkish relations, it’s positioned directly across the road from the Mustafa Kemal Ataturk Memorial. There probably aren’t many western democracies, with the obvious exception of Germany, that have memorials to the enemy in their capital - still less to an autocratic dictator. Yet Ataturk holds a key position in Anzac mythology. As a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Ottoman Army, he played a role in the defence of Gallipoli against the British and Anzac forces. After the war, he became a key figure in the Turkish nationalist movement, and eventually the President. I have to be very careful what I say here, as I have to load and edit this in Turkey where it is illegal to defame Ataturk, so I’ll focus my discussion on the inscription on the memorial.

It’s a long one, and it’s a little hard to see on my photograph, so I’ll just type it out.

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours … you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway counties, wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom, and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.

Beautiful sentiment, right? The only problem is that Ataturk almost certainly didn’t say them. I’ll link to an excellent article on the subject at Honest History (and honestly, I’d recommend that website for a lot of things) but the basic gist of the problem is that knows when he said it, or if he dictated it to someone else, or if it was a letter, or really anything else about the providence of the quote, and it really seems to have started being kicked around in the 1980s. There is no evidence prior to 1953 of the speech (or letter, or dictation, or lavatory graffiti) existing.

So why, when we know he probably say it, is it still there? I think it’s because it’s comforting. It’s a little bit of myth making that serves to make the past a little more bearable. To imagine your father or grandfather lying in the bosom of a friendly nation is palatable. To imagine him buried in an enemy country, whose soldiers killed him, is less so.

Traveling back down Anzac Parade, one next passes the memorial to the Royal Australian Navy Memorial, a mishmash of flesh and steel shapes which includes a fountain. Beyond that is the ‘shower curtain’ - the derogatory name a veteran nurse gave to the Nurse’s Memorial. This is the most vertical of the memorials on Anzac Parade - a blue glass structure that visitors can walk into, listing the names of conflicts and postings of the nursing service and displaying images of nurses throughout Australian military history. It is worth pointing out that this is a memorial specifically to nurses in the Australian service, not Australian nurses - nurses who died in the British service are not commemorated either here or on the Roll of Honour. I know you’re getting sick of links by now, but here’s one to a video on that subject.

We then pass the Royal Australian Air Force Memorial, which I’ve never been a particular fan of - it just seems a bit dull to me, if I’m completely honest. Past that is the great tan monument to the Rats of Tobruk - the men of the 9th (and one brigade of the 7th) Division who defended Tobruk from the Nazi Afrika Korps in 1941. (I am going to get into so much trouble for calling Rommel’s Afrika Korps ‘Nazi,’ which is of course precisely why I did so.) Finally, one passes the impenetrably abstract Peacekeepers Memorial, before reaching the other side of the New Zealand Memorial.

This walk took us about an hour, and on the way home, we decided to try to find the Air Crash Memorial in the Pialligo Forest. The key word was ‘try,’ because it turns out there’s no road access and it’s a 3.2km walk to reach it. As we’d already been walking, we decided to call it a day. The air crash in question was the Canberra Air Disaster - a Lockheed Hudson crashed on approach to Canberra airport on the 13th of August 1940, killing three members of the cabinet and Chief of the General Staff General Sir Brudenell White. This is another name we’ll probably come back to. Suffice it to say, it was a major body blow to Robert Menzies’ first government and probably contributed to its fall the following year (although Menzies buggering off to London for several months to pester Churchill probably didn’t help either.)

All in all, it was a good day. I don’t know when I’ll write again, though I’m hoping soon - otherwise I shall see you in two weeks, as there’s a few thoughts I might want to get onto paper while I’m in Sydney.

[binduspoint]

Honoring Heroes: A Global Perspective on Memorial Days and Martyrs' Commemorations

Introduction Across the world, nations set aside special days to honor and remember their military personnel and martyrs who have sacrificed their lives for their country. These observances not only pay tribute to the bravery and dedication of soldiers but also remind us of the profound impact of their sacrifices on our freedoms and way of life. This article explores how different countries…

[what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew]

“CELEBRATIONS ON ANZAC DAY EVE WITH A DJ AND—”

dang i thought we had a few more years

[soup-mother]

actually the veteran thing is a good case of people being detached from the general societal attitudes about things.

I'd say the average person who served in the military is just proud of their time and likes the fact their relatives are all proud of them. and that's sorta it. it's something society at least sorta values and the government puts pride in it. you get to come to anzac day parades and feel proud every year. the question of killing innocent people literally never ever comes up.

that's the general attitude. the idea that it's a factory that radicalises people to be anti imperialists is a stupid cope based on some outliers

[astranite]

Headcanons of what biscuits each of the Tracies and everyone would like:

Alan first because we always seem to forget about him. He strikes me as a timtam enjoyer. He would definitely to the using them as a straw to drink milk through thing

Virgil would be resident mint slice lover

John to pennys disgust is an incorrigible dunker of biscuits in tea. She cannot reform him. Cause hes a mischief maker like the best he will do it in front of her while making eye contact while she resists the urge to tackle him as thats not polite. I think she has given in before. John is totally taunting her because it drives her up the wall. He misses it in space where free floating liquids are not a good idea. Hes yet to work out a scientific timing to let them get sufficiently soggy but not fall in but hes still trying to. He has been known to accidentally drop the biscuit in then fish it out with his fingers probably swearing. Then rapidly eat the soggy biscuit mess before anyone says anything before he goes back to pretending hes way too normal to do that.

Kayo. Jammy marshmallowy wagon wheels. No notes.

Penny’s secret vice is those pink ones iced ones with 100s and 1000s. Like the cheapest sugary ones. She will eat a whole packet if shes sad. They will without fail cheer her up. John has brought them for her and she cried all over him. She never had them growing up in endeds parades of fancy teas and biscuits. It was only when she was off at uni and knew john that she got to try them. John probably pulled them off a supermarket shelf and chucked them at her cause they were pink when they were grocery shopping for food together once and she decided to get them and loved them ever since. John doesn’t even like them but gets them for her.

I think Virgil would also like melting moments. He is unable to eat any sort of biscuit without getting covered in crumbs. He tries really hard but he has no idea how anyone else manages it.

Scott loved chocolate chip biscuits. But they have to be homemade. Secretly he hates those dry dusty store bought ones so much. He can bake them really well though but hardly finds the time.

Gordon. I dont know about actual biscuits but he definitely loves the crunch. Oh he would love those golden syrup and cornflakes or chocolate ricebubble crackles school bake sale treats so much

John for specifics id say shortbread creams. Ginger thins. He is a biscuit fiend in general and absolutely loves many of them. He also insists on calling them biscuits.

Grandma has tried to make anzac biscuits. They came out …authentic. Historically authentic.

Kayo knows about her girlfriend's love of sugary pink biscuits. She found out somehow even though John is sworn to secrecy. Penny was over the moon when she brought them out for their quiet night in after their fancy, nice date was interrupted by work after dessert was quite ruined after being smashed over the bad guy's head.

Thoughts for Brains, Parker and others? Favourite biscuits you want to tell about? (i need to know) (for science) (also biscuit recommendations)

[adventureswithteddy]

Teddy climbed his way through the Mount Ainslie Nature Preserve until he was standing above Canberra and able to look out over Australia’s capital city. The Molonglo River and the Anzac Parade were easily discernable below. Teddy figured if he spent more time around this city he might be able to distinguish  other prominent features too, especially on this clear Australian day. Do you have a favorite capital?

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

The Australian War Memorial and Anzac Parade from Mount Ainslie, Canberra under heavy fog. 19th May 2020. X

[brasideios]

Lest we Forget.

It's Anzac Day here, and in the grand tradition of such morose and weighted occasions, here's a sample of Anzac humour:

'At Tel-el-Kebir at one point [Egypt, in 1916], a battalion of Australian soldiers is put on parade to be informed that the General Officer Commanding, an Englishman, desires the use of bad language to be cut out, most specifically the words 'fuck' and 'c-nt', as in any case he understands that these two words are not used in Australia.

'At this point, a voice rings out from the back of the parade: 'The fucking c-nt's never been there!'

Or my fave:

'Perhaps the lack of deference [to the English officers] is just in the Australian blood? ... when a British officer told off an Australian for not saluting him, the friendly Australian reached out, gave him a pat on the shoulder, and said, 'Young man, when you go home, you tell your mother today you've seen a real bloody soldier.'

[Both quotes are taken from Peter Fitzsimons' book, Fromelles and Pozieres: In the Trenches of Hell which I re-read every April in memorium.]

[thoughtsfromthecowshed]

The Scheduling AU - Pt 5

Technically this was supposed to be more Wednesday orientated but I decided to focus more on Larissa just because it’s a good foundation to build off of for Wednesday.

So a few facts:

Larissa, Gomez and Morticia got together at 16.

Their story is actually kinda cute, about a week into their third year Gomez and Morticia had a conversation that went something along the lines of we both like each other and we both like Larissa, lets woo her together

And after that they were giving her little gift and casual touches and just generally being romantic to her all the time. And Larissa was soooo confused it wasn’t even funny

Until about 3 weeks into this they basically brought her a lovely bouquet with headless roses and lily of the valley, oleander and foxglove and a couple of sprigs of hemlock. And asked if she wanted to date both off them

She said yes while crying.

Before the open dorm system was implemented by Larissa, it was still gendered dorms and they couldn’t really visit each other. So Gomez would sneak out onto the roof and come over to the attic balcony so they could spend nights together.

About a month into being together Gomez got them a king sized bed because he was sick of pushing together the two singles. (How he managed to sneak in a whole ass heavy wooden frame and mattress is between him and Fester.)

Larissa is a knitter and crocheter. This means that in the winter months both her and Morticia (and later on, the kids to) are kitted out in matching sweaters and scarves. It’s honestly one of Morticia’s favourite things

One of the very first things that Larissa ever crocheted was a giant granny square blanket and I kid you not this thing was almost the size of California king bed. It’s huge and it’s well loved over the years. First in the dorm then at the manor, when they move in and finally it’s spent the last few years in Wednesdays room and made it to her dorm room. Funnily enough the colours used were mostly reds and purples and it’s one of the few items that Wednesday has that is colourful

Larissa, Morticia and Gomez get engaged at 20 just a year before they finish at Nevermore and are married almost as soon as they graduate.

The proposal was really funny. They were on summer vacation in Italy on a tour of the crypts and catacombs dotted around and the one they proposed in was called Juliet’s tomb

As you can imagine they all found it very romantic and each of them pulled out two rings and turned to each other and just started speaking all at the same time. Eventually they started giggling and slipped rings on each other in a very sweet moment.

Their marriage was very sweet, in the family cemetery under a full moon. They exchanged their vows and a goblet of their blood in a hand fastening ceremony

Now both the Addams and Frumps have a innate resistance to poison of all types and eating it just makes that resistance stronger and once Larissa had that blood in her system she basically gained that same immunity and eating often with family also built up that resistance.

Larissa really likes dancing especially with Morticia and Gomez and so they have adapted most dancing to a three person style.

I’m have to be early tomorrow for the ANZAC dawn parade so I’m going to end this here but tomorrow I’m going to touch on my favourite bit of this AU. Honestly I think it’s what started this whole AU so I can’t wait. Anyway goodnight y’all imma go bed now.

Prev / Next

[scotianostra]

25th of April marks  ANZAC Day which commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealand (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops at Ari Burnu on the Gallipoli  peninsula. Let’s pray that we never see a war like the two  that blighted the 20th century, I only wish that wars everywhere would end……

The song And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda was written by Eric Bogle, who left Scotland and emigrated to Australia at the age of 25, he has lived in the country now for over 50 years. Eric says of the song;

“I wrote it as an oblique comment on the Vietnam War which was in full swing… but while boys from Australia were dying there, people had hardly any idea where Vietnam was. Gallipoli was a lot closer to the Australian ethos – every schoolkid knew the story, so I set the song there.”   Bogle is on record for having regretted the lines  “And the young people ask what are they marching for, and I ask myself the same question.” He realised much later that some people thought he was disrespecting what the soldier’s had done in the war. This was not his intention; he wanted to stress the horror of war.

Let’s remember all that have died, not just at Gallipoli, but worldwide in all wars.

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Now when I was a young man, I carried me pack, And I lived the free life of a rover From the Murray’s green basin to the dusty outback, Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over. Then in 1915, my country said “Son, It’s time you stopped rambling, there’s work to be done”. So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun, And they marched me away to the war.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda As the ship pulled away from the quay And amidst all the cheers, the flag-waving and tears, We sailed off for Gallipoli.

And how well I remember that terrible day, How our blood stained the sand and the water And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay, We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter. Johnny Turk he was waiting, he’d primed himself well He showered us with bullets and he rained us with shell And in five minutes flat, he’d blown us all to hell Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

But the band played Waltzing Matilda, When we stopped to bury our slain. We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs Then we started all over again.

And those that were left, well we tried to survive, In that mad world of blood, death and fire And for ten weary weeks, I kept myself alive Though around me the corpses piled higher Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head And when I woke up in me hospital bed, And saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead Never knew there was worse things than dying.

For I’ll go no more waltzing Matilda All around the green bush far and free To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs No more waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed And they shipped us back home to Australia The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me legs used to be And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me To grieve, to mourn, and to pity.

But the band played Waltzing Matilda As they carried us down the gangway But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared Then they turned all their faces away.

And so now every April, I sit on me porch, And I watch the parade pass before me. And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march Reviving old dreams of past glories And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore They’re tired old heroes from a forgotten war And the young people ask “What are they marching for?” And I ask meself the same question.

But the band plays Waltzing Matilda And the old men still answer the call, But as year follows year, more old men disappear Someday no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? And their ghosts may be heard as they march by that billabong Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

[world-of-wales]

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[tcr55]

I posted a pic of a famous premises on ANZAC Parade yesterday, and due to the interest in another failed business nearby, I returned early this morning to Grotta Capri.

Opened in the 1950s, with chicken wire and cement to fashion the grotto (with stalactites included) on the inside, and thousands of oysters shells embedded in the exterior, it was often described as fabulously hideous.

I don’t know if my parents ever took me to this Italian eatery, but like most Sydneysiders of a certain age, our collective memory says we were there at least once. Closed in 2011.

[intheshadowofwar]

The Long, Long Trail - 27 May 2023

The Last Man

Australian War Memorial 27 May 2023

They say the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. If one is former Director of the Australian War Memorial Dr. Brendan Nelson, it might be said to start with a single grant of five hundred million dollars. Today, the sightlines of Anzac Parade are ruptured by cranes and construction sites, part of the massive effort to revitalise the Australian War Memorial, to build a larger Anzac Hall, and to create space for the modern conflicts (and modern equipment) of the Australian Defence Forces.

It’s meant to be therapeutic to modern veterans, and I certainly can’t presume to speak for them. For all I know, it might be true - a few days ago I happened upon a YouTube video in which an Iraq War veteran gushed about a pre-release build of the controversial video game Six Days in Fallujah. There’s plenty of ex-military people who are into modelling tanks and planes. Perhaps, just as veterans of the First and Second World Wars revisited their battlefields in their old age, there’s a comfort in ‘going back.’ And yet, I can’t help but think there are more sinister justifications for the rebuild lurking in the background. Things like money from BAE Systems and quiet nudges from military recruiters. Things that risk subtly pushing the Australian War Memorial from being a place of commemoration to a place of glorification.

This is all immaterial, of course, because at 9.30am on a near-winter’s morning in Canberra, you can’t even see the sightlines for all the fog. Whoever painted those 1950s posters advertising sunny Australia certainly wasn’t thinking of Campbell.

(As a quick aside, I’m going to be using pseudonyms like ‘the Professor’ and ‘the Field Assistant’ here, because I don’t actually know if I have permission to use their names. If this suddenly changes, it’s because I found out if I could or could not name them.)

I came to the War Memorial on this balmy autumn day of about two degrees celsius to begin a journey - but I’m sure you’re all aware of that, because one doesn’t write a travel log unless they intend to travel. This was the first step on the road for the Australian National University’s Anzac Battlefields and Beyond Study Tour, or ANUABBST.

Upon reflection, we’ll just call it the ‘Study Tour.’

In any case, Poppy’s Cafe was the starting point of our adventure - sort of. We had, in fact, had an orientation last night. That’s when most of us found out that there was a minor snag in our plans. Our dear friend Covid may no longer be an international emergency, but it remains a background annoyance, like that lump I had on my nose for most of my teenage years. Our professor had been stricken by the plague, and thus would not be available today. To make matters worse, one of the Field Assistants was still in the United States, and the professor’s assistant from previous years was in Kiama. This left us with only one Field Assistant to manage everything. She’d effectively been thrown in the deep end, with all other authority figures down - it’s the stuff VCs are made of.

What I’m basically saying is, she basically had to do all the teaching, admin and assistant work by herself, and she made it look easy.

I’m sorry, I have digressed. It will happen again. Repeatedly.

In any case, we met at Poppy’s. It was here, at 10am, that we met with Michael McKernon, who I have to name because he was the key figure in the repatriation of Australia’s Unknown Soldier. See, up until 1991, Australia didn’t have an ‘unknown soldier’ - for the uninitiated, the idea of the ‘unknown soldier’ (or in some countries, the ‘unknown warrior’) is for a single, unidentified body to serve as a surrogate grave for all those killed whose bodies were never identified - it can also serve as a symbol of the collective sacrifice of an entire country. For most of the twentieth century, Australia’s unknown soldier was considered to be Britain’s Unknown Warrior, who is interred in Westminster Abbey in London. It wasn’t until Paul Keating’s time that that changed. After some haggling with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who were a bit cagey about people waltzing up and digging up their cemeteries and didn’t want to start a precedent, it was decided to exhume remains from Adelaide Cemetery in France, partially because they could be certain it was an Australian there, and partially because it was remote and it was feared the British tabloids might try to get a photograph of the body.

Apparently they’d made plans to check several graves, with a little marquee to cover them as they dug and reburied the soil to find suitably complete remains. Yet in the end they didn’t need to - they found exactly what they wanted in the first grave they checked. Sometimes in life, things really do just come together.

It’s perhaps incredible to hear now, on the other side of the Anzacpalooza of the 2010s, but apparently the then Governor-General Bill Hayden was worried before the internment ceremony was held on 11 November 1991 that people would laugh. He thought the idea of a gun carriage carrying an anonymous body, followed by the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and all manner of dignitaries, would be too absurd to be taken seriously. (Perhaps he’d had a premonition of some of the internet reactions to the King’s coronation.) In the event, that didn’t happen - Hayden told McKernan that he’d seen something in the eyes of the crowd that he’d never seen before in the Australian people. ‘Intense pride and intense grief.’ (I’m paraphrasing, of course.)

Now, you might be tempted to think that’s political spin, but seeing as Hayden said that to McKernan in a one on one conversation, I reckon he was being sincere. I think that’s something we forget these days; people feel deep connections to abstract things, and they personalise them. Someone might look at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and they might think of Great-Uncle John, or Harry, or Hans. It could be my great-grandfather.

(Well, no it couldn’t, because he was British, he was in the Second World War, and he then lived to a very old age, but you get my point.)

At the end of his discussion with us, McKernon talked about the sentimentalisation of the War Memorial’s museum (for those uninitiated, the War Memorial contains both a memorial and a museum.) The specific example he gave us was the speakers installed above George Lambert’s painting of the charge at the Battle of the Nek in August 1915, which plays the sound of gunfire, artillery and wounded men. His belief is that we should not be doing this - that the addition of sound (or music for that matter) emotionally manipulates the viewer. He compared this with a muddy uniform on the other side of the First World War gallery which Charles Bean took off a soldier coming back from the line. I presume he was given privacy while he changed into a new uniform. In any case, it’s there to present what a soldier’s equipment looked while it was on the line, as opposed to an immaculate tunic and breeches pulled out of an army storeroom. It doesn’t need sound or lights to convey the nature of war, and it doesn’t tell you how you ought to feel about it. (Remember Charles Bean’s name, because we will certainly hear from him again.)

I don’t know how I feel about the use of sound in museums. I think it can be used to good effect, if used in the right way. I don’t think it should be used in a memorial. This may be a part of the memorial that acts as a museum, but it is still on memorial grounds, and I think it should apply the opportunity for reflection as much as possible.

After our lovely chat with Micheal McKernon, we proceeded into the War Memorial, a task that the War Memorial seems intent on making as difficult as possible. During the Dark Times, the memorial set up a procedure to limit the amount of people coming in at any one time, which was the right thing to do at the time. It seems they’ve gotten a taste for it, as this procedure remains in place, and if you cluster in a group of more than two and a half people, they’ll look at you like you just set General Monash’s uniform on fire. You can imagine that this is not the most conductive environment for a group tour, but we just about made it work.

Now, I’m attending this tour as alumni, so I don’t have to work for a living. Once the rest of the group had been split into sub-groups to examine specific objects, we split off for a bit and I wandered around doing my own thing. I had a brisk walk through the Second World War gallery, which has some of my personal favourite exhibits in the museum - for example, the table at which General Percival surrendered Singapore to General Yamashita in 1942. On a more sombre note, there’s the wall of photographs of the men who died in the Sandakan Death March, which I think is probably the most effective exhibit in the museum. I then spent a little time among the rows of names on the Roll of Honour, and a brief reflection at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I don’t really know exactly what I reflected on, but I think that’s just the way it is sometimes.

I doubled back through the First World War galleries to view (and test my new camera on) the dioramas. These were the brainchild of the artist Will Dyson and the correspondent-turned-historian Charles Bean, and they’ve been there since the 1920s. If you come to the Australian War Memorial for one thing, it probably should be these - as well as the dioramas of Tobruk, Tarakan and Kapyong elsewhere in the museum.

The camera’s pretty great, by the by.

We met back up at 2pm and discreetly did group presentations. After this I did an improvised presentation of my own in front of the L3/33 tankette in the WWII gallery, and was reminded why I’m not very good at improv. We broke up just after 3pm, and I headed home.

As a group, we don’t meet up again until London next month, but personally I have one or two things planned between then and now - and that starts tomorrow.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, our Unknown Soldier did set a precedent. Canada got one in 2000, and New Zealand followed them.

[historyandarthijinks]

I wish for a great and peaceful memorial day to those celebrating, and especially those grieving/paying respects to the fallen

And for my many many friends outside of the United States

What is Memorial Day?

Memorial Day is a holiday in the United States celebrated on the last Monday of May.

It is to honor the dead and their mourning counterparts of those who have died while serving in the United States Military.

This is Arlington National Cemetery, a national cemetery in the United States dedicated to dead soldiers and veterans. It has become a symbol in itself for Memorial Day

There is usually a ceremony that can be viewed on the TV, local parades, and it is traditional to buy a poppy flower to honor the dead.

Taps is played, and a moment of silence is often done at least once in ceremonies/similar to honor the dead.

Equivalent Holidays

Remembrance Day

Heroes' Day

ANZAC Day

International Day of UN Peacekeepers

Yom HaZikaron

Volkstauertag

Memorial Day (South Korea)

Dodenherdenking

And More...

[soup-mother]

well it's like i always say, "buy war medals on ebay and wear them to ANZAC day parades until someone yells at you"

[ru-inn]

Happy ANZAC day

Hi LJ! sorry for not replying yesterday my internet has been very shoddy it wouldn't load :(((

Happy (late) ANZAC day! I ended up seeing the parade in my city yesterday morning

Hope you been well!!