The Aerodrome Forum - View Single Post - The ANZACs- myth and reality

Pete Hill · 13 February 2008, 06:36 AM

Hi again, Neil.
The interesting thing about the generations of the two world wars is that they were probably better at accepting whatever life dealt to them. Back then, pain was something you had to endure. Today, we seek a fast cure and instant relief. It is a common myth that veterans of the Vietnam war were somehow unique in that they suffered more trauma from their experiences than men who fought in previous wars. This is not true, there were proportionally just as many highly traumatised veterans from the world wars who came back home and struggled to fit in, without a fraction of the support networks that Vietnam vets eventually received.
I work as an aged care nurse and I have a friend who works in a nursing home in Melbourne who has described one of her residents. A veteran of the New Guinea campaign and now heavily afflicted with dementia, the gentleman will not go to sleep unless pillows are stacked on both sides of him as he says that his sandbagged trench has to be deep in case 'the Nips go at us with mortars like they did last night!'.
I have just finished reading Richard Holmes' 'Tommy' which is about the British soldier of the First World War. In his introduction, he talks about the current controversies surrounding historicial interpretations of the war, namely the battles between the revisionists and, for want of a better term, the traditionalists. Some have called the former 'Retro-Imperialists'. Holmes admits that he sits somewhere in the middle. Judging by his writings, Holmes does agree with other historians such as Gary Sheffield and Hew Strachan that the First World War was not a meaningless or a pointless conflict as it is often remembered. (Strachan calls the war a 'victory for liberialism'). Holmes also agrees with Strachan's assertions that popular memory and perceptions of the conflict have been shaped by a very small minority of those who took part, namely the poets and novelists. Regarding the latter, Holmes believes that their views were not typical and did not reflect the attitudes of the common soldier. As Captain Flashart says in Blackadder Goes Forth, "Don't you think I get tired of this damned war...the mud, the blood....the endless poetry!"
Holmes also challenges popular myths such as the popular image of the pompous over-fed generals sitting safe behind the lines in their warm chateaus whilst the PBI suffered in the trenches. He cites the fact that far more high-ranking British officers were killed in the Great War than there were in WW2.
However Holmes still agrees with the other side of the line, namely the traditional viewpoint of the Great War being a uniquely terrible and cruel conflict that left many scars on western civilisation.
I have also read Neil Hanson's "To the Unknown Soldier' which describes the entombment and dedication of the unknown soldier in the UK in what was the first Remembrance Day service in 1921. Hanson describes the event in vivid detail. And we thought Princess Diana's funeral was big! The entire country came to a halt, nearly every vehicle stopped, every worker laid down tools, every pedistrian paused for the first awesome minute of silence for a nation experiencing enormous grief. A passenger plane which happened to be airborne at 11am cut its engines and glided in silence for the full minute. A courtroom trial stopped in mid-session and even the prisoner in the docks willingly stood at attention. I almost wept when I read about the service in Westminster Catheral where, surprisingly for class-conscious Britain, a selection of the general public had been allowed in to sit amongst the more well-to-do. They had had to submit letters of request in order to be chosen. One little boy whose father had been listed as missing on the Western front wrote a letter saying he wanted to come to the dedication because 'it might be my Daddy in that box'. He was one of the people chosen to attend. Compare that to the UK in 1982 when wounded and disabled veterans of the Falklands war were forbidden by Prime Minister Thatcher to march in the Victory Parade. And we think we have progressed!
I also read the book- '11th Month, 11th Day and 11th Hour' by US writer Joseph Persico which is about the last day of the war on the Western Front. That book sits firmly in the traditional camp! It describes the US generals who committed their units to attacks, knowing full-well that the ceasefire was only hours away. Future US President Harry Truman, commanding an artillery battery, ordered his crews to keep firing even after the ceasefire came into effect at 11am, such was his determination to wipe Germany from the map. The book also describes how the ceasefire order took some time to reach parts of the Front and how hundreds of casualties were inflicted on both sides even after 11 o'clock.

13 February 2008, 06:36 AM	#10 (permalink)
Pete Hill Two-seater Pilot Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Murtoa Vic. Australia Posts: 137	Hi again, Neil. The interesting thing about the generations of the two world wars is that they were probably better at accepting whatever life dealt to them. Back then, pain was something you had to endure. Today, we seek a fast cure and instant relief. It is a common myth that veterans of the Vietnam war were somehow unique in that they suffered more trauma from their experiences than men who fought in previous wars. This is not true, there were proportionally just as many highly traumatised veterans from the world wars who came back home and struggled to fit in, without a fraction of the support networks that Vietnam vets eventually received. I work as an aged care nurse and I have a friend who works in a nursing home in Melbourne who has described one of her residents. A veteran of the New Guinea campaign and now heavily afflicted with dementia, the gentleman will not go to sleep unless pillows are stacked on both sides of him as he says that his sandbagged trench has to be deep in case 'the Nips go at us with mortars like they did last night!'. I have just finished reading Richard Holmes' 'Tommy' which is about the British soldier of the First World War. In his introduction, he talks about the current controversies surrounding historicial interpretations of the war, namely the battles between the revisionists and, for want of a better term, the traditionalists. Some have called the former 'Retro-Imperialists'. Holmes admits that he sits somewhere in the middle. Judging by his writings, Holmes does agree with other historians such as Gary Sheffield and Hew Strachan that the First World War was not a meaningless or a pointless conflict as it is often remembered. (Strachan calls the war a 'victory for liberialism'). Holmes also agrees with Strachan's assertions that popular memory and perceptions of the conflict have been shaped by a very small minority of those who took part, namely the poets and novelists. Regarding the latter, Holmes believes that their views were not typical and did not reflect the attitudes of the common soldier. As Captain Flashart says in Blackadder Goes Forth, "Don't you think I get tired of this damned war...the mud, the blood....the endless poetry!" Holmes also challenges popular myths such as the popular image of the pompous over-fed generals sitting safe behind the lines in their warm chateaus whilst the PBI suffered in the trenches. He cites the fact that far more high-ranking British officers were killed in the Great War than there were in WW2. However Holmes still agrees with the other side of the line, namely the traditional viewpoint of the Great War being a uniquely terrible and cruel conflict that left many scars on western civilisation. I have also read Neil Hanson's "To the Unknown Soldier' which describes the entombment and dedication of the unknown soldier in the UK in what was the first Remembrance Day service in 1921. Hanson describes the event in vivid detail. And we thought Princess Diana's funeral was big! The entire country came to a halt, nearly every vehicle stopped, every worker laid down tools, every pedistrian paused for the first awesome minute of silence for a nation experiencing enormous grief. A passenger plane which happened to be airborne at 11am cut its engines and glided in silence for the full minute. A courtroom trial stopped in mid-session and even the prisoner in the docks willingly stood at attention. I almost wept when I read about the service in Westminster Catheral where, surprisingly for class-conscious Britain, a selection of the general public had been allowed in to sit amongst the more well-to-do. They had had to submit letters of request in order to be chosen. One little boy whose father had been listed as missing on the Western front wrote a letter saying he wanted to come to the dedication because 'it might be my Daddy in that box'. He was one of the people chosen to attend. Compare that to the UK in 1982 when wounded and disabled veterans of the Falklands war were forbidden by Prime Minister Thatcher to march in the Victory Parade. And we think we have progressed! I also read the book- '11th Month, 11th Day and 11th Hour' by US writer Joseph Persico which is about the last day of the war on the Western Front. That book sits firmly in the traditional camp! It describes the US generals who committed their units to attacks, knowing full-well that the ceasefire was only hours away. Future US President Harry Truman, commanding an artillery battery, ordered his crews to keep firing even after the ceasefire came into effect at 11am, such was his determination to wipe Germany from the map. The book also describes how the ceasefire order took some time to reach parts of the Front and how hundreds of casualties were inflicted on both sides even after 11 o'clock.