Some Anzac Day songs

Anzac Day remembers Aussies and Kiwis who served in all the wars to which their countries were committed, yet it still centres on World War I, Australia's worst, most wasteful, war. It is often forgotten that in that war more Australians died (more than 46,000) on the battlefields of France and Belgium than at Gallipoli (8,709 deaths).

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda is by Scottish-Australian singer and songwriter Eric Bogle who, like Redgum, has produced lasting songs of meaning. The song is about a digger who is wounded at Gallipoli, treated in hospital, then returns to Australia.

What happened to "those brave wounded heroes of Suvla” in the song? Following up the reality led me to my, now late, grandfather.

On the island of Lemnos, 150km from Gallipoli were many of the regional hospitals that cared for the Anzacs in 1915. At one hospital Matron Grace Wilson had to contend with one of the ways the higher military command failed the Anzacs. In her diary [for quote scroll half way down] (Grace Wilson, in Bassett, Guns and Brooches, p.46) she described the steady flow of casualties from the August 1915 offensive on Gallipoli:

9 August - Found 150 patients lying on the ground - no equipment whatever … had no water to drink or wash.

10 August - Still no water … convoy arrived at night and used up all our private things, soap etc, tore up clothes [for bandages].

11 August - Convoy arrived - about 400 - no equipment whatever … Just laid the men on the ground and gave them a drink. Very many badly shattered, nearly all stretcher cases … Tents were erected over them as quickly as possible … All we can do is feed them and dress their wounds … A good many died … It is just too awful ...

While Matron Wilson worked elsewhere on Lemnos, this photo is of my Grandfather, Sergeant Leo Coates, on Lemnos, in his unit, the No. 1 Australian Stationary Hospital. He helped to develop one of the first field X-ray machines and then operated it (as pictured) to save lives. On November 4, 1915 he moved with the hospital to Gallipoli. Sergeant Coates would later fight in World War II. His son (my father) would fight in Vietnam.

I think Eric Bogle’s The Green Fields of France or No Man’s Land is the best anti-war song ever written. As a haunting poem, march, song of love and injustice it is a fitting anthem to remember the men and women, living and dead, who are our Anzacs.