Some Anzac Day songs

Hearing snippets of war songs at parades or on television on Anzac Day has made me want to dig deeper as a mark of respect and remembrance. The particular power of war songs, or anti-war songs, are in their strength and diversity of emotion: sorrow, action, anger, remembrance, fear, mateship, loneliness, love, generosity, authority and protest.

What I’m attempting to do is to focus on just a few songs, while touching on some themes about Anzac Day that some may not have considered or are contentious. The songs start with the most recent wars then end with World War I. On casualties alone that latter war has the most meaning and I’ll show it has meaning in my family’s history.

The songs would be difficult to play without Youtube and, of course, would not exist without their performers and composers. Please buy the original songs from Aussie and Kiwi artists.

Australia's new main war in Afghanistan seems too current for songs to have decent lyrics. Physical and mental scars may need to heal and perhaps few soldiers who have fought in that country, or Iraq, have fully left the army system. As the Afghanistan quagmire slowly deepens time and communication will produce great songs. In the meantime Afghanistan War says much (better loud) without words.

I Was Only 19 is without doubt the most famous and realistic Australian song of the Vietnam War. It was written and sung by John Schumann when he led the far left and undervalued Australian group Redgum. Redgum produced a large number of great songs, but perhaps too critical of the social order, principled and deep for the commercial music industry.

While not a song Clip 3 from the 1988 Australian TV series Vietnam is poignant. It highlights a recurring theme of Australia in war - backing the “great and powerful friend” (currently the US) but then losing our way. After footage of the famous, illegal, street execution (warning, that is violent) a young Nicole Kidman sets it out clearly to her defence official father "you refuse to see what bastards are on your side".

Less about World War II appeals, for example, The Dambusters like many tunes appeared too unquestioning and British. Band of Brothers was a superb series with a memorable theme tune but the lyrics are too American, for my taste anyway.

Politicians and the commercial media perpetuate the assumption that true Anzacs had to be front line infantry. However, as early as 1916 such men were in the minority compared to the support units (artillery, armour, logistics, engineering, intelligence, and so on) which were usually in shellfire range and all could be bombed from the air.

Other occupations were more dangerous than infantry. Pilots and aircrew often suffered the highest casualties and shortest life expectancy of any service. Sailors, in particular submariners, were often in great danger both from the enemy and also from accidents while encased in their high risk vessels: Eternal Father - The Naval Hymn.

The Anzac legend usually implies that we had the best troops with the strongest bonds of mateship. There were however other armies that fought throughout World Wars I and II, on several fronts simultaneously, even though their commanders knew they would lose. This is a song from Australia’s main former enemy.

Religion is an undoubted comfort to many soldiers while fighting and years later to those who returned alive. The hymn Abide With Me is sung by Hayley Westernra from Christchurch, New Zealand.

The connection with New Zealand is probably another aspect of Anzac Day many forget. Vic McDonald, also from Christchurch, sings In Memoriam.

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.