The Anzac bards

The prose that Carlyon uses in the book Gallipoli makes you feel as though you are actually there. Not many writers without actual combat experience are capable of such empathy with their subject.

On April 25, 2005, the 90th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli, Carlyon was interviewed by legendary war reporter Peter Harvey, the man with the trademark gravel voice, on television current affairs program 60 Minutes. Carlyon summed up the Anzac legend as thus:

“Every nation needs a foundation myth and Gallipoli turned out to be ours. These men who went ashore on the wrong beach in a hopeless position and are literally caught defending cliff ledges, up on escarpment there and somehow they endured, they hung on there when they had no right to for eight months.”

Harvey, who spent two years as a reporter for Newsweek magazine in Vietnam but did not serve as a soldier there, in a sombre and moving manner said: “Les Carlyon wrote the book Gallipoli, which should be compulsory reading for every Australian student.”

Harvey concludes his moving sermon on the Mount of Gallipoli: “It's been said that Captain James Cook didn't discover Australia, Australia found itself at Gallipoli. Don't forget - Australia had only been a nation for 14 years. We were just into our teens, like so many of the boys who lied about their age to get here.”

Considering such passion and such empathy for the Anzac Legend, Carlyon was asked why he had never volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War (1962-72). But he has declined to answer despite numerous polite requests.

Tom Hyland, a journalist at The Sunday Age newspaper, hints that it is sacrilegious or even misguided to ask such a question of Carlyon. Those who do so, according to Hyland, are on some “curious crusade”.

Carlyon, in his unique position of having been editor of both major newspapers remains a force to be reckoned with. If Carlyon is the Damon Runyon of Australian journalism, then surely Martin Flanagan and Patrick Lindsay are Australia’s equivalent to the American Will Rogers - famous for his homespun humour.

Flanagan, born in 1955 and a senior writer with The Age newspaper, sees himself as a “Tasmanian yarn teller”. Time Magazine in 2003 described him as a “legend of Australian journalism”. Flanagan has co-authored a book with his father, Arch, a World War II prisoner of the Japanese, called The line: a man’s experience; and a son’s quest to understand.

The man responsible for updating the Anzac legend by writing about veterans from recent conflicts is Patrick Lindsay, former TV reporter and author of books on World War I, Fromelles and The Spirit of Gallipoli; and World War II, The Essence of Kokoda. His The Spirit of the Digger book brings the Anzac legend up to date with accounts of Australian soldiers under fire in recent conflicts such as East Timor and Iraq and has become a best seller.

Lindsay, in that typical Australian manner for blunt honesty, much appreciated by war veterans, tells of his own awakening to the importance of the Anzac legend:

“My old man fought in the Middle East and New Guinea and Borneo in WWII. My grandfather fought in the Boer War and WWI for the Kiwi (New Zealand) army and in WWII for the Australian army.

“I was in one of the last call-ups for Vietnam but my number didn't come up. At that stage I was just a young dope who didn't think about much besides cricket, football and girls. By the time I woke up to the importance of the sacrifices made by our Diggers down the years I was too old to be of any use to them, even if I'd been good enough to become one. So now I'm content to try to keep their stories alive.”

No list of Anzac legend chroniclers would be complete without mentioning the silver haired, dapper John Hamilton, author of Gallipoli Sniper, and the late but great Peter Charleton and Patsy Adam-Smith. All three are rarities in that they actually served in uniform: Hamilton in the Navy, while Charleton balanced a career with being an Army Reserve officer in command of a semi-regular infantry battalion; and Adam-Smith in the Women‘s Army during World War II. Adam-Smith was a remarkable woman ahead of her time.

The questions now remain will Paul Daley replace Les Carlyon as the new Zeus? Will Tom Hyland become Hermes, the messenger of the gods? Should all correspondence intended for these three be addressed to Mount Olympus?