What does ANZAC Day mean to you?

[RudeBoy]

I respect your view, which is probably shared by most people, however, I disagree with it. It's too easy to get carried away with the jingoism of the 'Aussie fighting spirit'. We all want to believe that we come from better stock than others, that we are braver, more loyal, more heroic. Don't you think other people have 'mates'? I honestly don't believe that our troops were braver than the British, German, Russian, French, Indian, Canadian, American or Belgian. What did make our troops different was the simple fact that the ANZACS were the only all volunteer army in the first World War. All the other armies were full of conscripts.

In truth, WWII was the only honorable war we've been involved in, because we were genuinely defending our country. To me, the battle at Kokoda is a much more significant battle to commemorate, because those teenagers sent to defend our country against a much superior and battle hardened Japanese army, had their backs to the wall and clearly had right on their side. Lest we forget.

[Woods]

The threatened Japanese invasion of Australia is also a myth, but propagated at the time, and ever since, to brainwash the people, lest they rise up and lynch the politicians who sent our boys off to die.

Read this from 2002 by Mark Forbes, now news director at the Age (and since purged from their archives). Again, the report is not about some conspiracy theorist debunking the Japanese invasion as propaganda, but the view of the Principal Historian at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Japanese invasion a myth: historian

The Age, by Mark Forbes
June 1 2002

"He's coming south" screamed the poster, featuring a Japanese soldier poised to trample over a defenceless Australia. It was part of a Curtin government campaign that contributed to a state of panic across the nation in 1942 after the fall of Singapore and air raids on Darwin.
Across the years, history books and high school lessons have repeated the stories of a Japanese invasion plan, foiled only by the diggers' desperate efforts on the Kokoda Trail and the United States' naval victory in the Coral Sea. An imaginary "Brisbane Line" was drawn to represent Australia's second line of defence against the approaching hordes.
The trouble is, someone forgot to tell the Japanese. The only real invasion plan appears to have existed in the minds of prime minister John Curtin and the Australian public.
Japan never seriously intended to invade Australia, a fact known to the Australian Government by mid-1942 and confirmed by intelligence reports, principal historian to the Australian War Memorial, Peter Stanley, said yesterday at a conference examining the events of 1942.
"I'm sick of the myth; it's time to knock it on the head," he said. "A lie told for wartime propaganda stays with us.
"From 1942, Australia's war contracted to its surrounding territory. The invasion myth helps justify the parochial view Australians took of their war effort. I'm arguing that there was in fact no invasion plan, that the Curtin government exaggerated the threat."
Australia's strategic planners had a long-term view that Japan had designs on Australia. With the fall of Malaya (now Malaysia) and Singapore, that prediction appeared to be coming true.
The shock of Japanese bombers attacking Darwin in February, 1942, raised fears to a fever pitch. Certainly the actions of the Curtin cabinet display disquiet if not panic. Even before the fall of Malaya, New Britain or Singapore, Mr Curtin had appealed for help to British prime minister Winston Churchill and to US president Franklin Roosevelt.
Mr Curtin claimed that "it is beyond our capacity to meet an attack of the weight the Japanese could launch" on Australia.
By early March, cabinet, on the advice of the Australian chiefs-of-staff, anticipated a landing around Darwin in early April and a landing on the east coast by May.
Dr Stanley states there was no Japanese invasion plan before 1942 and that Australia barely rated a mention in the 1941 conferences which planned Japan's strategy. In early 1942, in the euphoria of Asia-Pacific victories, some middle-ranking naval officers in Tokyo proposed that Australia should be invaded to forestall it being used as a base for an Allied counter-offensive.
"The plans got no further than some acrimonious discussions," Dr Stanley said. "The army dismissed the idea as "gibberish", knowing that troops sent further south would weaken Japan in China and in Manchuria against a Soviet threat. Not only did the Japanese army condemn the plan, but the navy general staff also deprecated it, unable to spare the million tonnes of shipping the invasion would have consumed.
"By mid-March the proposal lapsed. Instead, the Japanese adopted a plan to isolate Australia, impeding communication between Australia and the United States by the occupation of islands to Australia's north-east."


And DroversDog, you say that "we are talking about 1915 - that is only 14 short years after the founding of our nation's capitol [sic] in Canberra".

Canberra was a sheep run in WW I and wasn't the national capital until 1927, long after Gallipoli. You also go on about the bushies who served in WWI - another myth, probably assimilated into your brain from the movie Gallipoli . We were then, and still are, the most urbanised western society on Earth. The myth though has been embedded through this propaganda into the psyche of almost every Australian male who considers himself a bushman - but he's a townie! (evidence the number of fake bushies from the number of Akubra hats and 4WDs that are sold to soft-handed suburbanite Aussies).

We Aussies also don't have a mortgage on mateship. What about the Turks whom we went across the ocean to kill. Didn't they have mates? Their honour was higher because they were defending their homeland.

We have to get past this idea that war is intrinsic to our culture. There is no historical evidence for it - just spin that weak minded people are happy to digest. But its a lie - its not true. Its a fantasy, an invention (and you might ask yourself why).

Our great triumph, and a lesson for other countries to learn from, is that our nation was forged in a bloodless Federation of six independent colonies for our common wealth, and it continues to this day. That's what should be celebrated.

[droversdog65]

Rude I understand your viewpoint but you misunderstand the ethos represented.

You have to judge a man by his circumstances and the times in which he lives. Those were the times of empire and those young men gave all they had.

It had nothing to do with today's jingoism or sabre rattling but simply fighting by the side of what was then considered our 'mother country'. It's all very fine to sit back in an armchair and critique such motives but a different thing altogether to live through such times.

Sadly I have to strongly disagree that WWII - or any war - is honourable in any degree, it's a sad and gruesome business from beginning to end and honour is always the first casualty.

I won't get into the 'mates' argument with you because you have an attitude that I can't abide in that regard and it would be a pointless excercise.

Let's agree to disagree then and remember those left behind in all wars, the widows and children left fatherless by the greatest of all man's madnesses.

[droversdog65]

Woods agree to disagree.

[Piesnchess]

As the son and grandson of both world war veterans, three of my great uncles died in the slaughter of WW1, I am disgusted with the hype and blatant commercial spin of this Anzac day, in particular. yes, its the centernary, but it has gone from a day of dignity and quiet reflection, to takky souvenirs of Gallipoli, like scarves, peaked caps, keyrings, mugs, no doubt all made in china.

The damn RSL has gone along with this grubby money making exercise, advertising this rubbish in its magazine, I wrote to them but received no response, I hit a raw and truthful nerve. All we have too are bloody politicians, glorifying war, to our young folks, and now we even have this appalling so called Camp Gallipoli, a huge commercial exercise, charging punters an arm and a leg to sleep in a swag, and eat fancy food, rock bands, nothing like the slaughter of Gallipoli.

If they want to make it real, dig trenches, fill em with dirty water, spread aound dead animals for the stench of death, import millions of flies, and feed them hard tack biscuits, and fly ridden jam, with shells going off all around them, then they might get the feel of the horrors of war, not this jingoistic bullshit exercise of money grubbing. Yes, I will march on Anzac day, to honour my dad and relatives, then its straight home for me, away from all this hype and pro war spin, we should honour our vets with dignity and grace, not with tacky souvenirs and patriotic claptrap that distorts history.

[droversdog65]

Couldn't agree more Piesnchess, it's a sad commentary on our modern times that such an event becomes a money making excercise with pollies of every persuasion seeking to ingratiate themselves and bask in the reflected glory of those who paid the ultimate price.

Sickening.

[What'sinaname]

I am glad ANZAC Day is celebrated on April 25 and that there is no public holiday in lieu of this day.

[Piesnchess]

[watt price tully]

[stui magpie]

I'll be interested in the thoughts about this song, one minutes silence, just released.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXOsPjFlS7Q

Putting everything in context, i like it.

[Magpie Camo]

[Skids]

I get up early, I always do. I'll pay my respects, usually on my own.... maybe on the beach, maybe in the bush, maybe in the backyard with Daics.
We crack a beer a little bit earlier than usual and crank up the barby, she's in for a long day.

The game is a special one, Go Pies!

[droversdog65]

Of course they came predominantly from the cities WPT - they were the then as they are now by far the largest concentration of population as in any country.

What a strange comment to make.

Some of you really do take the strangest slant on things.

I'm done with this thread.

[Proud Pies]

[Proud Pies]