Macklin - Bravest: Australias greatest war heroes and how they won their medals

This edition published in 2011

First published in 2008

Copyright Robert Macklin 2008

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Anthony

Keeper of the flame

Contents

Shades of valour

One miserable scribbler and a little bit of ribbon

A matter of chance

Bullets thick as hail

I begin to hate the damned country where I was born

An ardent Australian patriot

I managed to get the buggers, Sir

The bravest man in the Aussie Army

Tell Dad Im still fighting

A compelling, ubiquitous figure

An ideal leader

I wasnt mad

Hit with a sledge hammer

A paradoxical attitude to heroes

To live and learn and see much

Cross purposes

Down to the wire

The endless day

The larrikin

One of our very best

One among many

Guest of the Emperor

That moment of decision

Courage beyond compare

Thats what Im here for, Sir

His crew before himself

Ones nerves suffer a bit

A wall of fire

A war of nerves

Indomitable

We went and had a beer

Anomalies

The battlefield touches the deepest part of us. It is in our bones. For as long as we have had campfires we have been recounting tales of struggle against the odds.

Australias most highly decorated soldier of the First World War, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Murray, wrote: Surely there is something about that terrible thing called War which manages to call forth all that is best and most unselfish in men. Is it not a fact that at the bottom of our hearts, we all love it, and love the men who fought and bled with us, and afterwards even the men we have fought against?

Murray was writing in the late 1930s, looking back to what had become known as the Great War and looking ahead to what would be a war for civilisation. He knew, because he had seen it, that we are all pacifists until the bugles call. But once that first note signals the coming storm of battle, a new code of conduct imposes itself. Ideals of gallantry and honour, selflessness and sacrifice are burnished to a military sheen.

Murrays sentiments strike hard against the ear in the 21st century. The terrible contagion of world war is inconceivable today, not least because of the development of nuclear weapons, with their power to obliterate life on earth. The total war among the worlds most powerful nations that twice ravaged the 20th century could not be repeated without risking the destruction of our species.

War may never be eliminated. But its form has already changed. The set-piece battlefield of old has disappeared, and few will mourn its passing. Today, charismatic religious fanatics seek to destroy their perceived enemies with the weapons of terror. Skirmishes tend to be localisedand all the more vicious and unforgiving because they are based on ethnic and religious hatreds. And from time to time, Imperial leaders will continue to seek, usually unsuccessfully, to impose their will from afar.

These new conflicts will produce heroes, but their valour will usually be of a different order from those seen in the great and terrible conflicts of the past. Theirs will be a moral courage to resist the rise of the dictator or the dictates of the religious fanatic. Theirs is the struggle for decency and fair dealing, for moderation and open-mindedness in a world of bewildering change, great challenge and vast potential.

However, that world, that prospect, would not have been available today had it not been for the soldiers who gave their lives in the stinking trenches of Gallipoli, in the vile sludge of Flanders and the Somme, at the siege of Tobruk and in the fetid jungles of New Guinea. And the same goes for their comrades at arms in the air and on the sea.

All deserve our honour and our gratitude. But some among them performed acts of magnificent courage that rose above the dreadful obscenity of their milieu. By their example they inspired their mates; and by their actions they gave notice that the human spirit would never be crushed by the tyrant or the fanatic. We will forever tell their tales around our campfires. We honour them, the most outstanding of our heroes, with the Victoria Cross and its simple inscription: For Valour.

The VC has a particular appeal to the egalitarian streak in the Australian character. The warrant states: Neither rank nor long service nor wounds nor any other circumstance save the merit of conspicuous bravery shall establish a sufficient claim for the honour. And of the 1353 recipients since the medals inception 150 years ago, 96 have been Australian servicemen. They have added lustre to the award, which in turn has immortalised their memories.

The VC itself has become ever more prized, its story ever more gloriously arrayed with myth and legend. According to the director of the Australian War Memorial, General Steve Gower, there is a fascination among visitors to the Memorials Hall of Valour, where the stories and medals of VC winners are displayed. It shows acts of extraordinary courage at the highest level from, in most cases, ordinary Australians, Gower says. Its uplifting to see these stories of ordinary people who found themselves in these circumstances and then overcame their fears to do something quite outstanding. And most of them were very humble about it subsequently.

But just as tales around the campfire develop a life of their own and with time can drift away from the truth, so it is with the VCs history. As the mythmakers would have it, the award was instituted by Queen Victoria in a spontaneous act of noblesse oblige following the Crimean War of the 1850s, and all the medals have been struck from Russian artillery pieces captured in that conflict. The reality is more complex and interesting.

And so it is with the Australians who, in their extraordinarily disparate backgrounds, found within themselves the courage to dare, to endure, and to prevail, even at the cost of their lives. All were worthy winners of the VC or its fraternal decoration, the George Cross. But some stood out even among that glorious company.