Free Republic

Is it disloyal to criticise aspects of Anzac Day because you believe it involves myth and ritualised militarism? TOMORROW our nation pauses to remember. At cenotaphs and shrines across our cities, at memorials in country towns, and indeed on the sandy ridges of Gallipoli, Australians will be greeting the dawn with solemn patriotism. Anzac Day is for many Australians our true and authentic national day. But for others it is a day that evokes ambivalence rather than pride. Why, some ask, should we lend such sacred importance to a day that glorifies death and war? What is there to be...

ANZAC Day is a national remembrance day in Australia and is celebrated annually on April 25th, to remember members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought bravely at Gallipoli, Turkey during the First World War. ANZAC Day also commemorates all those who made the ultimate sacrifice and served in military operations for Australia. The Serbian Community in Sydney, Australia has attended and made a strong presence in the national ANZAC Day commemoration services since 1956 by attending the Sydney March. Throughout all capital cities within Australia, grand children and great grandchildren of Serbian Chetnik soldiers along with...

Somebody has placed this incredible documentary on youtube and I commend it to anybody interested in the history of heroism, or the history of war in general. Overall, it's about an hour long and it explores in a fair amount of detail the actions that lead to the award of the Victoria Cross, the British Empire's and Commonwealth's highest decoration for bravery in the face of an enemy (thus given in the same place in our heirarchy of bravery awards that the Medal of Honour occupies in the United States), to Australian's since the dawn of the twentieth century. It...

Saturday, 25th April 2009, was ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand - the day that these nations remember their men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in time of war. It is the anniversary of the day in 1915 when troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps went ashore at Gallipoli, Turkey - the first time substantial bodies of troops from those two young nations (Australia 1901, New Zealand 1907) had gone into battle as soldiers of their nations, rather than purely and soley as troops of the British Empire (although they still retained that...

"WE have not forgotten the Australians." That is the simple message of Pauline Lefebore, 10, who beams with pride as she tells how she and her classmates in a French village are keeping a promise made long before they were born. Pauline and the 130 other children at the school in Villers-Bretonneux are raising money for children affected by Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires. "You always have to keep your promises," said Pauline's friend, Cecile Przewrocka. This promise was made by their grandparents, and it is still written above the blackboard in the class of Chantal Macrez and every other teacher...

Yesterday, Saturday, 26th April 2009, was ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand - the day that these nations remember their men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in time of war. It is the anniversary of the day in 1915 when troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps went ashore at Gallipoli, Turkey - the first time substantial bodies of troops from those two young nations (Australia 1901, New Zealand 1907) had gone into battle as soldiers of their nations, rather than purely and soley as troops of the British Empire (although they still retained...

This coming Saturday, 25th April 2009, is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand - the day that these nations remember their men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in time of war. It is the anniversary of the day in 1915 when troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps went ashore at Gallipoli, Turkey - the first time substantial bodies of troops from those two young nations (Australia 1901, New Zealand 1907) had gone into battle as soldiers of their nations, rather than purely and soley as troops of the British Empire (although they still...

This coming Saturday, 25th April 2009, is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand - the day that these nations remember their men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in time of war. It is the anniversary of the day in 1915 when troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps went ashore at Gallipoli, Turkey - the first time substantial bodies of troops from those two young nations (Australia 1901, New Zealand 1907) had gone into battle as soldiers of their nations, rather than purely and soley as troops of the British Empire (although they still...

This coming Saturday, 25th April 2009, is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand - the day that these nations remember their men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in time of war. It is the anniversary of the day in 1915 when troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps went ashore at Gallipoli, Turkey - the first time substantial bodies of troops from those two young nations (Australia 1901, New Zealand 1907) had gone into battle as soldiers of their nations, rather than purely and soley as troops of the British Empire (although they still...

THE remains of an RAAF Canberra bomber flown by Australia's last two MIAs have been found in Vietnam. The wreckage was found in a remote mountainous region near the Viet-Lao border but no human remains have been located so far, Defence Science and Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon said. Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver went missing on November 3, 1970 after their Canberra bomber failed to return from a mission, The Australian reports.

This coming Saturday, 25th April 2009, is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand - the day that these nations remember their men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in time of war. It is the anniversary of the day in 1915 when troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps went ashore at Gallipoli, Turkey - the first time substantial bodies of troops from those two young nations (Australia 1901, New Zealand 1907) had gone into battle as soldiers of their nations, rather than purely and soley as troops of the British Empire (although they still...

FOR 10 years, the grim visage of Australia's greatest soldier, Sir John Monash, stared across the scene of his triumphant "perfect battle" at Le Hamel, on France's Western Front. Now it is gone - a victim of shoddy workmanship and an unfortunate likeness to Adolf Hitler. In its place is a $6 million memorial to Australia's World War I Diggers that will be dedicated today. Monash's face may have been removed from the memorial, but his deeds have not been forgotten. The story of his meticulous planning and training for his first major attack after taking command of the five...

THE Australian Army's worst training accident, in which 26 men died, should be commemorated each year to acknowledge their forgotten sacrifice, a memorial service heard yesterday. The special service in a field outside the Kapooka army base near Wagga Wagga in central NSW was held to mark the 63rd anniversary of a blast that killed 26 trainee sappers when an explosives lesson in an underground bunker went wrong on May 21, 1945. The army decided to hold the service after an article in The Australian last month highlighted how the tragedy had been airbrushed from official histories of World War...

In a moving ceremony on Mount Pleasant in Canberra, His Excellency Major General Michael Jeffrey, AC, CVO, MC, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, presented Army’s 102 Field Battery with the Australian Military’s first ever Honour Title. His Excellency the Governor General Michael Jeffery presents Lieutenant Colonel Craig Furini, the 102nd Field Battey RAA Honour title. The Honour Title 'Coral' was awarded to 102 Field Battery, Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery, in recognition of its actions during the Vietnam War. Head of Regiment, Brigadier Phil Winter CSC, welcomed the award on behalf of the Army and gave credit to the...

FOUR weeks ago, auction house chairman Tim Goodman received a call from a wealthy client in the US. The businessman, a passionate military memorabilia collector, had learned that medals and frontline archival material belonging to Australian army Major Peter Badcoe, who was killed in action in Vietnam in 1967, would feature in Bonhams and Goodman's May auction, to be held in Sydney on Tuesday. The collector told Mr Goodman he intended to bid for the Badcoe collection, which includes the only Vietnam War VC medal still in private hands and awarded to Major Badcoe posthumously. The estimated price for the...

A NEW Zealand fashion designer has apologised to war veterans after she adorned models with war medals at her runway show at Australian Fashion Week. One of the medals draped over a model's bare thighs at the ashow in Sydney last night was the New Zealand Operational Service Medal, which acknowledges war veterans and those outside the armed forces who served in extreme or hazardous conditions. National secretary of Australia's Returned and Services League (RSL), Derek Robson, described the use of medals as "appalling and sickening". Sylvester apologised today, the New Zealand Press Association reported. "There was no intention of...

NEW Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma have dedicated a statue of a New Zealand soldier on Sydney's Anzac Bridge, at a ceremony attended by Australian and New Zealand war veterans. An Anzac military guard marched across Anzac Bridge, which had been cleared of traffic, to the south-western section of the bridge as part of the ceremony. The statue of the World War I soldier faces across the bridge towards the statue of an Australian digger, which was unveiled on the northern side of the bridge when it was renamed on April 25, 2000.

PADDY Bugden, nicknamed The Tank by his footy mates because of his athletic build, helped run country pubs in northern NSW. Robert Beatham emigrated from England as a teenager and worked as a labourer in Geelong, Victoria. Blair Wark was a quantity surveyor from Bathurst in NSW. They were just ordinary blokes when they enlisted to fight in World War I, but their extraordinary deeds on the Western Front elevated them to the pantheon of Australian heroes awarded the Victoria Cross. Queensland Museum marked Anzac week yesterday by opening an exhibition honouring the three, who are among the 96 Australians...

IT has all the makings of a Boy's Own blockbuster: a mass breakout by German POWs from a rural Victorian internment camp; a mysterious dictionary revealing dotted codes of vital military importance; and a body washed up on a remote Indian Ocean island. These events - three of many surrounding the evolving, extraordinary story of HMAS Sydney - continue to fascinate historians, who are now tantalisingly close to solving a military riddle that has haunted the nation for more than 66 years. In the next few days, shipwreck hunter David Mearns and his crew aboard the SV Geosounder will sink...

AUSTRALIAN troops have been forced to use some of their heaviest firepower to fight Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan during a series of recent skirmishes, the Department of Defence says. The soldiers have been using 81mm mortars, which can hit targets kilometres away but which have not been widely used by Australia since the Vietnam war. No Australian soldiers were killed or injured in the fighting and it was not clear if any Taliban had been hit. The Taliban have launched multiple simultaneous attacks during the past fortnight. The raids have been aimed at a security post that soldiers from the...