But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Laurence Binyon, To the Fallen
Today is Anzac Day. It commemorates the landing of the New Zealand and Australian troops at Gallipoli in World War I. Although the effort to take the Dardanelles was ultimately unsuccessful, the Anzac troops demonstrated great courage and tenacity, and the ordeal the troops underwent in this campaign has a vast meaning to the peoples of New Zealand and Australia.
An unusual Anzac Day commemoration was held 70 years ago today. During World War II the Japanese built a railroad between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma. They used the slave labor of 180,000 Asian civilians and 60,000 Allied POWs to build it. The men worked under appalling conditions, subject to starvation rations, and beatings and casual murder by their guards. Some 90,000 of the civilians died, along with 12,399 POWs, mostly Brits, Australians and Dutch.
On April 25, 1944 some 400 Australian POWs of the Japanese gathered to remember Anzac Day. Their padre good naturedly chided the men, saying they only tended to show up for church service on Anzac Day! In the midst of starvation and death they still managed to summon up the fortitude to remember the courage and endurance of the Anzacs who fought in World War I.
To Don the Kiwi, Ez and our other readers and commenters from Australia and New Zealand, my hope that they had a good Anzac Day as they saluted the courage of their ancestors.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N82wNJFVeK8[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzYCW3bhSLw[/youtube]
It’s amazing to me that the Japanese seem to have gotten a pass for the war atrocities. Nobody ever mentions them.
Thank you for your kind thoughts Don.
As I have mentioned before, my maternal grand father and his brother in law, my uncle served on Galipoli, survived, and saw out WW1 in the trenches in France. My father’s oldest brother also served in the trenches.
My last relative who served in WW2 as a navigator in Lancasters died last year – uncle Joe Murphy, and as his name suggests, was a wild NZ born Irishman.
R.I.P Uncle Joe.
I miss the World War II generation Don. Most of the vets from that conflict that I have known are no longer with us. I treasure those who still remain that I know.
interesting your article re the Burma railroad.
Back in 1959 when I was 17 and in Australia testing a vocation to the priesthood, I was at St.Clements College, Galong, NSW. There was this bishop, Bp. Quinlan CSsR who was an Irish bishop in Asia when the Japanese invaded the entire area, and he was captured.
In about the August of 1959, there was a speach given by him in the town hall at the central NSW city of Young, about 40 miles from Galong, and the whole college went to hear him. What an amazing man – he held us and all his audience spellbound, as he talked about the deprivation, cruelty, death, and moments of humour and valour. He was a tall rangy man, no doubt his strength and rugged nature helped him to survive.
St.Clements was a Redemptorist college – one of the priests there, a Fr. Jim Kennedy, a wiry weatherbeaten Aussie, had also been on the Burma railroad; very interesting talking to him.
Remember that this was only 14 years since the war ended – many things were still very fresh in memories, and many Aussies in particular were very bitter still about the way the POWs were treated. It was still common to hear, the only good Jap is a dead Jap. That is now quite different, of course, thank God.
They are human