Great Anzac Stories Read online

  Biscuits! Army biscuits! They are old friends, now, and, like all old friends, they will stand much hard wear and tear. Well glazed, they would make excellent tiles or fine flagstones. After the war they will have great scarcity value as curios, as souvenirs which one can pass on from generation to generation, souvenirs which will endure while the Empire stands. If we cannot get physical strength from army biscuits, let us at least catch the great spiritual ideal of enduring hardness, which they are so magnificently fitted to proclaim.

  The seasons change. Antwerp falls, Louvain is burned, the tide of battle surges back and forth: new reputations are made, the old ones pass away; Warsaw, Lemberg, Serbia, the stern battles of Gallipoli, Hindenburg, Mackensen, each name catches our ear for a brief moment of time, and then gives way to another crowding it out; but army biscuits are abiding facts, always with us, patient, appealing, enduring. We can move to other theatres, we can change our clothes, our arms and our generals, but we must have our biscuits, army biscuits, else we are no longer an army.

  The casual digger

  A good many Anzac yarns play with the diggers’ casual attitude to war:

  There was once an Australian V.C. winner who was exceptionally modest. It was only with great reluctance that he agreed to attend a ceremony at which he was to be presented with his decoration.

  When it was all over, a friend asked him how he felt after such a tumultuous reception.

  ‘They got on my nerves,’ said the V.C. winner. ‘They made that much fuss, you’d have thought I’d won a medal in the Olympic Games.’

  Queenslander, Jim Matheson had a yarn about his war:

  In France during 1917, the Eighth Brigade was moving up in open formation under intense rifle fire. My Queensland mate and I were under fire for the first time. As the bullets whizzed and spatted around us, my mate said to me, ‘Didya hear that one, Jim?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘twice. Once when it passed us, and once when we passed it.’

  The diggers’ favourite gambling game of two-up needed to be played, regardless of the circumstances:

  Recently, one of our patrols was overdue, and I was detailed as one of a search party . . . Suddenly we saw the shadows of a number of men standing silently in the darkness. ‘Fritzes!’ said someone, and we all ducked into shell-holes. Fritz’s next flare revealed a small party, all stooping and gazing intently on the ground. Then one of them cried softly and exultantly, ‘Two heads are right!’ picked up the pennies and pocketed the winnings. It was the lost patrol. They were making their bets and tossing the coins in the darkness, and then waiting for the light from a Fritz flare to see the result.

  This one was reported in the British Evening News and reprinted in the Australian Corps News Sheet in 1918 under the title ‘Taking the war calmly’.

  An Australian told me this:—We were advancing, and had been going about an hour, and my platoon numbered about fifteen men. Going over a ridge we saw a pill-box. We poured machine-gun fire at it, and threw grenades too. No reply came, and we congratulated ourselves that we had no casualties.

  All the time we could see smoke coming from the aperture; this worried us so we decided to charge it. We had our charge, with whoops and yells. I got to the door-way, and was met with, ‘Say, Digger, what the ——— is all the noise about?’

  There stood an Australian, with a frying-pan in his hand, cooking bully beef over a fire which the Huns had left.

  And, in digger lore at least, even the British Tommies recognised the bravery of their Anzac allies.

  Tommy (to Australian): ‘That was a rare plucky thing you did this morning, to bring your mate in under that heavy fire.’

  Australian: ‘Yairs, the blasted cow, he had all me b—— tobacco with him.’

  Officers

  In a much-told tale a very proper British officer addresses a group of Australians in what was the normal British army style. The Anzacs found this unacceptable and proceeded to count him out, a practice relatively common in the AIF though unthinkable in the British army. The 300 soldiers each sang out their number, ending at 300. The conclusion was the chorus ‘Out you Tommy Woodbine bastard’. The men then dispersed, some reportedly playing two-up, and leaving the outraged British officer to complain that this was an act of mutiny. But a staff sergeant, more experienced with the ways of the AIF, told him that such things were nothing remarkable and that no-one in authority in the Australian hierarchy would take such an accusation seriously.

  True or not, the many yarns about officers, usually highlighting the anti-authoritarian aspect of the digger’s worldview, were legion in both world wars, as in this anecdote from the first war.

  A digger is travelling on a train with two English officers. The officers are discussing their family backgrounds, relationships and pedigrees. After listening to this conversation for a while, the digger introduces himself to the officers as ‘Bluey’ Johnson . . . not married, two sons—both Majors in the British army.

  Identity is the theme of another yarn from the 1914–18 war.

  Two diggers on leave in London fail to salute a passing British officer. The outraged officer demands of the diggers: ‘Do you know who I am?’ One digger turns to the other and says, casually: ‘Did you hear that, Dig? He doesn’t even know who he is’.

  The theme persisted into the next war:

  During World War 2 a couple of diggers were on leave in Damascus. They visited a number of drinking establishments, sampling the local spirit known as ‘arrack’, a strong and fiery brew. Not surprisingly, they became lost. Unable to speak Arabic they could not get any help from the locals. Fortunately, a British general suddenly appeared in full dress uniform. ‘Hey mate’, one of the tipsy Australians called out ‘can you tell us where we are?’

  The general stiffened with indignation at being addressed in such an insubordinate manner and replied frostily ‘Do you men know who I am?’

  ‘Cripes Bill’, said the digger turning to his mate, ‘this bloke’s worse off than us. We mightn’t know where we are but the poor bugger doesn’t know who he is!’

  This one allegedly took place on a footpath in Tel Aviv during October 1942:

  An older English colonel and a younger American major were deep in discussion about the war. Four young Australian soldiers, fairly intoxicated, came along towards them, divided into pairs, passed the officers and went unsteadily on their way.

  ‘Who in the blazes are that golddarned rabble?’ asked the American major.

  ‘They’re Orstralians’, replied the English colonel.

  ‘And whose side are they on?’

  ‘Ours Major, they are our allies’, said the Colonel.

  ‘But dammit, they didn’t salute us’, bleated the Major.

  The Colonel admitted that this was so. ‘But at least they had the decency to walk around us. If it had been their fathers from the last war, they would have walked right over us.’

  The same egalitarian tone is heard in many other digger yarns. The two diggers who fool the sentry into believing that they are leaving camp rather than returning to it late by facing the other way is just one of many. Often these are tinged with anti-British sentiment.

  Saw a digger on leave in London walk past a young officer without slinging a salute. On being pulled up and asked didn’t he know whom he had passed, Dig said that the face was familiar but that he could not place him.

  ‘I’m an officer in His Majesty’s Imperial Army’ exploded the ’Sir’, ‘and entitled to a salute!’

  ‘Oh, garn, you little b——!’ says the Dig, and walked on.

  Coming across an Aussie sergeant shortly afterwards, the officer unfolded his tale, repeating the Digger’s last blessing.

  ‘But you’re not one, are you?’ mildly asked the sergeant.

  ‘Certainly not!’ exploded the officer.

  ‘Well, go back and tell him that he is a blinking liar,’ drawled the sergeant.

  It was not only British or American officers who were the butt o
f digger yarns, as in this one from the western front.

  Digger Jones (of the 1st Div. ASC) was washing down his two donks, in a shell hole at Fleureaux, about fifty yards from the old duckboard track, where the mud and slush was about two feet deep, in 1916. Having cleaned and groomed one down, he led him back and stood him on the duckboard track. A Staff Officer dressed in white corduroys, glittering spurs and polished leggings wending his way to battalion headquarters, was annoyed to find a mule blocking his pathway. Approaching the mule he gave it a heavy shove, forcing it back into the slush, much to the annoyance of Digger Jones. ‘Here, what the h—— do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled indignantly.

  ‘What do you mean by blocking the track with your confounded mule?’ said the officer. ‘I’ll have you arrested for this. What is your name and number?’

  Digger Jones surveyed the ground between them, and then replied: ‘You come over and get it.’

  On another occasion:

  General Braithwaite, known more or less affectionately to New Zealanders as ‘Bill the Bight’, was taking his Brigade up into the line when one of those inevitable hold-ups occurred at a crossroad. This caused a halt of the Brigade alongside an Aussie battery wagon lines. Bill rode up on his charger as natural as ever (that is, he was fuming!), and roared out, ‘De-lay, de-lay! What is the meaning of this de-lay?’ To which the Aussie’s greasy cook took it upon himself to answer, ‘It’s French for milk, you silly old basket.’

  And the soldier who took the sergeant major’s suggestion too seriously:

  Sergeant Major to a Private who has missed eleven shots out of twelve: ‘What, eleven misses; good heavens, man, go around the corner and shoot yourself.’

  Hearing a shot around the corner, the Sergeant Major rushes around, to be confronted by the bad shot—

  ‘Sorry, sir, another miss,’ the Private murmurs.

  This problem also continued into World War II:

  In Whitehall recently an English Major-General stopped a non-saluting Aussie, and demanded to know who he was.

  ‘I’m a kind of Aussie soldier’, was the reply.

  Said the officer: ‘Well, I’m a kind of major-general and you owe me a salute.’

  Said the Aussie: ‘Okay, brother, I’ll give you a kind of salute.’

  And he did.

  A sergeant major is calling the role at parade:

  ‘Johnson!’

  ‘Yair,’ drawled Johnson ‘Simpson!’

  ‘’Ere.’

  ‘Jackson!’

  ‘She’s sweet.’

  ‘Smith!’

  ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘Crawler!’ shouted the platoon.

  An opposite form of this situation is the well-travelled tale about the officer who is expecting an inspection from the top brass. He assembles his men to brief them and when he has finished tells them, ‘And whatever you do, for Christ’s sake don’t call me Alf ’.

  A certain Australian sergeant major during World War I gave his commands in a most unorthodox manner:

  ‘Slope arms—you, too!’

  ‘Present arms—you, too!’

  ‘Forward march—you, too!’

  After the parade one day, a young lieutenant approached the sar’major and asked him the reason for his unusual commands.

  ‘Well, sir,’ he replied, ‘it’s like this. Those men are a tough mob. Every time I give an order I know they’re going to abuse me, so I get in first.’

  Birdie

  On Gallipoli and at the western front, the Anzacs created a whole cycle of yarns about a character known as ‘Birdie’. In reality, this was General Birdwood, commanding officer on Gallipoli, who earned the deep respect of ordinary Australian and New Zealand soldiers. This was something particularly difficult to achieve given their problems with military authority, and was based on Birdwood’s concern for the wellbeing of his men and his willingness to appear at the front line when necessary. General Sir Ian Hamilton, overall commander of the campaign and effectively Birdwood’s boss, generously summed up the man’s impressive reputation, calling him ‘the soul of Anzac’, and stated ‘Not for one single day has he ever quitted his post. Cheery and full of human sympathy, he has spent many hours of each twenty-four inspiring the defenders of the front trenches, and if he does not know every soldier in his force, at least every soldier in the force believes he is known to his chief ’.

  In the many stories about him, Birdie is portrayed as a good bloke who understands the attitudes of his men and is prepared to bend the rules to accommodate them, especially those related to military rank, as in this favourite Birdie story.

  General Birdwood is talking to an English staff officer outside the Australian Imperial Force headquarters in Horseferry Road, London. The staff officer is amazed and annoyed Australian soldiers passing by do not bother to salute the general. ‘I say, why don’t you make your men salute you?’

  ‘What!’ exclaims Birdwood. ‘Do you think I want to start a brawl in the heart of London!’

  And at Gallipoli:

  Birdwood was nearing a dangerous gap in a sap on Gallipoli when the sentry called out: ‘Duck, Birdie; you’d better ——— well duck!’ ‘What did you do?’ asked the outraged generals to whom Birdwood told the story. ‘Do? Why, I ——— well ducked!’

  As well, there is the Gallipoli reinforcement who mistakes the general for a cook, again because he is not wearing his badges of rank.

  A new reinforcement was going to Rest Gully when he got away from his track and, seeing a soldier studying a paper, went up to him and said: ‘Can you tell me the way to my crowd?’ The reinforcement has failed to recognise General Birdwood who replies ‘You’d better go and ask the cook just there.’

  ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ answered the reinstoushment. ‘I thought you were the cook.’

  Birdwood maintained his good image with the diggers on the western front:

  We were holding a nice, quiet sector of the line at le Touquet, when General Birdwood decided to pay our Brigade a visit. To me fell the job of conducting his party. On arrival at the reserve lines, Birdy decided to pay the ‘Gas Alarm post’ a visit. The sentry was a reinforcement, and failed to either salute Birdie or notice the party, so the General decided to have a little yarn, and the following dialogue took place:

  Birdie: ‘Do you know me, son?’

  Dig: ‘No. Don’t want to!’

  Birdie: ‘Been in France long?’

  Dig: ‘Too blanky long.’

  Birdie: ‘Do you know that I am General Birdwood?’

  Dig (very surprised): ‘Go on! I ’ave heard of you. Shake hands!’

  The brass hats nearly fainted, but to Birdie’s everlasting credit let it be recorded that he shook hands heartily.

  The piece of paper

  A favourite Anzac yarn of both world wars is usually known as ‘The Scrap’ or ‘The Piece of Paper’. In its World War I version it appeared in The Anzac Records Gazette of November 1915 in this form and under the title ‘Anzacalities’.

  The Australian soldier in a well-known hospital in Egypt developed a habit of picking up every bit of paper he could find. A Medical Board decided he was harmless and might be better for a trip to Australia. On the trip to Australia he still continued the practice and on arrival there he was again boarded and the Board decided he was too eccentric for active service. On receiving his discharge he looked at it closely and remarked with a dry smile. ‘Thanks! That is the piece of paper I have been looking for.’

  By 1942, the story had been updated and was much more elaborate, as in a version by Sergeant F. Oliver-Seakins that was published in a number of places, an indication of its popularity.

  Sandy was a popular figure in his unit, always cheerful and high-spirited. But once, when he got back from leave, he told his mates he’d met a ‘beaut Sheila’ and was anxious to get out of the Army to marry her. As many others were similarly placed little notice was taken of Sandy when he ‘got down in the dumps’ occasionally.

&nb
sp; One evening he was out with two friends taking a stroll when he saw a piece of paper on the ground ahead of him. He ran forward, picked it up, scrutinized it carefully, and threw it away again, sadly shaking his head. His mates asked him whether he’d expected to find a fiver, but he only said, ‘It isn’t what I’m looking for.’

  As time went on Sandy became the talk of the section. Every time he saw a piece of paper he picked it up and looked at it carefully; but he always shook his head and threw it away, saying sadly, ‘That’s not what I’m looking for.’

  It began to be rumoured that Sandy was ‘troppo’. The orderly sergeant thought he might need a break from his usual routine, so he placed him on pioneer fatigue. But one of Sandy’s new jobs was to empty the orderly room wastepaper basket.

  His ‘disease’ now really manifested itself. He closely studied each piece of paper in every basket he emptied. And, as usual, the paper wasn’t what he was looking for.

  Everyone was now thoroughly worried about Sandy.

  The climax came when the section was on parade for an inspection by some visiting brass. The Colonel was highly pleased with his tour and was just about to compliment the Major when Sandy stepped forward three paces, picked up a piece of paper that had floated down to the ground in front of him, looked at it sadly and then returned smartly to his place in the ranks.

  Later, Sandy was paraded before the Major, who nonplussed at his behaviour, told the orderly sergeant to take him to the Medical Officer.