"There's a beach asleep and drear"

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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 12:14 pm

ANZAC COVE

There's a lonely stretch of hillocks
There's a beach asleep and drear:
There's a battered broken fort beside the sea.
There are sunken trampled graves:
And a little rotting pier:
And winding paths that wind unceasingly.

There's a torn and silent valley:
There's a tiny rivulet
With some blood upon the stones beside its mouth.
There are lines of buried bones:
There's an unpaid waiting debt:
There's a sound of gentle sobbing in the South.

Leon Gellert

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:45 pm

With their hair a little whiter, their step not quite so sure
Still they march on proudly as they did the year before.
Theirs were the hands that saved us, their courage showed the way
Their lives they laid down for us, that we may live today.

From Gallipoli's rugged hillsides, to the sands of Alamein
On rolling seas and in the skies, those memories will remain.
Of airmen and the sailors, of Lone Pine and Suvla Bay
The boys of the Dardenelles are remembered on this day.

They fought their way through jungles, their blood soaked desert sands
They still remember comrades who rest in foreign lands.
They remember the siege of old Tobruk, the mud of the Kokoda Trail
Some paying the supreme sacrifice with courage that did not fail.
To the icy land of Korea, the steamy jungles of Vietnam
And the heroic battle of Kapyong and that epic victory at Long Tan.

Fathers, sons and brothers, together they fought and died
That we may live in peace together, while at home their mothers cried.
When that final bugle calls them to cross that great divide
Those comrades will be waiting when they reach the other side.

Ken Bunker

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:18 pm

Gallipoli Soilders at war at anzac cove

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S3PrxHNkTA

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:25 pm

TO A TRAVELLER

Stop traveller! Unbeknownst to you this ground
You come and tread on, is where an epoch lies;
Bend down and lend your ear, for this silent mound
Is the place where the heart of a nation sighs.

To the left of this deserted shadeless lane
The Anatolian slope now observe you well;
For liberty and honour, it is, in pain,
Where wounded Mehmet laid down his life and fell.

This very mound, when violently shook the land,
When the last bit of earth passed from hand to hand,
And when Mehmet drowned the enemy in flood,
Is the spot where he added his own pure blood.

Think, the consecrated blood and flesh and bone
That make up this mould, is where a whole nation,
After a harsh and pitiless war; alone
Tasted the juice of freedom with elation.

Necmettin Halil Onan

***

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives; you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

Mustapha Kemal Ataturk
Founder and First President of modern Turkey
1934

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:27 pm

and the band played Waltzing Matilda

When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son
It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers
We sailed off to Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well
He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

Now those that were left, well we tried to survive
In a mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
But around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
Never knew there were worse things than dying
For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then turned all their faces away

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?
copyright © Eric Bogle

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 10:12 am

At this spectacle even the most gentle must feel savage, and the most savage must weep.

A Turkish officer to Captain Aubrey Herbert
Gallipoli, May 1915

I didn't cry, unless Gallipoli was one long cry. If you cried once you'd never stop. There were friends going every day and sometimes every hour of the day, wonderful friends. I grieved inwardly. That was all you could do.

Private Victor Nicholson
Wellington Battalion

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 1:27 pm

It was with great sadness, that we saw
a dusty old digger, turned from the door
for a century he and his mates had drunk
and laughed and cried, and lived through war

But now it seems, he is not the right class
No suit, no tie, no belt of brass
To him it was all a tragic mystery
Who were these Australians, who had forgotten their own history?

Somewhat in shock, we skulled our beers
and rushed to join, our aging peer
hey cobber, we yelled, knowing his tounge
he turned and stared, eyeing us one by one

We built this bloody country, said he
with our bloody hands
we spilt our blood, we gave our youth
and this is the thanks we have

In our day the pub was for one and all
a place for laugh and cheer
at the very least, an honest bloke
could find an honest beer

Now noone wants to know us
they throw us on the street
sometimes I wonder why we bothered
getting butchered, like raw meat

the fair dinkums we were known as
as we fought the war of hate
but most of all, we aussie blokes
fought for one another - as good mates

Now I look around at Sydney
Well, it just ain't the same
the crowds - they aren't my people
what they are is just a shame

they shove, they push, they toot their horns
they speak american if you're lucky
the dinkum aussies, my cobbers and I
we're disappearing in a hurry

there's no shouting, mateship or blokeyness
and 'bloody oath' is considered crude
they think they are all winners
I just think they're bloody rude

they carry on, throughout their lives
chasing the almighty zac
but they know no joy, they have no mates
they'll die alone - for moneys sake

and what's worse, he sighed, is not here and now
but where we're going to be
and I ask myself, as I slowly die
what happened to my country.

David Downie, 2000

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:08 pm

The Pogues - The band played waltzing matilda

The song Irish emigrant posted the lyrics for. Vey emotional

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqN1glz4JY

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:34 pm

edit: needs to learn to read every word before posting

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:39 pm

^^ if that's at me, I know I posted "and the band played Waltzing Matilda" link Confused

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:42 pm

^^^ it is, i didnt realise, i hit "similiar" vid link before it began and ended up on waltzing matilda. second try round i ended up where i was meant to.

Embarassed

my bad, apologies Embarassed

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 5:55 pm

O
Zewizewo
Zewizewalla
Kristalla
Kristo
Zewizewo
Zewize
Wis wis wis wis.

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 12:56 pm

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Siegfreid Sassoon

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

I missed this thread. My hat off to the boys, and girls, past and present.

Lest we forget.

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:30 pm

Honiara Dawn 25th April

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:33 pm

Thanx, Irish, those are great pix. Very welcome.

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

That's so moving
May we never forget those fallen.
Or the pain their family and friends feel still

My granny grieved til the day she died for a son lost in WW2, my daughter now grieves for a friend lost to a roadside bomb in recent conflict

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2010 12:18 am

11,430 Anzacs - 8,709 Australians and 2,721 New Zealanders - were killed in the Gallipoli campaign. So were 21,255 British, 9,874 French, 1,358 Indian, and 49 Newfoundland soldiers.

And let us remember too that 86,692 Turkish soldiers perished there in defence of their country.

"Gallipoli, as a wise man once said, is a country of the mind. Everyone who comes here sees the story the way they want to see it."
Les Carlyon

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