The Australian War Memorial

I’ve visited Canberra twice before but haven’t yet made it to the Australian War Memorial. It was a priority this trip!

We made it this afternoon and we quickly separated into groups of Max and Trevor, and then Harry and me. The memorial was so overwhelming – I think as I am getting older I am aware more and more of what a wide ranging impact wars, particularly WWI and WWII have had on Australian families, Australian communities and Australia as a nation.

On entering we first saw the eternal flame.

The whole place has this very ethereal quality.

Harry and I made our way to the ‘Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’ – what a place… The mosaic uses over 6 million tiles, and the domed ceiling is the same dome you can see on the top of the above photo.

Then Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating made the following speech when the Unknown Soldier was buried in 1993. Reading this while at the War Memorial was a very moving moment. It’s funny how PMs are remembered for speeches that bring their country together – and Paul Keating seems to be remembered far more readily for his ‘scumbag’ and ‘j curve’ remarks rather than this exquisite speech…

We do not know this Australian's name and we never will.

We do not know his rank or his battalion. We do not know where he was born, nor precisely how and when he died. We do not know where in Australia he had made his home or when he left it for the battlefields of Europe. We do not know his age or his circumstances – whether he was from the city or the bush; what occupation he left to become a soldier; what religion, if he had a religion; if he was married or single. We do not know who loved him or whom he loved. If he had children we do not know who they are. His family is lost to us as he was lost to them. We will never know who this Australian was.

Yet he has always been among those whom we have honoured. We know that he was one of the 45,000 Australians who died on the Western Front. One of the 416,000 Australians who volunteered for service in the First World War. One of the 324,000 Australians who served overseas in that war and one of the 60,000 Australians who died on foreign soil. One of the 100,000 Australians who have died in wars this century.

He is all of them. And he is one of us.

This Australia and the Australia he knew are like foreign countries. The tide of events since he died has been so dramatic, so vast and all – consuming, a world has been created beyond the reach of his imagination.

He may have been one of those who believed that the Great War would be an adventure too grand to miss. He may have felt that he would never live down the shame of not going. But the chances are he went for no other reason than that he believed it was the duty he owed his country and his King.

Because the Great War was a mad, brutal, awful struggle, distinguished more often than not by military and political incompetence; because the waste of human life was so terrible that some said victory was scarcely discernible from defeat; and because the war which was supposed to end all wars in fact sowed the seeds of a second even more terrible war – we might think this Unknown Soldier died in vain.

But, in honouring our war dead, as we always have and as we do today, we declare that this is not true. For out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary. On all sides they were the heroes of that war; not the generals and the politicians but the soldiers and sailors and nurses – those who taught us to endure hardship, to show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together.

The Unknown Australian Soldier whom we are interring today was one of those who, by his deeds, proved that real nobility and grandeur belongs, not to empires and nations, but to the people on whom they, in the last resort, always depend.

That is surely at the heart of the ANZAC story, the Australian legend which emerged from the war. It is a legend not of sweeping military victories so much as triumphs against the odds, of courage and ingenuity in adversity. It is a legend of free and independent spirits whose discipline derived less from military formalities and customs than from the bonds of mateship and the demands of necessity. It is a democratic tradition, the tradition in which Australians have gone to war ever since.

This Unknown Australian is not interred here to glorify war over peace; or to assert a soldier's character above a civilian's; or one race or one nation or one religion above another; or men above women; or the war in which he fought and died above any other war; or one generation above any that has been or will come later.

The Unknown Soldier honours the memory of all those men and women who laid down their lives for Australia. His tomb is a reminder of what we have lost in war and what we have gained.

We have lost more than 100,000 lives, and with them all their love of this country and all their hope and energy.

We have gained a legend: a story of bravery and sacrifice and, with it, a deeper faith in ourselves and our democracy, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be Australian.

It is not too much to hope, therefore, that this Unknown Australian Soldier might continue to serve his country - he might enshrine a nation's love of peace and remind us that, in the sacrifice of the men and women whose names are recorded here, there is faith enough for all of us.

The Hon. P. J. Keating MP
Prime Minister of Australia

Upstairs Harry and I saw the list of name after name of people who have died while fighting for Australia – one of the photos below shows the names of just the people who died in WWI. Australia was not that big a country from 1914 – 1918, and the loss of so many young men would have been so devastating. Harry and I purchased and placed a poppy to show our respect.

 

At the end of the day, just as the War Memorial closed at 5pm, a piper played a piece at the door of the Unknown Soldier’s tomb while everyone visiting stopped and stood for two minutes silence. On the way out we met the piper in the carpark and he happily chatted with us for some time. This closing ceremony takes place every day of the year except Christmas Day (when the AWM is closed), and the pipers are on a roster with buglers and play at the memorial around twice a month.

 

 

On a much lighter note, here are a couple ofd pictures of Harry writing a postcard to his class while in the cafe at the AWM. He took our plates and rubbish to the front of the cafe as they were soon to close. This took several trips, and on the last one he was given a funsize Mars Bar by the waitress who was happy for his help. He thought he was so lucky!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to conclude this post, here is the spectacular view from upstairs at the AWN looking down the avenue towards Australia’s Parliament House.