In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province.

The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War II unfolded along the Kokoda Trail in 1942.

The ceremony, marked by deep reflection and remembrance, was attended by notable dignitaries including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape.

The presence of both leaders underscored the enduring camaraderie and shared history between the two nations, as participants paid homage to the valour and sacrifices of those who fought on these grounds.

This year’s ANZAC Day observances at Isurava not only commemorated the past but also reinforced the bonds of friendship and mutual respect that continue to flourish between Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Marape commends Biage people over WWII

Prime Minister James Marape commended the Biage people of Northern Province for the significant role they played in World War II until today.

He said this at an emotional ANZAC Day dawn service at Isurava along the Kokoda Trail attended by the Biage people, Australian Prime Minister Albanese, Northern Governor Garry Juffa, Australian High Commissioner John Feakes, members of the Australian and Papua New Guinea defence forces, Australian and PNG officials, alongside 200 Australian trekkers making a pilgrimage and their porters.

The dawn service was the highlight of a two-day trek by the two prime ministers from Kokoda to Isurava and was the first time ever for the Biage people to see two prime ministers together at the same time.

Prime Minister Marape said the Biage people were a peaceful people forced into a war that was not their doing and greatly assisted Australia forces during the dark days of WWII.

Governor Juffa also spoke about the remarkable role of the Biage people, who he said formed the bulk of the “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels”, during WWII.

The Biage people continue to show their peacefulness and hospitality by being guides and porters in the lucrative Kokoda trekking industry, PNG’s biggest tourism product.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The West Papuan resistance OPM leader has condemned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden, accusing their countries of “six decades of treachery” over Papuan independence.

The open letter was released today by OPM chairman Jeffrey P Bomanak on the eve of ANZAC Day 2024.

Praising the courage and determination of Papuans against the Japanese Imperial Forces in World War Two, Bomanak said: “There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea.

“Our island! From Sorong to Samurai!”

Bomanak’s open letter, addressed to Prime Minister Albanese and President Biden, declared:

“If you cannot stand by those who stood by you, then your idea of ‘loyalty’ and ‘remembrance’ being something special is a myth, a fairy tale.

“There is nothing special in treachery. Six decades of treachery following the Republic of Indonesia’s invasion and fraudulent annexation, always knowing that we were being massacred, tortured, and raped. Our resources, your intention all along.

“When the Japanese Imperial Forces came to our island, you chose our homes to be your defensive line. We fed and nursed you. We formed the Papuan Infantry Brigade. We became your Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.

“We even fought alongside you and shared the pain and suffering of hardship and loss.

“There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea. Our island! From Sorong to Samurai!

“Your war became our war. Your graves, our graves. The photos [in the open letter] are from the Australian War Memorial. The part of the legend always ringing true — my people — Papuans! – with your WWII defence forces.

“My message is to you, not ANZAC veterans. We salute the ANZACs. Your unprincipled greed divided our island. Exploitation, no matter what the cost.

“West Papua is filled with Indonesia’s barbarity and the blood and guts of 500,000 Papuans — men, women, and children. Torture, slaughter, and rape of my people in our ancestral homes led by your betrayal.

“In 1969, to help prevent our decolonisation, you placed two of our leaders on Manus Island instead of allowing them to reach the United Nations in New York — an act of shameless appeasement as a criminal accomplice to a mass-murderer (Suharto) that would have made Hideki Tojo proud.

“RAAF Hercules transported 600 TNI [Indonesian military] to slaughter us on Biak Island in 1998. Australian and US subsidies, weapons and munitions to RI, provide logistics for slaughter and bombing of our highland villages. Still happening!

“You were silent about the 1998 roll of film depicting victims of the Biak Island massacre, and you destroyed this roll of film in March 2014 after the revelations from the Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunal were aired on the ABC’s 7:30 Report. (Grateful for the integrity of Edmund McWilliams, Political Counselor at the US Embassy in Jakarta, for his testimony.)

“Every single act and action of your betrayal contravenes Commonwealth and US Criminal Codes and violates the UN Charter, the Genocide Act, and the Torture Convention. The price of this cowardly servitude to assassins, rapists, torturers, and war criminals — from war criminal Suharto to war criminal Prabowo [current President of Indonesia] — complicity and collusion in genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and wave after wave of ethnic cleansing.

“Friends, we will not forget you? You threw us into the gutter! As Australian and American leaders, your remembrance day is a commemoration of a tradition of loyalty and sacrifice that you have failed to honour.”

The OPM chairman and commander Bomanak concluded his open letter with the independence slogan “Papua Merdeka!” — Papua freedom.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An Anzac memorial service was held above the site in the South China Sea where a Japanese freighter — which had been carrying more than a 1000 prisoners — was sunk by an American submarine in 1942.

The Montevideo Maru, carrying soldiers and civilians captured when Japan invaded Rabaul in Papua New Guinea in January 1942, was torpedoed by the USS Sturgeon off the coast of the Philippines in July 1942.

A total of 979 people died, almost all Australian, but there were a number of other nationalities, including three New Zealanders.

The wreck was located last week by the research vessel Fugro Equator and the Silentworld Foundation, using an autonomous underwater vehicle.

One of those on board the Fugro Equator is Andrea Williams, the chair of the Rabaul and Montevideo Maru Society, who said the site, at more than 4000m deep, will remain untouched and be treated as a sacred place.

She said the crew on the Fugro held a service on Anzac Day over the site of the wreck.

“That was a tremendously moving experience as you can imagine,” she said.

“You know, being out on the Fugro Equator, and you have had the vast deep blue ocean just spread all around you, and just think about all the lives that were lost. So having a service over the site was tremendously special and very, very moving.”

Williams, who lost an uncle and her grandfather on the ship, helped form the Rabaul and Montevideo Society in 2009, after the sinking had been largely ignored by the Australian government and media.

She said ahead of each Anzac Day she would write to media outlets asking them to cover the sinking, which remains the worst maritime disaster in Australian history.

But Williams said more and more people linked to the society found the gatherings were “really comforting for the families because they could talk about it to other people who understand their generational grief really, I think”.

“And you find in the early days you have more of the siblings of those who had died on the Montevideo Maru, and also more of the children.”

She said with the greater recognition it was rewarding to know that the men lost on the Montevideo Maru were not forgotten.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Anzac dawn ceremonies have been held across the Pacific region, with tributes paid to both Anzac and Pacific Island soldiers killed in the two world wars.

Papua New Guinea
In Papua New Guinea, World War II veterans were among those who attended a dawn service held at the Bomana War cemetery in Port Moresby.

Bomana is the largest war cemetery in the Pacific, containing the graves of 3779 service personnel, the majority of whom were Australian — many of whom fought while sick with malaria.

“Their suffering was immense and endurance beyond measure,” Australia’s Minister for International Development in the Pacific, Pat Conroy, said in his speech.

“They died in defence of Australia. What happened here is important to our national story and forged a deep friendship between Australia and Papua New Guinea,” he added.

The empire of Japan invaded Papua New Guinea in 1942, capturing more than half of the country before being pushed back by an Allied counter offensive — a campaign which resulted in the deaths of more than 7000 Australians, 4684 Americans and more than 200,000 Japanese.

An unknown number of Papuans were killed, many of whom served as scouts and stretcher-bearers.

Papuan deaths included 40 members of the Papuan Infantry Battalion who died fighting alongside the Anzacs.

“We will never forget the Papua New Guineans who fought alongside and supported the Australians in the hardest of times,” said Conroy.

“Forty graves are of soldiers from the Papuan New Guinea Battalion who fought bravely alongside the Australians.”

Samoa
Samoa became a battle front in 1914, when the then German colony was invaded by the New Zealand army in a bloodless take-over. A number of Samoan Anzac soldiers served in the World War, three of whom are known to have died.

Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa acknowledged Samoa’s war contributions in her Anzac Dawn Ceremony speech in Apia.

“Anzac Day provides us with a reminder of the close and enduring links between Samoa and its Pacific working in close collaboration to ensure that we can coexist in a region of peace and stability.”

“As we consider the enormity of the sacrifice made, let us remember that their true and lasting legacy are the freedoms we continue to enjoy to this day.”

American Samoan US Army representatives were honoured at the service for their sacrifices — according to the US military, ethnic Samoans have the highest enlistment rate.

Many New Zealand soldiers of Samoan heritage also participated in World War II and recent conflicts in countries such as Afghanistan.

Having no standing army, Samoa contributes police officers to peacekeeping missions around the world.

“No doubt, the Anzac spirit lives on in the work of those servicemen and women currently involved in operations overseas including United Nation peacekeeping and humanitarian missions” said Fiame.

“Let us also take this time to reflect on the families and communities with loved ones currently deployed.”

President of Returned Services Association and Deputy Prime Minister Tuala Tevaga Ponifasio expressed his gratitude to the Anzacs for their sacrifices but also paid tribute to Samoans who fought for independence.

“Today we paid tribute to those soldiers from New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and all those Samoans who gave their lives for those nations,

“Our brothers and sisters who served in the United States Military . . . we salute and honour you.

“A lot of Samoans lost their lives during colonial times and were subjected to unfair treatment, their names are not written on these memorials but are written in our hearts,

“War is something we all hear about but we fail to comprehend, it’s violent practice that is won not by weapons but by the hearts and minds of soldiers.”

Fiji
Fiji contributed a total of 1255 volunteers (the majority being European expats) to World War 1, with 173 never returning home from Europe.

In World War II, the former British colony committed around 8000 troops to the Pacific War — one of the highest rates of enlistments from a Commonwealth country, 50 of whom died in the Solomon Islands campaign.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka paid his respects by laying a wreath at Fiji’s National War Memorial Site in Suva where a dawn service was held.

New Zealand High Commissioner to Fiji, Charlotte Darlow, said Anzac Day celebrated a special bond between Fiji and the Anzacs.

“Standing here today, there is a shared sense of unity, comradeship, and collective security, but it is important to remember that today’s peace comes from the hard work and sacrifice of previous generations,” said Darlow.

“Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand, alongside other regional partners, have all been part of that story.”

Tonga
In Nuku’alofa, the Tongan military hosted a dawn service at Pangai Lahi Park near Nuku’alofa’s waterfront.

Tongans participated in both World Wars, with the Tonga Defence Force deploying two contingents to the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. Two Tongan soldiers were killed.

A New Zealand Defence Force representative along with High Commissioner Matthew Howell attended the service, where they commended Tonga for its contributions to World War 1.

“Ninety-one Tongan soldiers volunteered to fight in World War 1, 10 in the Australian Imperial Force, 62 in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and 15 in the Maori Battalion, two died on the battlefield and another would succumb to disease,” he said.

“Anzac Day is not just about those who served long ago, its also about those who continue to serve till this day.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

What happened on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey 108 years ago has shocked and shaped Aotearoa New Zealand ever since. The challenge in the 21st century, then, is how best to give contemporary relevance to such an epochal event.

The essence of the Anzac story is well known. As part of the first world war British Imperial Forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) landed at Gallipoli on April 25 1915. For eight months they endured the constant threat of death or maiming in terrible living conditions.

Ultimately, their occupation of that narrow and rugged piece of Turkish coast failed. The 30,000 Anzacs were evacuated after eight months. More than 2700 New Zealand and 8700 Australian soldiers died, with many more wounded.

The first anniversary of the landing was a day of mourning, with Anzac Day becoming a public holiday in 1922. A remembrance day of sorrow mixed with pride, it has grown over the years to include all those who served and died in later international conflicts.

Over time, various narratives and themes have emerged from that Gallipoli “origin story”: of Aotearoa New Zealand’s emergence as a nation, proving itself to Britain and Empire; of the brave, fit, loyal soldier-mates who emblemised the Kiwi spirit of egalitarianism, fairness and duty. All this mingled with the lasting shock and underlying anger at class hierarchy and the British leadership’s incompetence.

But historians know well that the “Anzac spirit” is a complex and ever-evolving idea. In 2023, what do we teach school-aged children about its meaning and significance? One way forward is to rethink those Anzac narratives and tropes in a more complex way.

Colonialism and class
The Anzac story is tied up in the nation’s history as part of the British Empire. The Anzac toll was just part of a staggering 46,000 “Britons” — including many from India and Ireland — who died at Gallipoli.

Some 86,000 Turks also died defending their peninsula. We need to teach about the Anzac sacrifice in the context of a global conflict where the magnitude of loss was horrific.

Importantly, Anzac themes are bound up in early forms of colonial nationalism: New Zealand proving itself to Britain and developing its own fighting mentality on battlefields far from home.

Part of this involves the notion of incompetent British commanders who let down the Anzac troops — but this is part of a bigger story.

Focusing on imperial and class hierarchies of the time can place what happened in that broader context. The legendary story of Chunuck Bair, taken on August 8 by Colonel William Malone’s Wellington Regiment, but where most of the soldiers were killed when they were not relieved in time, is particularly evocative.

Māori and the imperial project
From our vantage point in the present, of course, we cannot ignore the Māori experience of war and colonialism. As the historian Vincent O’Malley has suggested, New Zealand’s “great war” of nation-making was actually Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa — the New Zealand Wars.

It’s time to teach the complexity of this past and the multiple perspectives on it. For example, Waikato leader Te Puea Hērangi led opposition to World War I conscription and spoke against Māori participation on the side of a power that had only recently invaded her people’s land.

Conversely, Māori seeking inclusion in the settler nation did participate. On July 3, 1915, the 1st Māori Contingent landed at Anzac Cove. Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck) (Ngāti Mutunga) was to say:

Our feet were set on a distant land where our blood was to be shed in the cause of the Empire to which we belonged.

These words echo the familiar Anzac trope of the New Zealand nation being born at Gallipoli. Such sentiments led to postwar pilgrimages to retrace the steps of ancestors and claim the site as part of an Anzac heritage — a corner of New Zealand even.

For many young New Zealanders it has become a rite of passage, part of the big OE. That a visit to Anzac Cove is still more popular than visiting the sites of Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa is something our teaching can investigate.

Mateship and conformity
The notion of the Anzac soldier as courageous and beyond reproach, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for nation and empire, is also overdue for revision. The “glue” of mateship — a potent combination of masculine bravery and strength with extreme loyalty to fellow soldiers — is again a contested narrative.

By the 1970s, as historian Rowan Light’s work shows, there was a significant challenge to such perceptions from the counterculture, peace protesters and feminists. And by the 1980s, veterans were sharing their stories more candidly with writer Maurice Shadbolt and war historian Chris Pugsley.

Teaching about the meaning of mateship might examine the history of those peer-pressured into participating in war, those who were conscripted and had no choice, and more on the fate of conscientious objectors like Archibald Baxter. At its worst, the idea of mateship was window dressing for uniformity and parochialism.

New Zealanders today have complex multicultural and global roots. We have ancestors who were co-opted to fight on different sides in 20th-century wars, including those who fought anti-colonial wars in India, Ireland and Samoa.

Some came here as refugees escaping conflict. Jingoism and what it really represents deserves critical analysis.

Poppies and peace
The ubiquitous poppy, an icon much reproduced in classrooms, is also ripe for contextualisation and debate over its meaning. In the age of global environmental crisis, it can be seen as more than a symbol of sacrifice immortalised in verse and iconography.

The poppy also reminds us of the landscapes devastated by the machinery of war that killed and maimed people, plants and animals. It contains within it myriad lessons about the threats science and technology can pose to a vulnerable planet.

Anzac Day rose from the shock, loss and grief felt by those on the home front. And beyond the familiar tropes of nationalism, mateship and egalitarianism, this remains its overriding mood.

Remembering and learning about the terrible physical and mental cost of war is the real point of those familiar phrases “lest we forget” and “never again”. That spirit of humanitarianism chimes with Aotearoa New Zealand’s modern role and evolving self-image as a peacekeeping, nuclear-free nation.

Anzac Day also speaks to the need for global peace and arbitration, and how war is no viable solution to conflict. Those are surely lessons worth teaching.

Dr Katie Pickles is professor of history, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific countries held dawn services today to commemorate Anzac Day and recognise the 107th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli in Turkey.

Tonga paid tribute to its war veterans with a dawn ceremony held in Nuku’alofa this morning.

The ceremony took place on the Royal Palace grounds of King Tupou VI with prayers and hymns sung by His Majesty’s Armed Forces.

Ambassadors from Australia, Japan, China, the United Kingdom and New Zealand attended the ceremony.

Navy Officer Sione Ulakai acknowledged the sacrifices of Anzac soldiers in Gallipoli.

“We are celebrating the life of brave soldiers who at this time, 107 years ago, fell on the beaches of Gallipoli,” he said.

Anzac Day is a public holiday in Tonga held to honour the country’s contribution to World War I and World War II.

Two Tongans killed in battle for Solomon Islands
Two Tongan soldiers were killed in World War II during the battle for the Solomon Islands.

In the Cook Islands, Prime Minister Mark Brown has called on Cook Islanders to remember their almost 500 soldiers who served in World War I.

The men were part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force’s Māori Pioneer Battalion.

Some died during the conflict and others died later from war-related illness.

Brown called on people to pay tribute to all Cook Islanders who have served, or are currently serving, in various forces around the world.

Thousands of New Zealanders gathered for dawn services around the country today.

World War II and Defence Force aircraft were flying over numerous towns and cities as part of Anzac commemorations.

Veteran aircraft on display
Spitfire and Harvard aircraft, a P3K2 Orion, NH90 helicopters and other aircraft have been in the air.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum hosted a slimmed down version of its Anzac Day commemorations this year.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was in attendance.

In Wellington, Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro spoke at both the Dawn Service and the National Commemorative Service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.

Returned and Services Associations national president BJ Clark said the public was welcome to come into their local RSA and be part of remembrance events, and to chat with veterans.

Anzac Day, which was first held in 1916, honours more than 250,000 New Zealanders who have served overseas either in military conflicts or other roles, such as peacekeeping missions, said the Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Pae Mahara manager Brodie Stubbs.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A New Zealand veteran who fought in Korea told of his experience of war and the horror of seeing napalm used for the first time.

Gordon Sutherland, from Johnsonville, attended today’s Anzac Day dawn national service in Wellington.

“I’ll always remember what an experience it was to see, sitting on the hill, on the other side the worst experience I’ll ever have was seeing napalm used for the first time.

“Absolutely… I was so shocked that I even felt sorry for the enemy. The enemy that was a human being.

“I’ve never forgotten it and I’ve never talked about that occasion in Korea before. This is actually the first time.”

Gordon said he had attended commemoration services his entire life.

Connection for 80 years
“My connection goes back 80 years, from when I was a wee boy my father served in the First World War and I attended services from when I was four-years-old. I was born on Armistice Day and I’m still here today.

“I served in Korea… I suppose you’d call it fighting.”

He said when he returned to New Zealand he could not believe how green it was.

“It was wonderful to be home and since then I’ve experienced a wonderful life.

“It’s just so lovely to be here… I love our country.”

More New Zealanders commemorating Anzac Day – Defence chief https://t.co/QMlIpyE2b1

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) April 24, 2021

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In late 1913 one of the most famous men in Britain arrived in Pago Pago.

Rupert Brooke, 26, was a literary sensation at the time and was taking an escape from celebrity to explore the South Seas: “I want to walk a thousand miles, and write a thousand plays, and sing a thousand poems, and drink a thousand pots of beer, and kiss a thousand girls – oh, a million things.”

Brooke landed in Pago Pago and quickly moved onto German ruled Āpia.

He marvelled at his accommodation: “I lived in a Sāmoan house (the coolest in the world) with a man and his wife, nine children, ranging from a proud beauty of 18 to a round object of 1 year, a dog, a cat, a proud hysterical hen, and a gaudy scarlet and green parrot, who roved the roof and beams with a wicked eye; choosing a place whence to — twice a day, with humorous precision, on my hat and clothes.

“The Sāmoan girls have extraordinarily beautiful bodies, and walk like goddesses. They’re a lovely brown colour, without any black Melanesian admixture; their necks and shoulders would be the wild envy of any European beauty; and in carriage and face they remind me continually and vividly of my incomparable heartless and ever-loved X.”

The German officials running Sāmoa impressed him saying the two governors had blocked forces that might destroy Sāmoa.

‘Painful operation’
“Dr Schultz, I have been told by old residents of Samoa, was tattooed in the native style, as were certain of his officials. It is reasonable to suppose that this judge, administrator, and collator of Samoan proverbs at least has some ulterior and altruistic purpose in view in undergoing a very painful operation.

“A Samoan who is not tattooed —it extends almost solid from the hips to the knees — appears naked beside one who is; and in no way can the custom be considered as disfiguring.”

English inhabitants had little to complain of other than saying the Germans were “too kind to the natives – an admirable testimonial”.

A Royal Navy gunboat had visited Āpia and were entertained by Sāmoans with music and dance, provided by “an eminent and very charming young princess”. She was a famous beauty with a keen intelligence. Her glorious singing voice made for a successful party.

“The princess led her guests afterwards to the flagstaff. Before anyone could stop her, she leapt onto the pole and raced up the sixty feet of it.”

At the top, she seized the German flag and tore it to pieces.

After visiting Fiji and Auckland, Brooke headed to Tahiti, staying at Mataiea, outside Pape’ete. He met Taatamata: “I think I shall write a book about her – only I fear I’m too fond of her.”

Three poems, no book
“There were three poems, but never a book.

He returned to England, moving toward war.

The Great War broke out in August 1914 and Brooke in September 1914 become a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Division, an unusual section of the British Army.

He heard that Deutsch-Sāmoa: “is ours,” he wrote, recalling his stay there a year earlier.

“Well, I know a princess who will have had the day of her life. Did they see [Robert Louis] Stevenson’s tomb gleaming high up on the hill, as they made for that passage in the reef….

“They must have landed from boats; and at noon, I see. How hot they got! I know that Āpia noon. Didn’t they rush to the Tivoli bar but I forget, New Zealanders are teetotalers.

“So, perhaps, the Sāmoans gave them the coolest of all drinks, kava; and they scored. And what dances in their honour, that night! but, again, I’m afraid the houla-houla would shock a New Zealander.

Sweetest South Sea songs
“I suppose they left a garrison, and went away. I can very vividly see them steaming out in the evening; and the crowd on shore would be singing them that sweetest and best-known of South Sea songs, which begins, ‘Good-bye, my Flenni’ (‘Friend,’ you’d pronounce it), and goes on in Sāmoan, a very beautiful tongue.

“I hope they’ll rule Sāmoa well.”

That last line was prophetic, given who buried Rupert Brooke.

George Richardson had been born in Britain but in years leading up to war, had been based in New Zealand. In December 1913, then Colonel Richardson sat as New Zealand’s representative on the Imperial General Staff in London.

With war, he became chief of staff of the new Royal Naval Division, an idea of First Sea Lord Winston Churchill to get unneeded sailors into the fighting as infantrymen. It was deployed to Gallipoli.

Rupert Brooke in December 1914 wrote to a friend from a camp in Dorset, that he had dreamt that he was back in Tahiti, where he met a woman who told him that Tahiti lover Taatamata was dead: “Perhaps it was the full moon that made me dream, because of the last full moon at (Tahiti).

“Perhaps it was my evil heart. I think the dream was true.”

A good time
Weeks later, Brooke received a letter from Taatamata, dated 2 May 1914 in which she told of having a good time with Argentinian sailors. She was always thinking of Brooke but wondered if he had already forgotten her.

After she died there were often rumours that Taatamata had a child, a girl, with Brooke and she grew up in Pape’ete.

Brooke wrote The Soldier:
If I should die, think only this of me;
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.

Two days out from the landings at Gallipoli, on Shakespeare’s birthday (and the same day he died), April 23, Brooke died, the result of an infected mosquito bite.

He was buried on the Aegean island of Skyros.

George Richardson, who after the war would become one of Sāmoa’s worst colonial administrators, was given the job of burying Brooke.

‘I selected his grave on a little knoll under an olive tree and there he lies peacefully today.”

Republished from The Pacific Newsroom with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Today’s Anzac Day Smithometer Chart shows the fatal impact in New Zealand of World War 1 battles at Gallipoli and on the Somme in France. (Earlier this week the Smithometer showed the impact of 1917 WW1 battles in Belgium – Messines and Passchendaele – and the dramatic, though short-lived, impact of the 1918 influenza pandemic.)

These two charts show that most of the combat death in World War 1 was linked to just five periods each of one or two weeks: Gallipoli in May and August 1915, the Somme in September 1916, Messines in June 1917, and Passchendaele in October 1917. The Smithometer shows that much of World War 1 was inactivity, at least in the military sense.

The total number of Smith deaths in 1915 was the same as in 1914, when there were no Smith war fatalities. Seventeen percent of Smith deaths in 1914 were infants (under one year old); a worse year for infant mortality than 1913. Eighteen percent of Smith deaths in 1915 were due to the war, and thirteen percent were infants. Total Smith deaths in 1915 and 1916 were 288, just ten percent higher than for 1913 and 1914. Deaths not related to war or infancy were noticeably down in 1915 and 1916. The war did not increase New Zealand’s crude death rate by as much as most of us would have expected.

Smith deaths in New Zealand were unusually low in 1919, and with only eight infant deaths (6.6 percent of all deaths). However, in 1920 infant mortality returned to the high 1914 rate of 17 percent. This rise in part but not entirely reflected increased numbers of infants in 1920, after the soldiers returned from the war. The male babies born at this time represented the core fighting force in World War 2.

by Dr Bryce Edwards

It’s a very different Anzac Day this year. In recent years this remembrance day has been steadily transforming. Most notably, becoming more popular, with attendance at ceremonies up, and an apparently more interested population in general. Last year’s centenary also bolstered the importance of the day. But this year, due to the Christchurch terrorist attacks, it’s all changed again.

For the single best examination of how Anzac Day is transforming, it’s worth reading the Christchurch Press editorial, which explains some of the changes and calls for even more modernisation, to turn the day into a more liberal-progressive way of dealing with war and its victims – see: Anzac Day will never be the same.

The editorial explains that the form Anzac Day takes is always going to be a product of the politics of the time. And so, what has happened in Christchurch, and what’s occurring around the world – and in the Middle East, in particular – means that Anzac Day is changing. Essentially, it’s becoming more political, and New Zealand society is using the day to reflect on global conflict.

It concludes with the hope that those attending remembrance ceremonies today might think of victims of conflicts beyond the traditionally recognised ones: “it would be nice to imagine that they will be thinking about more than the thousands of Australians and New Zealanders who died over a century ago. Instead, they might also turn their minds to the many who have been killed in the decades since, sometimes very recently and very close to home.”

The growth and modernisation of Anzac Day is such that according to John Tamihere it has become more nationally important to New Zealanders than Waitangi Day – see: Of all our days Anzac Day is our real national day.

Tamihere sees the day as one of both diversity and unification: “The beauty about our Anzac Day is the way in which, regardless of the conflict, we can all stand together and own the memory of whānau who gave their lives selflessly in order to defend who and what we are today. It matters not if some stand there to remember ancestors who gave their lives in the New Zealand Land Wars, the Boer War, World War I or World War II, or indeed even newcomers to New Zealand — now New Zealand citizens — whose ancestors gave their lives for their lands fighting on opposite sides. The beauty about Anzac Day is it allows us to embrace as a nation all of these hurts and sufferings.”

However there seems to be a heightened awareness this year that war commemorations can sometimes spill into patriotism and nationalism, which is a bitter irony, given that the invasion of Gallipoli and World War I strongly represents the folly of such emotions and ideologies.

This point is well made by Glenn McConnell today in a column in which he says Gallipoli should be “a reminder governments can so easily disregard human lives” utilising their “propaganda machine” to foster nationalism and falsehoods – see: Anzac Day should be a time of reflection, not celebration or patriotism.

McConnell reflects on last year’s centenary, saying “As we commemorated a century since the war, many people conflated our coming together at ceremonies with national pride and cohesion.” The major problem, he argues, is that although we are commemorating the tragic invasion of a Muslim land, today the “one group that is not readily welcomed into this collective commemoration is the Muslim community.”

He’s referring in particular to the decision of RSAs not to include Muslim prayers in their services today. Here’s his wider point about this: “When our leaders stand at memorials to preach about our unity, remember that they are not giving us the full picture. We are not ‘one’. We are not yet united. People repeat those comforting myths to lull themselves into a false security. The ‘one’ which they speak of is a Pākehā assimilated ‘one’. It is one Christian god. It is the one group which wells up with national pride on Anzac Day. New Zealand, we have a lot to be proud of. But we shouldn’t be proud of everything We shouldn’t be proud that we’ve let a great opportunity to unite slip. We shouldn’t be proud that for more than a century and counting, we treat our Muslim friends more like enemies.”

Similarly, a Press editorial today disagrees with the exclusion of Muslim prayers: “The obvious subtext, that Anzac Day commemorations are only about Anzacs, and are somehow Christian, is interesting and flawed” – see: Commemorating Anzac Day in a ‘different’ country. Instead of exacerbating division, what the remembrance of war “should turn our minds to, even as we commemorate those of our number who made the ultimate sacrifice, is reconciliation and peace.”

Today’s Otago Daily Times editorial also carries this message of inclusion and tolerance, saying we need to be “employing kindness, respect and tolerance in the present” when dealing with past wars, and that Anzac Day “is not a day of exclusivity, intolerance or rigidity. That is not what this country stands for and is not what it has fought for” – see: Honouring our past, present and future.

In terms of the decision not to include Muslim prayers in the ceremonies, the paper reflects on New Zealand’s relationship with Islam and Turkey: “But Islam has never been the enemy of New Zealand. We have always strived to be an open and tolerant country. We have had Muslim members of our armed forces and we have fought alongside Muslim soldiers from other nations. We celebrate Anzac Day on the date our own soldiers stormed the beaches of Turkey, attacking and killing Turkish soldiers – many of them Muslim. No Muslim army has stormed our own shores. Nor does Turkey forbid us from remembering our fallen in their own country, year after year. Germans, Italians, Japanese and others we have fought also deserve our respect and empathy. We can honour our own soldiers while also empathising with the suffering experienced by our then-enemies.”

Of course, as with all “national days” there’s a strong element of “state building” and mythology. According to James Robins, at this time each year, “folklore and tradition overtake fact, and much of the nation seems to embrace a soft-lit consensus, or worse, outright delusion. The repetition of half-truths, misremembered legends, and popular fictions is elevated to high art”. He believes that the so-called “Special Relationship” between New Zealand, Australia and Turkey is rather overplayed –  see: The repetition of Anzac half-truths.

The biggest falsehood of Anzac Day, according to Robins, is the whitewashing of the genocide that occurred at the same time as the invasion of Gallipoli, which was intrinsically linked – see his article in the Guardian: Anzacs witnessed the Armenian genocide – that shouldn’t be forgotten in our mythologising.

And back in New Zealand, the narrative around Anzac Day is strongly reinforced by two Peter Jackson-associated exhibitions in Wellington – Te Papa’s “Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War” and the old Dominion Museum’s “The Great War Exhibition”. But both of these are strongly critiqued by Massey University’s Nicholas Haig, who says they “nourish nationalistic and chauvinistic sentiment” – see: War remembrance: Acting out or working through?

On a lighter note, for another history lesson on how New Zealand has come to commemorate Anzac Day, see Bob Edlin’s Anzac Day – how local body leaders initiated a half-day holiday in NZ. In this, he looks back at what led to the national half-day holiday, noting “We have been checking the files and find a story akin to rival trans-Tasman claims about Phar Lap and pavlova cake.”

Controversy over cancellations and security

The various cancellations and increased security this year has also made today rather strange, with a lot of debate about whether authorities are doing the right thing. In Auckland, two-thirds of Anzac Day services were cancelled, and one was cancelled in Christchurch.

The New Zealand Herald is very unconvinced about the need for the cancellations, saying “Unless they know of a threat to Anzac Day, the police should let New Zealand honour its fallen as usual without fear” – see the editorial, Anzac Day is no time to give in to terror.

The newspaper argues that “Terrorism succeeds when a community is afraid to go about its normal life”, and “it becomes hard to deny the shooter in Christchurch has achieved a part of his destructive purpose. The police ought not to be giving him this satisfaction without good reason.”

This is also the view of John Tamihere: “Anzac Day celebrations are about honouring those lost in conflict and NOT the pointless ugly acts conducted in Christchurch. We cannot surrender what we are, who we are or where we are after this alleged lone ranger attack, or any other single act. But it feels to me, somewhere, someone has surrendered our identity as Kiwis.”

Former politician and soldier, Heather Roy also says she’s offended by the cancellations, saying they are a blow to the freedom that New Zealand soldiers have died for: “Thanks to their sacrifices we live in a free society. We’re free to go where we please, free to gather with others, enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of association. Yet this ANZAC Day the Police have told us we’re not free to gather with our local communities because they can’t protect us. They blame the government imposed heightened security threat” – see: Resist Anzac Day Restrictions. Attend and March.

They’re not the only ones dissatisfied. 1News reports that the backlash has been strong against the cancellations, with RSA leaders being blamed – see: RSA president called ‘coward’ and ‘disgrace’ following Anzac cancellations in Auckland.

There’s some dispute, however, over who actually made the cancellation decisions, with Police Minister Stuart Nash stating clearly that it was an RSA decision, causing some RSA officials to push back strongly. One official went on record to explain what he was told by Police: “The first thing we were told was you will have no parades and no marches anywhere, and after a bit of discussion on that we were then told you will have one civic parade and you will have one dawn parade… No arguments… it was an order, we were directed, it wasn’t would you please, it was you will have” – see Kim Baker Wilson’s RSA and police in standoff over who is responsible for cancelled Anzac Day events.

But for the best discussion of security arrangements for today, see the Herald’s Kiwi troops not designed for Anzac Day crowd control, police say they have the resources.

Finally, although the dawn services are already over today, there’s plenty of memorial coverage, war films and documentaries to watch on TV – see Fiona Rae’s What to watch on TV this Anzac Day. And if you want to make a stand for peace, there are also lots of anti-war events around the country – see: Anzac Day peace vigils and picnics.

ANZAC Day – April 25 always brings to mind one man more than any other. Why? I don’t know, perhaps it was his honesty, his humbleness. This man lived in Papakura, a town about 30 kilometres south of Auckland City, New Zealand. He had witnessed the worst and the best of human endeavour. He called himself Chino.

His simple life’s story made an impact, he shared his wisdom and he passed hope for us all as we approached this new century, he left a legacy of hope.April 25 1998 was a special day for Papakura’s Chino Mulligan.

Every year since 1945 Chino joined his mates outside the Returned Services Association buildings. There they would shuffle into lines two files wide and an arm-reach space between each man.

Within the ranks there once were old-man soldiers who had braved the Turkish machine guns at Gallipoli on April 25 1914.Each year they were fewer in number, five, then, three, then one, and now, well they have all passed away.

This year Chino looked at all his World War II mates with tears in his eyes. There was little different about this march, except that Chino noted fewer of his friends there to make the grim pilgrimage to the Papakura Cenotaph. There was one difference this year though. Chino decided to talk to a southern Auckland journalist about his war experiences, he wished to be honest, to tell his own tale of what his life has meant to himself.

He began his memoirs with tears. And it was a fitting start he said because that is what war did to him.

“I spent most of my time on my knees, in tears, frightened and praying for my life to be spared,” Chino told me as we sat inside the lounge of his humble unit.

Chino said the weight he felt at the death of his brothers during the war had never left him. Never had he forgotten how his friends were killed in the Western deserts of Africa during the battles of El Alamein, against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Panzer forces.

From the cool pre-dawn mist, Papakura’s returned soldiers turn from Wood St into Great South Road. Others wait quietly at the curb, we watch on as a stirring from the Palm Trees begins to flutter. First is heard a chucky-clunk noise as the soldier’s medals tap tap tap against each man’s chest.

Then comes a click of boots on road, resounding like hammers upon leather, as 200 men relive memories most care to leave untold.

There is Chino. He marches with one leg moving forward a little slower than the other. But he and all the men still march in time. Chino’s face, like all the other men’s, is taught. Concentration centres on keeping in file, on pride, on survival, on those to whom they have promised to remember: “Lest We Forget”.

This year the line of men is once again thinner. And again a tear breaks its shackles to trickle down Chino’s smile-line.The birds in the Palm Trees awake to herald the approaching dawn. Their chorus is the light-side of this solemn ritual. The men form at “attention”, then “at ease”. The service honours the sacrifice each man, alive and dead, has made in their attempts to create a free-world.And of course then, at the end, a bugler plays The Last Post. All who gather now remember friends, brothers, mates, fathers, uncles, lovers – the men who did not return home from war. And then the rays of a new day burst across the sky. All present say: “Lest We Forget.”

Chino sits surrounded by photos of his family, many in uniform. A black blazer decorated with a long line of service medals pinned to its chest is folded over an armchair.

Beside Chino, on the floor, is a grey woollen blanket. He has kept it with him since 1943 when it kept him warm on cool north African nights. That blanket is as good as new, neatly folded. The man shows it off with pride.

Chino says he was never a brave man. Not even wen he fought in the Maori Battalion in Egypt to halt the German advance.

“I spent more time on my knees than fighting. And I’m here today because I could run fast. I prayed then and I still pray today.”

The ageing man’s hands tremble. He glances at them, always aware of his approaching frailties.Back during World War II Chino was just a boy. He signed up for the Maori Battalion at just 15 years of age. His older brothers had already gone to war. Army recruiters were convinced the boy was “of age” after Chino showed them his father’s dole book. That book did not list a birthdate. But recruiters knew you had to be 21 years-of-age to get the dole, so Chino was in.

That dole book was his ticket for a journey that would consume the rest of his life.
Chino’s war began in North Africa in 1941. “I was a boy on a mission,” he said. “I had back-dated my age. My parents didn’t know I’d joined the Army until it was time to leave. My mother cried and they asked me to stay. But they did not stop me from going.”

Chino was with the 7th reinforcements, know as Maori Battalion 28. Egypt was his first base for about nine months. He did not see any fighting then. After this he was moved off to Palestine for six months. Then to Syria. There, Chino remembers: “We used to make our bed out of sacks. Lie it on the ground on the stones in the desert. We had ten men per tent. We would have to take a shower once each week, we had to walk five miles to take a shower.

“I first saw action in 1943. We were trucked from Syria, through Palestine, past the Sea of Galilee to Egypt.”

Chino and his battalion knew Rommel was waiting for them: “We were not too happy about that. But our job was to stop Rommel. But then he was a great general.”

The 7th reinforcements had only just arrived at their Egypt base when Rommel’s tanks surrounded them. News of an impending ambush swept through the gathering: “I had just arrived when a man said ‘go and have a feed Chino’. Then from out of nowhere came this screaming sound!”

It was a German Stuka bomber sweeping down on the Maori Battalion: “The screaming of the Stuka was a killer. As the screaming got louder we would dive for the stones. If you had a helmet on you were okay.”But the fear was there. I wondered then as I do now, ‘How did we get through it?’.

“The Stuka swept down and dropped a bomb. I wondered what the bloody hell had happened.”The earth shuddered. Dirt flew in all directions. The explosion left ears ringing.

“After that, after the attack was over, the man told me again to go and have a feed. But I wouldn’t.”

Chino had lost his appetite. First he dug a trench for protection in case more Stukas loomed in for the attack.With the night came confirmation that they were indeed surrounded by Rommel: “We were told the attack would come with dawn.”

The Maori Battalion got together. They decided to strike Rommel’s soldiers first. They got their weapons ready. Worked out their plan. Chino and his fellow soldiers stalked up to the German lines.

“We did the Maori Haka [a Maori war dance]. Ka mate! Ka Mate!” The Battalion all chanted in unison. The sound was electrifying, Chino said. It carried on the desert night air.

Chino felt the pride of his homeland. The boy became brave. “Ka Mate, Ka Mate!. We were all doing the war cry. It gave us courage and it scared the Germans. They didn’t like it. And we fought to survive.”

Chino and the Maori Battalion broke through he Panzer lines. They cut an opening for all the Battalion’s trucks and guns. They were surrounded no more.

Young Chino saw a lot more action. In World War II the Maori Battalion sustained extremely high casualties, and at a rate disproportionate to its members.

The effects of the slaughter were soon felt by the families back home in New Zealand. Generations of future Maori leaders were wiped out.

But of all his war experience the hardest thing for Chino was visiting his mates in hospital, seeing the wounded: “That always brings tears to my eyes,” he said.

World War II eventually came to its conclusion. Chino returned to New Zealand in August 1945. He then entered J-Force, the men whose task it was to help Japan get back on its feet.

Chino’s war didn’t end. “After the war I couldn’t settle.” He went on to serve four years as a Warrant Officer Class Two with the 163rd Battery in the Korean War, mainly at a place called Kap Yong.

“We were often in the thick of it, but it was the cold that was our worst enemy,” Chino said. While at Kap Yong, Chino heard that his brother, also fighting the Chinese and North Korea, had “got smacked”.

“I visited a clearing station and I heard someone moaning. I thought ‘I know that voice’. It was my brother Raymond!”

Raymond was paralysed, had a shrapnel wound to his spine. He was eventually shipped back to New Zealand. Had his leg amputated. Married. Had children, and died of cancer “some years ago”.

Chino said: “As I get older all of my friends are dying off. Many were killed during the wars. All those buddies were lost over there,” he gestures with his hand.

“Please remember I was no hero. I was not brave. I was scared. I ran often. I did more praying. Still do it.

“I lost two brothers in El Alamein and another wounded in Korea.”ANZAC Day is sad,” Chino’s hands shake as eyes relive memories of pain.

“I don’t want young people today to go to a war and see what we went through. That is my wish.”

ANZAC Day April 25 1998 was a special day for Chino Mulligan. It was his last.

Chino Mulligan died from cancer several months after this interview. He is survived by his wife, daughters, sons, and grandchildren.

His life is a poignant reminder of the most destructive century in the history of this world. His wish for a lasting peace was an impassioned cry, for all who remain, to approach the advent of this new century with a desire for conciliation at home and abroad. Lest We Forget.