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.