A quiet hero, ‘Bull’ Allen.

Look around at your peaceful day today. As I am writing this I am sitting on the couch right next to the front window looking out at the bright blue sky and cloud topped mountains across the valley. My biggest problem right now is the dishes waiting to be washed. There are places in the world where all is not peace and quiet, but I bet if you have the time to sit back and read this you are not in one of them.

Now zoom back in time to 70 years and a few days ago to the 30th July 1943, and plonk yourself on Mount Tambu in Papua New Guinea. It is hot and muddy, there are disease-carrying bugs trying to eat you and there are a lot of people out there who want to kill you.

It is World War II and, if you are an Aussie on that mountain that day, things could be worse as you aren’t supposed to be fighting. I don’t expect that the Diggers were just sitting back happily watching the Americans fighting though, and one solider in particular certainly didn’t.

Northern Star 28 Aug 1943 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article96432417

Leslie ‘Bull’ Allen* was one of the Australian stretcher bearers there that day, and when the American medics were killed helping one of their wounded he went out into the fray to bring back whoever he could.

One at a time he slung the wounded over his shoulder and carried them back to safety through sniper, machine gun and mortar fire.

Soldiers were watching the snipers aiming at him on each trip and taking bets as to whether he would return.

By the time he was too exhausted to continue he had carried at least 12 American soldiers to safety and his clothes and hat were holed by bullets that had somehow managed to miss his body.

The United States awarded him the Silver Star, their highest award for a non-American, and he was sent many letters of congratulation, including one from Eleanor Roosevelt, who he remained in contact with.

Bull Allen has both a canteen at Puckapunyal and the Bull Allen bar at the Ballarat RSL** named after him, but strangely was never awarded the Victoria Cross, Australia’s highest award for acts of bravery in wartime. Historians are now calling for his amazing bravery to be recognized (ABC News) and rightly so.

This wonderful short film tells his story with photos, war footage and the help of his family.

* An excellent biography link. He did quartz crushing demonstrations at Sovereign Hill! Now there are a few of you who are thinking “Wow, I might have met him!” aren’t there? I’m thinking the same thing. 😀

** RSL= Returned and Services League, the local RSL is an Aussie institution and where everyone repairs to after their respective Dawn Services on ANZAC Day for a drink and a game of two-up.

ANZAC Day 2013.

It is ANZAC Day today, a national day of remembrance for those lost in war.
Around Australia there will be many celebrations of remembrance, glasses raised, two-up games, and lots of bleary eyed attendees of the dawn services.

In recent years ANZAC Day has gone from a quiet memorial to a country wide celebration. I think it is fantastic that people have embraced the day like they have. People march with their kids or grand kids. Some march while wearing the medals of a family member who served but has passed away, a great way to ensure that the sacrifices of everyone who served aren’t forgotten.

I took the photo of the cenotaph below in our town the other day. I drive past our soldier a few times a day and love that he stands solemnly, through good weather or bad, always watching over the town.

He used to be positioned right on the edge of the main road, which is on the far left edge of the photo, but was moved to this safer spot some years ago. His palm tree is still back in his old spot though, you can just see the very top of it just behind the darkest tree on the left.

In every town people will be out at dawn, wrapped up against the cold, listening to the recitation and the last post being played at their own cenotaphs.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Wartime messages.

Recently a man in Surrey, David Martin, was renovating his fireplace when he discovered the remains of the World War II carrier pigeon and the 70-year-old message, from Sergeant W Stott, it was carrying.

Apparently the messages pigeons carried were usually written longhand but this one was in code which makes people think it was an important one. It is now being decoded by Government Communication Headquarters so they will know if it was hugely important soon enough.

I looked for a carrier pigeon article to accompany this bit of news and found many, many stories of lost birds, half-eaten birds and exhausted birds. Then I found this one and had to share it with you.

In 1900 a West Country farmer had the brilliant idea of using something to carry messages that was harder to shoot than a pigeon. Bees. Hmmm… Granted, it would be harder for the opposition to take out a carrier bee but I can think of a few problems with the idea.

Examiner 12 Nov 1900 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article35378074

Firstly, do bees taken far from their hives (as opposed to flying themselves away) actually have the ability to get home safely?

Secondly, what about the size of the message? I can imagine that the messages attached to the leg of a pigeon would be by necessity quite small, but the micro photography message that the farmer was gumming to the backs of these bees would have to be microscopic!

Thirdly, surely the bee would (assuming it made it home) zoom straight into the hive for a well-deserved rest, wouldn’t it? How on earth do they get the message back? Dismantle the hive each night and check every individual bee for glued-on messages?

I am sure that you guys can imagine other difficulties the intended recipient would have in parting the delivery bee from his message, so please share!

The only thing that would probably never happen is that one of the bees would be found still with its message intact 70 years later! 🙂

Australian troops on their way to the front line trenches. 1918.

I thought this was quite a sad photo from World War I, I wonder how many of these ‘tired but grimly determined’ young men trudging their way to the front line in 1918 ever made it home.

It is unfortunate that there is no mention of the location where this photo was taken, it would really be interesting to know. A photo like this just brings up so many questions!

How far had these young men walked, and how far did they have to go before they made it to the front? How do you think the people who lived in the house in the background felt about the column of soldiers passing by?

Bendigonian 12 Sep 1918 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89091261

YMCA and coffee. 1917.

Here is a small extra post for those of you who mentioned the unusual last paragraph of my previous entry.

Warrnambool Standard 9 Aug 1917 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article73936453

The post was about strange snake stories but the last paragraph of the article noted that the YMCA had lost £110,000 worth of huts and equipment in the last offensive. Interesting, but not snaky at all.

Some of you commented about that and wondered what on earth was going on with them.

Well, I can report that the YMCA were not fighting in a previously unknown Australian civil war, nor were they dressed up Village People-style and battling while dancing in formation.

It appears that they were supporting allied troops while they were on their way to battle, this article states that they served coffee to 72 train loads of troops (60,000 men) in 1917.

Noble, but a bit of a let down. I really wanted to see the dancing battle. 😉

Message in a bottle. 1916.

Sending a message in a bottle is something we have all heard about. Of course if you do poke a note into a bottle and cork it tightly, you don’t really expect it to be delivered in a timely fashion to the addressee do you?

Well, in wartime soldiers often threw messages in bottles off the transport ships as they were steaming away from home as a last communication to their family or country.

It is hard to imagine what those soldiers felt as they tossed their note into the briny deep. Did they expect that their loved ones would actually get the message intended for them, or was it just a last farewell when they really didn’t expect to return?

Warrnambool Standard 11 Mar 1916 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article73872772

Surprisingly a fair few of those messages sent by bottle post did make it to dry land, there are a good many articles in the newspapers mentioning the discovery of them.

I suppose that once it became known that soldiers were sending messages this way beach goers would have been more inclined to look out for the washed up bottles.

I wonder if any bottles still containing the now-ruined messages are buried in sand dunes along the coast? I would be interested to know the amount of messages sent and the amount of messages that made it to shore.

I was also interested in the reference to the girl who had been caught masquerading as a soldier and sent home. It immediately bought to mind Monstrous Regiment, a book by the wonderful Terry Pratchett. No, don’t look it up on Wikipedia, just read it. (The Wikipedia entry is just one massive spoiler alert.)