A virtual flyover/walk-through of new Anzac memorial in Queensland. / Memorial Project Committee
"The tune and scene ... brought tears to my eyes and yet, as we listened, we felt that they and we could go through anything."
The words of a soldier from the Bay of Plenty afer encountering the Māori Battalion singing a hymn at Gallipoli will echo on at a $3m Australian memorial being built in Queensland.
A recording made from part of Kiwi soldier Harry Browne's account of the campaign will form part of the memorial military trail in the small Australian town of Maryborough.
The hymn he experienced and wrote about - Auē e Ihu (Jesus Lover of My Soul) - was sung by the Māori Battalion before battle and will also be played as part of a multimedia experience.
Browne, later a part of the small band which fought to the top of the Sari Bair range and briefly held the summit, eloquently described how all within earshot at Gallipoli stood silent to hear the 25 tenors in the contingent, led by their chaplain.
His account was written in hospital while Browne was recovering from a leg wound sustained in the August offensive. In the account, he described the hymn sung in te reo and how it steeled contigent for the fighting which followed
"My squadron stood round silent, listening intently. There was something pathetic about the tune and scene that brought tears to my eyes and yet, as we listened, we felt that they and we could go through anything with that beautiful influence behind us."
An inspection of the work in progress. Photo / Supplied
Head of the memorial project committee Nancy Bates said the trail was designed to tell the story of the Anzacs through the soldiers' own experiences.
"We set out to ensure visitors would be 'engaged, informed and affected', with the opportunity to delve more deeply into aspects of the war or personal stories."
Bates has spent four years of her retirement as president of the Queen's Park Military Trail Project Committee, working under Maryborough RSL, to complete the project.
She had personal motivations for wanting Browne's story included. She was originally from the Bay of Plenty, as was the New Zealand trooper.
Browne, who served in the Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment, was born in Whakatane in 1887. He moved to Wellington with his family in the early 1900s, where he worked as a baker until war broke out in 1914.
Browne was wounded in the battle of Chanuk Bair and wrote his account of the battle while recovering in hospital.
His account was woven into what Bates called a "coherent, chronological journey" through WWI.
The memorial project began as fundraising for a single statue of the first Anzac ashore at Gallipoli, Duncan Chapman, who was from Maryborough.
A statue of Duncan Chapman, the first Anzac ashore at Gallipoli. Photo / Supplied
It turned into a depiction of the man himself, the boat he went ashore in, the towering cliffs of Gallipoli and the military trail.
"When the community raised funds for the statue of Duncan Chapman to be installed in Queen's Park in time for the centenary of Anzac, we realised many of us had only a hazy knowledge of what happened to the original Anzacs," Bates said.
"We knew bits and pieces, some of it myth and some misconstrued, but it was difficult to get a coherent, chronological overview without tackling some weighty books or becoming bogged down in military speak."
