Air Marshal Bruce Ferguson: Speech to dawn service at Anzac Cove

Opinion

Exactly ninety years ago this morning, our countries embarked on a military mission on this very ground that over the next eight months, was to combine extreme tragedy, gallantry, occasional inspired leadership at the lower levels, gross incompetence at the strategic levels, endurance, cruelty, and compassion. Above all, it was to rob our respective countries of much of our youth and destroy our innocence.

But it was also to give us this day, on which we commemorate many things, but mostly pride in those young, and not so young, men who came here, and lost their lives; and for those who survived – in most cases losing their ability to ever lead a normal life again.

None of us here this morning can ever really conceive of the hell-on-earth that this place was, for all involved, over eight months. We must never forget that, while New Zealand lost 2,700 men killed; Australia some 8,700; British forces over 21,000; the French 10,000; the Turks, who were defending their homeland, lost nearly 87,000.

Those eight months were a defining time in the life of our two nations; side-by-side our men fought unrelentingly; side-by-side they grew in respect for their Turk opponents; side-by-side they grew critical of the high command and of the British strategy. In those eight months, the men of our two nations developed a sense of independence and confidence, that as soldiers they were the equal of any, friend or foe.

It is that sense of national self-confidence, which embeds Gallipoli in the national psyche of Australia and NZ. We could argue that, as the statistics show, Gallipoli was in fact only the precursor of a larger, more painful ordeal by fire.

On the Western Front for the next three years, our nations' soldiers lost more comrades than in any other conflict. Even in all our battles spread across the globe during the far larger Second World War, NZ and Australia never experienced the concentrated losses that we suffered on the Western Front. It is no coincidence that the Unknown Warrior of each nation was brought home from the battlefields of France.

Yet Anzac Day remains pre-eminent in our historical memory. Perhaps that is because there are so many lessons still to be taken from this day and this campaign.

We can take deserved pride from the gallantry of our men, but we must also look behind it; there was no glory 90 years ago; rather we look back now and see the tragedy of their sacrifice. Indeed, as we look back now, we see the folly of the high command of the time. Our military professionals today see in this campaign, joint warfare at its worst, at least from the British side: lack of coordination, lack of focus, blunders, and the squandering of life. Perhaps the Gallipoli campaign was the high water mark of our nations' imperial subservience.

We have learned valuable lessons from that experience; no commander today will risk young lives needlessly. Even in the Second World War our national formations were committed to battle only with due consideration; General Freyberg commanding the 2nd NZ Division in the Desert and Italy, consistently monitored the casualty rates, not hesitating to call off the battle if the cost rose too high, as he did just before the final assault on Monte Cassino in 1944. General Freyberg was himself a Gallipoli veteran, winning the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry. His abhorrence of the tragic waste of Gallipoli served New Zealand well in the later War. There are parallels too in the Australian military experience. Brigadier John Monash is a prime example. Colonel Mustafa Kemal, later to become President Ataturk, the first President of Modern Turkey, was another.



Just think of what our countries may have been like today, had those tens of thousands of young ANZACs not died on foreign soils, but had lived their lives normally; and created a future generation of their own. Those young men were the adventurers of our nations. They were the Rhodes Scholars, or the mineworkers or gum diggers; they were the young businessmen, and the farmers. They were sometimes straight from school. They were all volunteers in the service of their country. They were the very stuff around whom nations garner their strength and determine their future. But they were never to be given that chance.

Their lasting legacy is that they laid down a challenge to the people of our nations who survived them. As Dr John McCrae wrote some two years later in France:

"To you, from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow, in Flanders fields"

For all of us here this morning, that is our challenge.

Look around you now. This is where the ANZAC legend started. Later this morning, many of you will be at Lone Pine, or Chunuk Bair. Those are the places that really deserve to be remembered as the foundations of ANZAC. The Australians who took and held for a time Lone Pine, and the New Zealanders who captured Chunuk Bair, only to have it re-taken some 4 days later. These ANZACs were the bravest of the brave, fighting in appalling conditions against an equally brave and determined enemy.

Their courage, determination, endurance, and perhaps above all, their selfless commitment to not letting their mates down; are the touchstones that we must ensure are never lost or forgotten.

A young New Zealander probably summed up the thoughts of all fighting men on both sides when he wrote home, having just seen his best friend shot:

"I didn't cry, unless Gallipoli was one long cry. If you cried once, you'd never stop. There were friends going every day and sometimes every hour of the day, wonderful friends. I grieved inwardly. That was all you could do. As a war went on you could forget the death of a very fine friend in five minutes".

Today our ANZACs are serving our countries in many locations around the world. From Iraq to Afghanistan; from Kosovo to Cambodia; from Sierra Leone to the Solomons. New Zealanders and Turks served side-by-side in Bosnia, and again in Afghanistan.

And, it is no longer just men who are the ANZACs. Our women are fully represented in most of our deployments. They stand into danger with equal commitment to their mates and their countries. The Anzacs of today may come from a different background; certainly are more questioning of their destiny; may be more cynical of leadership (although that is questionable!); but I will wager that they have the same base values of our forebears. And they would equally suffer the trials of our ancestors should they ever be called upon to do so. I am certain that the youth of this country, of whom we are all guests today, would do the same.

As today progresses, all of us will learn something more of our heritage. By simply being here we are already doing that. This land is sacred to all nations whose men fought and died here. Australia and New Zealand realised the high water mark of Imperial subservience; we learned that we must shake off the shackles of colonial dependence; we must stand for what we believe in; and we must be prepared to defend our ideals whatever the cost.

And the modern Turkey was borne here.