The further in time we come from the world wars of last century, the closer we seem to get to the terrible experiences of those who fought. The reason for that is the diaries they left, two of which feature today. We read them through the eyes and hearts of their descendants. Olympic gymnast Angela Walker tells a story from of her father's WW2 diaries which she found in a dusty box three years after his death. Herald journalist Jamie Morton writes of his great-grandfather's ordeals in the trenches as described in his diary and his letters home.
The diaries and letters were written by men of generations that did not often share their experiences with those who were not there. Among themselves, they probably did not have to explain very much. They all knew the horror, fear, boredom and drudgery of military service. Bravery was not a quality they claimed. Duty, comradeship, death and survival were the qualities they knew.
The generations that grew up knowing these men sensed all this and did not press them too hard for war stories. Their diaries and letters were treasured but perhaps not often read. Many of them were preserved in official archives and provide much of the material for books that continue to be published for war anniversaries. The letters and diaries have been staple Anzac Day fare for newspapers for a long time but each generation reads them with a fresh perspective.
Today we read them in an age more emotionally open and honest. The gaps in their taciturn accounts can be filled with fellow feeling. This is something that would have been harder to do when they were still alive.
In an extract from a book on her father Ian, Walker describes last two perilous mission as a tail gunner in an RAF bomber in 1941, culminating in a crash landing in Belgium that he survived to be taken prisoner. Morton's story focuses on a chess set his great- grandfather carved from willow in the trenches to help his unit distract themselves during the day between attacks at night.
