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Vol. 46 No 4 (New Series) Summer 2016

THE GALLIPOLI GAZETTE

OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE GALLIPOLI MEMORIAL CLUB LTD

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL CELEBRATES 75 YEARS

The Australian War Memorial in Canberra which was opened on November 11 1941, has marked its 75th

anniversary.

The War Memorial was built to honour those who served in World War One and was opened during World War Two. It ranks among the world's great national monuments. AWM director Brendan Nelson said when the Memorial first opened, it was the closest thing many families had to visiting the site where a loved one died. "Travelling overseas was beyond the means of almost every Australian family," he said. Dr Nelson said the AMWs charter was to honour the memory of Australian soldiers and allow their legacies to live on. "We have a responsibility to tell their stories ... in means that are engaging and understandable to everyday Australians," he said. Continued page 9.

Inside this Issue

Australian War Memorial celebrates 75 Years 1

The Battle of Maryang San 4

Gallipoli: An unremarkable piece of land 7

Vietnam entertainment leader dies 8

Australian War Memorial continued……9-14

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On behalf of our Patron and Directors,

I extend our sincere best wishes to all

our Members for a Happy and Merry

Christmas and good luck and good

health for the coming year.

Stephen Ware

President

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Editorial……………

Remembrance Day this year had additional

significance as the 75th anniversary of the opening

of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

The Museum holds selections from the vast National Collection of war relics, official and private records, art, photographs, film, and sound that relate the story of the Australian nation's experience in world wars, regional conflicts, and international peacekeeping.

The Memorial forms the core of the nation's tribute to the sacrifice and achievement of the more than 102,000 Australian men and women who died serving their country, and to all those who served overseas and at home. A central commemorative area flanked by arched cloisters houses the names of the fallen on the bronze panels of the Roll of Honour. At the head of the Pool of Reflection, beyond the Flame of Remembrance, stands the towering Hall of Memory, with its interior wall and high dome clad in a six-million-piece mosaic and illuminated by striking stained-glass windows. Inside lies the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier, a symbolic national shrine.

War Historian C E W Bean decided during the Battle of Pozières that the men he saw and and their ordeals should not be forgotten. Researching the story took this Editor to the 5pm Last Post ceremony at the War Memorial, a moving daily event that is must for all Australians to attend.

Building of the War Memorial was hindered by the Depression but it was finally opened on November 11 1941, in the third year of next great campaign in which Australians served.

This edition looks at the War Memorial and at a visitor from Brisbane, the WW1 tank Mephisto which was captured by Australians in 1917 and shipped to Queensland.

We also look at the Dardanelles Campaign on WW1 and October marking the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Maryang Sang in the Korean War. It is one of the smaller conflicts Australian was involved in but one that has never been resolved.

In our ongoing look at war memorials around Australia we visit Ballarat and its memorials to the fallen.

GALLIPOLI MEMORIAL CLUB LIMITED

PATRON: Major General Arthur Fittock AO

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

PRESIDENT: Stephen Ware SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT: David Ford JUNIOR VICE PRESIDENT: Ted Codd HON. TREASURER: John Brogan

DIRECTORS:

John Robertson, Glenn Tetley, Scott Heathwood, Andrew Condon

EDITOR: Bob Lawrence

SECRETARY MANAGER: Margaret Brown

Club Ph: 9235 1533 Fax: 235 1582

Email: info@gallipoli.com.au

WWW.gallipoli.com.au

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The Battle of Maryang San October marked the 65th anniversary of Operation Commando in the Korean War. As part of this operation, the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment was ordered to take a vital hill known to the Australians as Hill 317. However, the Battle would become known by the hill’s local name, Maryang San. The Australian War Memorial recently paid tribute to the Australians who fought in this battle.

The Battle of Maryang San, is a lesser known conflict than the Battle of Kapyong, so featured little in Australian military history until the 1990’s when a resurgent interest in the Korean War brought this battle and the men who fought it some well-overdue attention. The battle has since gained more prominence, especially amongst the current battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment, as it is a near-perfect infantry assault.

What makes 3RAR’s achievements even more remarkable is that the battalion was in the middle of a major transition. Most of the original members of 3RAR had completed their year of service and left the battalion. Their replacements were a mixture of untried regular army soldiers, and K- Force men, some of whom were Second World War veterans. Each rifle company, usually numbering 120 men, was down to between 70 -90 men.

The northern side of Hills 355 and Maryang Sang (or Hill 317).

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hassett, who had only been in command of 3RAR since July, had done an admirable job in maintaining the battle-readiness of what he called a “mobile transit camp.” His planning of 3RAR’s impending battle was

masterful. Combining tactics learned against the Japanese during the Second World War with artillery, armour and air support, he gave his men every chance of success.

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However, the odds were stacked against 3RAR. Hassett’s assault force of about 320 faced the 2,000 strong Chinese 571st Regiment. One Chinese battalion of around 600-700 men, was dug in along the eastern spur line and would need to be overcome if the Australian’s were to capture Maryang San. The odds were over 2:1 against the Australians.

For Lieutenant Maurie Pears, aged 21, a Duntroon graduate, who had joined 3RAR in July 1951, this would be his first major battle and it would test him to his limits.

On October 4, Pears and 7 Platoon were in the vanguard of C Company’s attack to assist a British battalion in capturing Kowang San. Pears and his men overran two Chinese outposts in quick succession, but lost an entire section of men wounded by Chinese mortar fire. The now reduced platoon then pressed on and took the north-eastern end of Kowang San. The British battalion captured the south-west peak about the same time and linked up with C Company that afternoon.

Lt Maurie Pears MC (right) of the Royal Australian Regiment receives his Military Cross during the Reinforcement Holding Unit investiture parade in October 1951. He remained in service until May 1970 during which time he commanded the Corps of Staff Cadets RMC Duntroon 1966-68 and the 1st Bn Pacific Islands Regiment (PIR) 1968-70. He resigned to join CRA-Bougainville Copper Ltd. In retirement on Queensland's Gold Coast he was Project Manager for the construction of the Queensland Korean War Memorial and edited James Sinclair's History of the PIR, To Find a Path. He was author/compiler of the military documentaries “Korea Remembered” and “Battlefield Korea”. Maurie was a legendary poker player and in retirement set up PokerNetwork.com which was Australia's largest poker portal when he sold it. He was the Founder and First Chairman of the Australian Poker Hall of Fame (Photo: Philip Hobson: AWM)

In the early hours of October 5, A Company, supported by tanks, began a diversionary attack along the south-eastern spur below Maryang San, to draw Chinese attention from the eastern spur.

Almost simultaneously, B and D companies advanced through thick fog to the eastern spur. B Company became lost, but bad luck turned to good fortune when they captured Chinese positions on an adjacent hill known as Whiskey, thereby preventing the Australians being attacked from the rear as they advanced towards Maryang San.

D Company met heavy resistance and suffered casualties. But with support from British tanks and New Zealand artillery, the positions known as

Victor and Uniform were swiftly captured. D company, now numbering 35 men, was spent.

C Company, which had been ordered from their positions near Kowang San earlier in the day, was now ordered by Hassett to push through D Company and capture Maryang San. As Pears and his men advanced past their comrades at Uniform, the exhausted men of D Company clapped and cheered. Pears later recalled the emotions and pride that this stirred within him.

The next position called Baldy fell to another platoon of C Company before Pears and his men led the final assault up a hill that was so steep, they men crawled in places to reach Maryang San. With

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only brief resistance offered, the peak fell to the Australians at around 5pm. Pears and his much-reduced 7 Platoon had the honour of capturing two hills in 24 hours.

Next morning, 3RAR’s positions were further

strengthened when the position between Maryang San and the Hinge, known as 'Sierra', was taken by the third platoon in C Company. The surprise attack routed a Chinese company with heavy casualties.

Group portrait of non-wounded survivors of the 5th Platoon, B Company, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) after

the company was withdrawn from the line at the end of the Battle of Maryang San in October 1951. The 5th Platoon helped capture

the Hinge feature and held it through days of heavy shelling and human wave assaults (Photo: AWM)

The Hinge was captured by B Company in a dawn attack on October 7. Throughout the day, the Australians endured heavy Chinese artillery and mortar fire and were forced to keep their heads down.

That evening the Chinese guns went quiet and an ominous silence descended on the battlefield. Thirty minutes later, the silence was rent apart by the heaviest bombardment the Australians would

face in the Korean War. This presaged three massed-infantry attacks which fell on the Hinge and Sierra throughout the night and into the morning of October 8. Barely a company of Australians, supported by artillery, mortars and aircraft held out against these attacks and as dawn broke, the Chinese withdrew from the battlefield. 3RAR had overcome the odds and won a stirring victory.

THE GALLIPOLI MEMORIAL CLUB CREED WE BELIEVE….

that within the community there exists an obligation for all to preserve the special qualities of loyalty, respect, love of country, courage and comradeship which were personified by the heroes of the Gallipoli Campaign and bequeathed to all humanity as a foundation for perpetual peace and universal freedom

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Gallipoli: An Unremarkable Piece of Land

Attracting International Conquest

By Bruce McEwan

Few Australians realise that before the failed battle for Gallipoli by the ANZACS, this small part of planet

Earth had been fought over for thousands of years.

Ownership of the narrow peninsula running to the north of the Dardanelles has switched constantly, mostly because of its strategic importance.

Apart from being on the main trade route between Europe and Asia (it was part of the Silk Road), this protects the only maritime link to the Black Sea and the nations lining its shores.

Actually an Italian word borrowed from the Greeks, Gallipoli means "Beautiful City" and once known as the Thracian Chersonese, the 77.5km peninsula runs south-west between the Dardanelles (Hellespont) and Saros Bay (the Bay of Melas). At one time it was protected by a wall running 6.5km across its width. It also was the location of several Greek and Roman settlements over the centuries.

In the seventh century BC several Ancient Greek cities were built there, the only one that remains is the Greek settlement of Callipolis, now named Gelipoli, – the original target of the British invasion in World War I, that the military planners called Gallipoli. It is now a run-down village on the northern shore of the Dardanelles.

A major Athenian colony was established on the Peninsula in about 560BC but after the outbreak of

the Greco-Persian wars it was abandoned to the Persians in 493 BC. The Athenians eventually won back the territory. Sparta and Macedon also controlled the area for limited periods. It was ceded to Phillip II in 338BC but after the death of his son Alexander the Great, Alexander’s successors argued over this small piece of land. However, in 278 BC, Celtic tribes from Galatia in Asia Minor settled in the area. Then in 196 BC, the Seleucid King Antiochus III seized the peninsula. The Greeks sought the help of the Romans, who conquered the Thracian Chersonese, which they subsequently presented to Eumenes II of Pergamon in 188 BC. At the end of the Attalid dynasty it passed in 133 BC back to the Romans, who from 129 BC administered it in the Roman province of Asia.

It became part of the Eastern Roman Empire from 330 AD but in 443 AD, Attila the Hun invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula during one of the last stages of his campaign that year. He captured both Callipolis (Gallipoli) and the neighbouring town of Sestus, while eliminating a significant portion of the Eastern Roman Army. Aside from a brief period from 1204 to 1235, when it was controlled by the

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Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire ruled the territory until 1356.

During the night of March 1, 1354, a powerful earthquake destroyed the city of Gallipoli and its defending walls. Subsequently, in 1356, the peninsula became the first part of Europe to fall to the Ottoman Empire, which used it as a major base for raids into territories further afield.

Turks from Anatolia, the Asiatic side of the straits, made Gallipoli the first Ottoman position in Europe and the staging area for their expansion across the Balkans. It was recaptured for Byzantium by the Savoyard Crusade in 1366, but the beleaguered Byzantines were forced to hand it back in September 1376. The Greeks living there were allowed to remain. In the 19th century, Gallipoli was a district in the Vilayet of Adrianople, with about thirty thousand inhabitants comprising Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Jews.

In March 1854, British and French engineers constructed, a line of defence seven miles long to protect the peninsula from a possible Russian attack and so keep control of the route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

Then in that same year, Gallipoli became a major base for British and French forces during the Crimean War. These allies used the protected harbour as a stopping-off point on the route to Constantinople, the actual strategic target of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign in WWI.

The principal proponent of this failed Turkish expedition, Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was universally condemned for his role and it was decades before his reputation was restored during the WWII Battle against Germany’s Nazi regime.

Vietnam Entertainment Leader Dies

Bob Francis, an Adelaide radio announcer for 50 years who used his industry contacts to help organise groups of entertainers to perform annually for allied troops during the Vietnam War, died on November 12 aged 77. He was the on-stage host of the performances at a range of temporary stages erected at bases in various parts of South Vietnam. Francis began his career as an announcer on Radio 5AD, rising to Chief Executive of the top rating broadcaster. He left management roles and returned to air with competitor 5AA where he became a controversial 'shock-jock' for over 20 years. In 2005, Francis was inducted into the Australian Radio Hall. Throughout his career he

raised large sums for Adelaide charities.

Group portrait of members of the entertainment troupe, 'The Carousels', and their Army escort receiving 'in appreciation' certificates awarded by the United States Military Assistance Command. Identified from left to right, back row: Royal Australian Army Escort Officer, Major Brian Alexander Gosman; Peter McCormack; Robert (Bob) Francis; David Fulton; Phillip Cuneen. Front row: Irene Petrie; Denise Brandon; unidentified; Sharyn McKenzie; Deidre McKenzie.

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Continued from page 1 (Australian War Memorial Celebrates 75 years)

Sharply etched grandeur and dignity in its stylised Byzantine profile, contrast with a distinctively Australian setting among lawns and eucalypts, at the head of a wide ceremonial avenue: ANZAC Parade. Kangaroos, occasionally straying from nearby bushy hills, add to the physical impact. The Memorial is more than a monument. Inside the sandstone building with its copper-sheathed dome, selections from vast national collections of relics, personal and public records, art and media are employed to relate the story of a young nation's experience in world wars, regional conflicts and international peacekeeping. The story begins at the time sailing ships first brought European settlers, convicts and military from England in 1789 - and extends to the present.

The complex, its contents and wide-ranging activities, form the core of the nation's tribute to the sacrifice and achievement of more than 100,000 Australian men and women who died serving their country and to those who served overseas and at home. A central commemorative area surrounded by arched alcoves but open to the sky, houses the names of the fallen - on the bronze panels of the Roll of Honour. At the head of the Pool of Reflection, beyond the Flame of Remembrance, stands the towering Hall of Memory, with its interior wall and high dome clad in a six-million-piece mosaic. Inside lies the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier - an official war grave and national shrine.

Conception

Many a man lying out there at Pozières or in the low scrub at Gallipoli, with his poor tired senses barely working through the fever of his brain, has thought in his last moments: 'Well - well - it's over; but in Australia they will be proud of this.' (Charles Bean)

After the anguish of Gallipoli, the Australians of the 1st AIF (Australian Imperial Force) and their official war correspondent, Charles Bean, moved on to the greater horrors of the Western Front in France and

Belgium. The Australians' first big battles were at Fromelles and Pozières, in July 1916. Bean was immediately appalled by the sufferings of the men. He wrote in his diary:

Pozières has been a terrible sight all day ...

One knew that the Brigades which went in last night were there today in that insatiable factory of ghastly wounds. The men were simply turned in there as into some ghastly giant mincing machine. They have to stay there while shell after huge shell descends with a shriek close beside them - each one an acute mental torture - each shrieking tearing crash bringing a promise to each man - instantaneous - I will tear you into ghastly wounds - I will rend your flesh and pulp an arm or a leg - fling you half a gaping quivering man (like these that you see smashed around you one by one) to lie there rotting and blackening like all the things you saw by the awful roadside, or in that sickening dusty crater. Ten or twenty times a minute every man in the trench has that instant fear thrust tight upon his shoulders - I don't care how brave he is - with a crash that is a physical pain and a strain to withstand.

A month later, the idea of a memorial museum for the Australians was born, as Bean's confidant A.W. Bazley later recalled:

I remember in August 1916 when after his busy days tramping the Pozières battlefield and visiting units in the line he would roll out his blankets on the chalk firestep of the old British front line ... on the edge of Becourt Wood and Sausage Gully. We used to sleep feet to head - C.E.W.Bean., Padre Dexter, myself and others - and although I cannot recall the actual conversations today I do remember that on a number of occasions he talked about what he had in his mind concerning some future Australian war memorial museum. (A.W. Bazley)

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The Australian War Memorial under construction in the 1930s

The Founding Fathers

Two men above all others moulded the Australian War Memorial: Charles Bean, Australia's Official Historian of the First World

War, and John Treloar, the Director of the Memorial between 1920 and 1952. Charles Bean (1879-1968) was born in NSW but grew

up largely in England. He returned to Australia and worked as a journalist and in 1914 was chosen by the journalists' association as official war correspondent. Bean went ashore at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and for the rest of the war stayed close to the soldiers in the front line. As well as lobbying for the creation of the Australian War Memorial, he was appointed to edit the 12-volume Official History of Australia in the war of 1914-1918; he wrote six of the volumes himself, completing the last in 1942.

War Historian C E W Bean working on official files in his Victoria Barracks office during the writing of the Official History. The files on his desk are probably the Operations Files, 1914-18 War, that were prepared by the Army between 1925 and 1930 and are now held by the Australian War Memorial.

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John Treloar (1894-1952) contributed more

than any other person to the realisation of

Bean's idea. Treloar, who came from

Melbourne, also landed at Gallipoli on 25 April

1915. In 1917, as a captain, he was appointed

to head the newly created Australian War

Records Section (AWRS) in London,

responsible for collecting records and relics for

the future museum and to help the Official

Historian in his work. After the war Treloar

devoted his life to the Memorial, and had

influence over every aspect of its

development. Appointed Director of the

Memorial in 1920, he remained in this position

for the rest of his life (apart from a period in

charge of the Military History and Information

Section (MHIS) during the Second World War.

Lieutenant Colonel J.L. Treloar, Officer-in-charge of the Military History and Information Section.

Building the Collection

The Australian War Records Section (AWRS)

was set up in 1917 to ensure that Australia

would have its own collection of records and

relics of the great war being fought. Treloar

devoted himself especially to improving the

quality of the unit war diaries which recorded

the action of each unit day by day, and to

ensuring that after the war the Official

Historian would have a well ordered collection

of the diaries and supplementary material to

work from.

Others, such as Sid Gullett and Ernie Bailey,

went out into the field to collect 'relics'

(material evidence of the conflict). At the same

time orders were given to the common soldiers

to do their bit of collecting for the projected

museum, and in this way 25,000 relics, many of

which can be seen today in the Memorial's

First World War galleries, were gathered

together.

Bean and Treloar also arranged for the

appointment of official artists and

photographers.

There were 18 official artists, the best known

being Will Dyson, George Lambert and Arthur

Streeton. Bean's official photographers

included two adventurers, Frank Hurley and

Hubert Wilkins. Hurley had been to the

Antarctic with both Mawson and Shackleton,

while Wilkins had been to the Arctic and in

1912 had filmed the Balkan War with the

Turkish army. Bean was insistent that art and

photography should show the war as it was,

not an idealised version.

The Melbourne and Sydney Exhibitions

After the war, it took a long time before the

Memorial's building in Canberra was

constructed. Initially there were delays in

arousing public and government enthusiasm.

Then the Depression intervened. In the

meantime large long-running exhibitions were

held in Melbourne and Sydney. The 'Australian

War Museum' opened on ANZAC Day 1922 in

the Exhibition Building, Melbourne. This

exhibition of war relics was enthusiastically

received by press and public and attracted

large crowds. The exhibition closed in 1925 and

was moved to Sydney, where it remained until

1935.

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A Permanent Home

In 1918 Bean had this conception of how the Memorial would appear:

on some hill-top - still, beautiful, gleaming white and silent, a building of three parts, a centre and two wings. The centre will hold the great national relics of the A.I.F. One wing will be a gallery - holding the pictures that our artists painted and drew actually on the scene and amongst the events themselves. The other wing will be a library to contain the written official records of every unit.

In the event, the design of the Australian War

Memorial was a compromise between desire

for an impressive monument to the fallen and

a budget of only £250,000. An architectural

competition in 1927 failed to produce a

satisfactory single design for the building. Two

of the entrants in the competition, Sydney

architects Emil Sodersteen and John Crust,

were encouraged to submit a joint design,

incorporating Sodersteen's vision for the

building and Crust's concept of cloisters to

house the Roll of Honour. The joint design was

accepted, and forms the basis of the building

we see today.

The Post-War Years

As Australia entered the Second World War, the Memorial in Canberra was still not complete, and was still intended to be devoted solely to the First World War. As it became apparent that the new war was comparable in scale even with the Great War, it became almost inevitable that the scope of the Memorial should be extended. In 1941 the Government extended the Memorial's charter to include the Second World War. In 1952 it was extended again to include all Australia's wars. With the inclusion of the Gulf

War and of peacekeeping operations, the Memorial in the 1990s must remain ready to respond to new events. During the Second World War a Military History and Information Section (MHIS) was set up, once again under the charge of John Treloar. A more mobile war made collecting difficult, and the Memorial's Second World War collection has never quite matched that of the first. Bean wrote to Treloar urging the collection of evocative relics:

The kind of relic that would stir me to the marrow is, say, a section of the original Kokoda trail, …part of the charred wharf from Darwin; …a uniform taken from a man after a muddy jungle fight.

How exactly a 'section of the original Kokoda trail' could have been collected is hard to say. In the event, the Memorial, which was still run by First World War veterans, remained predominantly a First World War museum. Once again, extensive collections of art, photographs and film were assembled. Other areas were less lucky: during the 1950s, for instance, many of the Memorial's fine

collection of Second World War aircraft were disposed of, a number being sold for scrap. Space was a major problem. The building had been designed to display relics of the First World War only. It was not until 1971 that the eastern and western wings were added, finally allowing room for adequate display of Second World War material.

Commemoration

From the beginning, Bean had hoped that the

Memorial would incorporate a Roll of Honour,

listing all the Australian dead of the war. Originally

this was intended to be inside the Hall of Memory,

and Bean even hoped to include a photograph of

each man. The list would be arranged by town of

origin, so that visitors to the Memorial could easily

find the names of all the dead from their own town.

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The scale of the casualties and the cost constraints

imposed on the building defeated these plans.

John Crust's most important contribution to the

building's design was the beautiful and moving

idea of placing the Roll in cloisters around a central

courtyard. But long delays ensued, and by the time

the Roll of Honour was completed in 1959 it had

become a list of Australia's dead in all wars,

arranged (for administrative simplicity) by units

rather than towns. There was certainly no room for

photographs. But the Roll remains an impressive

achievement. This vast list of names serves to

remind us of the equality and individuality of every

one of the dead, commemorating not the sacrifice

of a nameless mass but the tragic loss of each well-

loved man or woman among this great number.

The Hall of Memory was also completed in 1959,

but had ceased to have an obvious purpose except

to inspire contemplation. In the early years the

proposal was sometimes made that Australia, like

other countries, should have a Tomb of the

Unknown Soldier. Bean and Treloar resisted this,

fearing that such an edifice might compete with

the Memorial. In 1993, however, it was decided to

create such a Tomb as part of the Memorial itself,

and to place it in the Hall of Memory. In this way

two forms of commemoration, of one anonymous

individual together with a great mass of named

men and women, would be combined. On

Remembrance Day 1993 the remains of a soldier

killed on the battlefields of the Western Front

during WW1 were placed in a marble-covered

tomb in the Hall of Memory. The event - regarded

as the biggest and most significant staged by the

institution since opening - attracted generous

national coverage and interest. The four pillars

erected at the same time symbolise the four

elements of earth, air, fire and water.

Guiding Ideas

In keeping with the sombre commemorative tone

of the Memorial, Bean was from the start

concerned that it should not be seen to be

glorifying war or triumphing over the enemy. He

urged Treloar and others not to speak about

'trophies', preferring the quasi-religious term

'relics' instead; this is still the common usage at the

Memorial. He also urged that captions and text

should not refer to 'the enemy', or use derogatory

terms such as 'the Hun' or 'Abdul': 'German' and

'Turk' were to be preferred.

Later, in the 1950s, Bean drew up a list of principles

of exhibition, suggesting among other things that

the galleries should 'avoid glorification of war and

boasting of victory', but also should 'avoid

perpetuating enmity … for both moral and national

reasons and because those who have fought in

wars are generally strongest in their desire to

prevent war.' In general, the former enemies

should be treated as generously as were

Australians. The exhibitions also needed to be

made interesting, for example, by presenting relics

as objects with their own story rather than as just

examples of a type. Bean also thought of the

future: 'exhibits [should be] so described and

displayed as to be understood and interesting

seventy-five years after the events.'

Some of these issues became an area of dispute in

the early 1950s when some swords surrendered by

Japanese generals at the close of the Second World

War were taken off display, as being tokens of

surrender and thus violating the principle that the

Memorial should not be in any way a monument to

victory. After a public outcry, however, the swords

were put back on display, and can be seen today in

the Pacific gallery.

In the 1990s the Memorial has set out to formalise

its guiding principles in a set of policy documents,

such as the Acquisition and disposal policy and the

Exhibition policy.

Through the Eighties

In 1980 the Memorial became a separate authority

(previously it was merely a part of a government

department) with a new Act which gave it much

greater powers to manage its own affairs. This was

one of the catalysts for a period of major progress

and growth which continues today.

In the early 1980s a conscious effort was made to

improve the funding and staffing of the Memorial,

the levels of which had fallen well below what was

needed. Within a few years staff numbers had

increased from around 100 to over 200, and

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funding to support new and existing programs was

substantially increased.

This enabled the Memorial to embark on initiatives

such as increasing its impact and scholarly profile

in the area of Australian military history. A

Research Grants Scheme was set up to foster

original research in the field, the annual history

conference was instituted, to bring together all

those interested in the field and to give a forum for

the discussion of new ideas. At the same time, a

considerable publication program was developed.

A program of gallery refurbishment was

undertaken during the 1980s starting with the

Gallipoli Gallery's opening in 1984. The opening

was attended by 240 Gallipoli veterans. This was

followed by the opening of galleries

commemorating recent conflicts such as Korea and

Vietnam.

At the same time, the Memorial became more

professional in many other ways. Senior curators

were recruited to care for the collection and

improve professionalism; the Conservation Section

expanded to provide world-class facilities and

highly qualified staff to ensure the collection's

preservation; collection management practices

using modern computer technology were

introduced; and a greatly expanded education

program was instituted to bring the Memorial's

message to an ever increasing number of children

and adults.

The Memorial Today

Additional government funding in the last few years has enabled the Memorial to build up-to-date facilities at the Treloar Centres at Mitchell to house the large part of our collection not able to be displayed in the galleries. A major fund raising program has been introduced which is seeking funding from private and corporate sources to supplement what we receive from government, to enable the Memorial to undertake projects that would otherwise have not been possible. A significant beneficiary of the fund raising has been Gallery Development which set a fund raising target of $20 million. In 1995 the Gallery Master Plan was endorsed by Council, an extensive program to revitalise the galleries. The work has included major changes to the layout of the

galleries - making them more accessible through a centrally planned information space - and the development of new exhibitions to replace existing ones. Emphasis was placed on making maximum use of the Memorial's collection in combination with modern exhibition technologies and resources. The redeveloped galleries, Research Centre and Sculpture Garden were officially opened by Prime Minister John Howard on the 11th March 1999. In June 2001 the construction of ANZAC Hall, was completed. It houses the Memorial's collection of large technology items. Undoubtedly, the Memorial's staff take pride in working for an institution which in many ways lives up to Charles Bean's vision of 'the finest monument ever raised to any army".

Visit the War Memorial website: www.awm.gov.au

The War Memorial has a Friends of the Memorial group. Membership offers an opportunity to support this great institution. Member generosity helps people to remember and understand the Australian experience of war, by assisting in the acquisition, and preservation, of items for the Memorial's collection. The special Friends only activities provide members with an insider's view of the Memorial's exhibitions and galleries. People can join as an individual, a pair or a family. A family membership can include up to two adults and any children under 16 years of age living at the same address. Clubs and organisations are also welcome to join.

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