Click on the house to
turn on its lights and
return to Veterans.
Among the reasons I march every ANZAC day is to pay homage to
those who died needlessly, including the 82 who drowned when the Voyager was cut in half by the Melbourne, most of them as young
as me when I attended their memorial service shortly afterwards.
I am particulary saddened by the horrific, needless deaths of
the sailors who died in
HMAS Voyager and HMAS Sydney,
As well as not being able to handle hearing the Last Post,
I cry whenever a female member of the navy band sings
'Abide With Me' to commemorate all those still trapped in the forward section of the Voyager as it went down.
Little better exemplifies needless deaths than the Battle of the Nek at Gallipoli (shown below) when 234 Australians were killed and 138 were wounded, mown down within minutes of charging into a hail of machine gun fire armed only wiith bayonets fixed to their rifles.
Those who charged were ordered to leave their magazines behind to prevent them stopping to fire their rifles.
Three waves went over the top before part of the fourth wave was prevented from following because someone realised that continuing the attack was madness and had the sense to stop the carnage.
Place the pointer over any image that has the ♫symbol attached
to hear appropriate music (which I'm still developing). If it doesn't
come on immediately increase the volume a touch
to unmute it.
♫
HMAS Voyager
Place the pointer over it to see what happened
when the Voyager turned the wrong way and
was cut in half by HMAS Melbourne.
Some of the survivors of HMAS Voyager, most of them
coated in furnace fuel oil. Place the pointer over
the image to hear 'Abide With Me'.
♫
♫
The Battle of the Nek. Place the pointer over it
to hear''And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda'.
HMAS Sydney
In WWII, the German raider Kormoran, disguised as a merchant ship, lured the captain of the Sydney into close range and sank her causing her entire crew to be lost. Place the pointer over it to see it in action against the Kormoran.
The loss of HMAS Sydney with her entire crew of 645 (shown above)
was Australia's worst naval disaster. Although the Sydney sank the Kormoran, 318 of Kormoran's crew survived, Conspiracy theories abound because of no Sydney survivors and a possible Japanese submarine involvement on the cusp of the attack on Pearl Harbour.
