Anzac Salute

Australian Sacrifice Sustained A Little French Town

Shrine of Remembrance. Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

The main street, called Rue de Melbourne isn’t in Melbourne, my hometown. The Victoria School isn’t in the state of Victoria, where I live.

They’re both in a French town called Villers Bretonneux. There in the school, the students still sing the haunting lyrics of Waltzing Matilda, the old Australian national anthem.


Yes, little French children sing the Australian words "billabong", "coolibah tree", "jumbuck" and "swagman". Emblazoned prominently around their school are several signs that say: "Do not forget Australia."

The Australian flag flies over this town. It is a fitting gesture of respect, for the Australian flag once flew over this town after a terribly bloody battle.


The story goes back to the northern hemisphere spring of 1918. German troops captured Villers-Bretonneux on 23 April and two Australian brigades were ordered to retake the town before the Germans pushed towards Amiens.

The attack began late on the night of 24 April and by dawn the next day the Australians controlled the town. But almost 1200 Diggers had fallen during the battle.


Publishing this salute to history and sacrifice is especially significant today, for it is exactly 91 years to the day that the Australians liberated the town. And for about five hours after this auto-posts on my site, hundreds of people, young and old, will be gathering in reverence and in silence here in Melbourne, at the Shrine of Remembrance.

Today is Anzac Day and the traditional dawn service will honour all those who laid down their lives to ensure our freedom.


Visit TNChick's Photo Hunt. Today's theme: "Protection''.

Soldiering On

Commemoration Of A Short But Treasured Life

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Making the most of the photo opportunities during a trip to the west coast, I took this shot just as I was leaving Kings Park in Perth, last Sunday. It was a scorching hot day with the mercury hovering close to the 100 Fahrenheit mark and after spending about an hour in the sprawling 400-hectare park (that’s about 1000 acres) I was keen to find some shade when I spotted this sight.

Commemorative trees for soldiers have an interesting history here in Australia. About 20 years ago, while driving from Melbourne to Adelaide, we passed through Ballarat and I noticed little plaques beside a long row of trees on each side of the Western Highway.

The next time we did the trip, I measured the distance and was surprised to discover that the Avenue of Honour, as it is called, stretched for more than 20 kilometres. It is by far the longest of its kind in any Australian city or town.

Each tree was planted in honour of a Ballarat citizen who volunteered for active service, with a plaque bearing a cross for each one killed in action. I did a rough calculation based on the estimated distance between each tree and I have to admit that I was astounded by the result.

I estimated about 3500 trees, but I researched this calculation yesterday and found that the official figure is almost 3800 trees.

This solitary tree, on the other side of the country, is living testament to a much-loved son killed in 1918, in the last months of World War I. He was not just a son of the family whose surname he shared, but a son of this nation as well.

Visit TNChick's Photo Hunt. Today's theme: "Aftermath".

Soar Point

Alas, The Triplane Ain't My Plane

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Last week, I was in Alaska for a few hours, taking the Top Of The World Highway back down into Canada and the Yukon. We pulled into Chicken, which is less than 40 miles from the border at Poker Creek, fo a quick lunch stop.

There I watched a man on a quad bike traverse a flat area near the picnic gazebo. Behind him on the bike he had three children, and one of them was flying this beautiful kite. Its bright colours caught my eyes, but I didn't immediately realise that the kite was in the shape of a World War I triplane.

It was so evocative of the Charles M. Schulz cartoons of Snoopy with his leather helmet, picturing himself as a World War I air ace, taking to the skies against the Red Baron.

Before I could approach the group to ask if the kite was home-made, the father left on the quad bike, blowing kisses and calling out "Love you" to the children.

Unfortunately, strangers can no longer approach children and strike up a conversation with them. But as they ran as fast as their legs would carry them, the kite bobbing up and down in the clear sky behind them, I was able to take these shots with my 300mm lens.

What I really wanted to tell them was to follow their dreams. To tell them that I was a kid once. To tell them that I used to fly kites. To tell them that I dreamed about becoming a novelist. To tell them that when I wrote my first novel, it would include a short but significant segment about a child flying a kite.

More than anything else, I wanted to tell the children in Chicken, Alaska, that dreams can come true, just as the human spirit can soar.

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