Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Remembrance Day - 2007

It's a good thing that I drink black tea without sugar because I just discovered that it's unwise to try to put on a dressing gown in the dark while still holding the cup. Even if the cup is transferred from one hand to another there is still a very good chance that the contents will somehow spill on to your chest. Lucky for me the beverage had cooled down a bit.

It was a warm Remembrance Day yesterday, doubly enhanced in this house because we painted the door frames on the front and back doors and so couldn't close them for several hours.

Perth's crime wave continued. Three incidents caught my attention. Firstly there was a altercation between neighbours in one of our southern suburbs over some musical device being played too loudly. One of the neighbours then shot the other with a rifle. Presumably things quietened down after that. The second incident was at Cottesloe beach. A group of youths decided to settle their differences with knives. One of my daughters was at that beach, but didn't see the incident. The third was when someone set fire to a fortified den belonging the Coffin Cheaters motorcycle gang while some of the members were asleep inside. They escaped injury, but about a dozen Harley Davidson bikes were destroyed and the large building was extensively damaged.

Police reportedly said they didn't expect a biker war to start as a result of the incident. Hmmm. That's optimistic. One thing that is pretty certain about motorcycle gangs in this state is that they have long memories and never forgive what they consider outrageous attacks against them. Someone will eventually suffer horribly, that's for sure.

But primarily yesterday was Remembrance Day. The day when some Australians pause to reflect on the losses of WW1. Below is a short "History Snip" I wrote for Western Australian Army Cadets a couple of years ago:

The statistics of the Great War (1914 to 1918) are staggering.

The total casualties are estimated to have exceeded 37 million people,
comprising some 15 million deaths and perhaps 22 million wounded. About nine million of the deaths were of military personnel involving all the combatant nations.

According to the Australian War Memorial, from the Australian population of fewer than five million people, 300,000 men enlisted, of which over 60,000 were killed and 156,000 were wounded, gassed or taken prisoner. If we consider these figures for a moment, and include the unknown numbers who suffered post-traumatic stress after return to Australia, they equate to a casualty rate approaching seventy percent, or possibly higher.

But these figures pale against the estimated numerical losses of other
countries:

Britain – 703,000
USA – 117,000
Germany – 718,000
Austria – Hungary:1,200,000
Russia – 1,700,000
Turkey – 336,000

There were Remembrance Day services at the Kings Park and Fremantle War Memorials yesterday. We didn't go to either. Instead our youngest son (12 coming on 13) played The Last Post on his trumpet in our back garden at precisely 11 o'clock, then we stood quietly for a minute. A group of RAAF aircraft passed at low level almost over our house. They had just flown over the service at the Fremantle War Memorial.

Fremantle played a significant role during WW1 as an embarkation port for Australian troops. I wrote several "History Snips" about that period of Australian history for Army Cadets, and will occasionally include them in later Fremantlebiz entries. They are also available by email in their original format with illustrations - free from me on request.

Someone else we remembered yesterday was one of our former neighbours Mrs Young/Freeman. Her house was the one demolished across the road from us a few weeks ago. She now lives in a nearby nursing home. Mrs Young was the eleventh child of her family and was born at eleven o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918.

© MMVII Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.

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