My Great Grandfather fought at Gallipoli. He was Lt Col. Stanley Holm Watson and the very special thing is that I knew him. He lived through the war, Gallipoli, the Western front and then also was in Intelligence in WWII. Then worked in the railways and retired and I knew him as an old man.
He never spoke of the war and just said it was terrible. He accepted that we learnt German at School and that my sister was to be a German teacher, but he could never come to peace with the Japanese after the war. Ironically now my sister is also a teacher of Japanese.
He said to a colleague later at a reunion (apparently) that the most fearful thing he ever did at Gallipoli was defuse a Turkish bomb to use the casing as a pile driver to build the pier, under fire, that they then landed boats at and unloaded stuff. The pier was named Watson's Pier in his honour. He was a Sapper. An engineer, a problem solver on the ground amidst battle. He was said to be the second last person to leave the beach when they evacuated, the last being the beach commander.
I have not been to Gallipoli but I have been to the western front where Grandpa fought after Gallipoli. His memoirs of the Western Front refer to Gallipoli all the way through.. how much of a differnce one was to the other. One a total management mess, the other much more organised and strategically, deliberately managed. Ie they were on the right place...
When I was at Villers Bretteneaux last year it was an amazing sight. Battlefields and graves as far as you can see. It seems that despite the losses those running the campaign seemed quite pleased with it at the time. Very different to the political correctness attitude about it all these days. I find that interesting.
He hated "Gallipoli" the film and it was the only time I saw him lose his temper and get furious. "Load of RUBBISH!" he declared. "It wasn't anything like that at all". I think being a man of that time and generation they just got on with it and did the job, emotions suppressed. The emotional outpouring and exploring one's feelings is something of the contemporary world. Not something of those days or that generation at all. Were they to do that that they couldn't do their job. Thus the departure from reality and the reflective nature of the documentaries, films and entertainments of war.
Read on:
http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A120452b.htm?hilite=stanley%3Bwatson
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