June 1941 School Magazine

June, 1941

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

June, 1941

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

But to the school girl of nineteen forty-one "Anzac" has a more sombre meaning. We see around us the results of this valour and sacrifice of youth . We see men who were wound- ed, and who still bear the marks of bodily suffering. Many of our own fathers were Anzacs. At the Anzac Day Cere- monies, we have seen mothers weeping for sons who did not return, but it was not until after September, nineteen thirty-nine, that we fully realised and appreciated their grief . Before that, although we felt and shared their sorrow, we did not really comprehend; but now we have had our own dear ones on the age-old battle-fields of Greece and Africa, and we constantly carry a prayer in our hearts for them. Anxiously we wait for news, as did our parents and grand-parents twenty-six years ago. So once again Australians and New Zealanders shoulder arms side by side and once again they show the undaunted spirit of their fathers. In the hearts of those courageous young men-and they are courageous, for they know the atrocities of war, but it has made no difference to them - lies the same sentiment, which caused Henry Lawson to write these lines: "But whatever the quarrel, whoever her foes, Let them come, when they will, Though the struggle be grim; 'tis Australia that knows, That her children shall fight, while the waratah grows, And the wattle blooms out on the hill." -Dulcie McDonald, VI.

"ANZAC" If we were asked the meaning of Anzac, the correct answer would be, "'Anzac' is the name given to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and it is derived from the initial letters of these wordc." ' Yes, that would be the correct answer, but surely that is not all we would reply. Would we not be eager to impart more knowledge about the brave men, of whom we are all so proud, to this interested inquirer? and perhaps we would be a little incredulous to think that there was really someone who did not know of the glory and valour for which the word "Anzac" stands. The mention of Anzac brings to the mind of every Australian those brave eager young men who were carried by those grim battleships into the grey waters of Anzac Cove on that misty April morning twenty-six years ago, for it was there at Gallipoli that the name of Anzac became famous. Our hearts fill with pride when we think of those stalwart young men, all eager "to do their bit," and win the war for Britain. When they saw their comrades mowed down by showers of lead, like stalks of wheat before a hail-storm, their boyish eagerness was turned to grim determination . With stern, set faces they bore the trials and tribulations that awaited them on the rugged barren peninsula of Gallipoli. They fought on with the tenacity and endurance ior which they are admired and respected in the remotest corners of the earth. Then came the evacuation. Quietly and sadly they marched down to the black glistening waters that rippled along the pebbly beach, sad to leave their sleeping comrades, but eager once more to share in the glory of other battlefields. The Australians and New Zealanders fought side by side with soldiers of all the allied forces a-n_d they soon endeared themselves to the hearts of all with their quiet, witty humour, their dry cynicisms, and, above all, the carefree manner in which they attempted the most dangerous missions. Is it not strange that those representatives of the earth's youngest nation should have become so popular in the world's oldest cities? The Anzac, with his hat well on one side, and a carefree smile playing on his lips, left few corners of ancient Egypt unexplored. He .could be seen wandering through historic colonnades, or gazing with amused curiosity at the busy crowded bazaars . 22

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