Creation of a myth

Press, 26 August 1978, Page 15

Creation of a myth

Letters From Gunner 7/516 and Gunner 7/517. Edited by Barbara Harper. Anchor Communications Ltd, Wellington. 48 pp. $4.20. Anyone who has seen an old copy of “Boy’s Own Paper” will recognise the tone of these letters written by an upper crust Canterbury machinegunner who served in Gallipoli and the Near East in the First World War. They are highly instructive. Here is how the reality of war was dressed up for home consumption. The craw’ling, bloated putrescence of stinking flesh, left in the open for

three weeks, becomes "the fallen.” Venereal disease, enteric fever, dysentery, lice and sores become “camp complaints.” A useless, costly and chaotic assault becomes “another phase of the great battle.” Gallantry with the bayonet is stressed. Yet, as John Keegan’s book on what really happened in battle has indicated, the bayonet accounted for a mere 0.03 per cent of casualties in the First World War. The chief merit of this publication, then, is that it shows the ANZAC myth at the moment of its creation. — MICHAEL PUGH.