Premier's Anzac Memorial Scholarship Tour 2016

Poetry

 

Battlefields

 

Fromelles was the blackest battle

From trenches across no-man’s land

Australians ran into heavy gunfire

A chance they never did stand

 

The Germans won this battle

They mowed the allies down

They defended the Western Front

No allied victory was found

 

The horror was indescribable

Pozieres was densely sewn

With more sacrifice of Australian troops

Than any place ever known

 

From seven weeks of battle

23,000 casualties overall

The Allies captured Pozieres

Against the greatest odds of all

 

Mont St Quentin & Peronne

The greatest military achievement of all

Where the Somme River was captured

And the Germans began to fall

 

Despite being out numbered

The Australians fought their way

To deliver a stunning blow

To the Germans on that day

 

Box On

 

How do you remember your ancestors

Who fought for us in the Great War?

Did they make it home to loved ones

Or die on a foreign shore?

 

Their stories are all inspiring

Of selflessness, and valour, they abound

Although some they fell silently

Their bodies never found

 

Aborigines and white men

Were comrades in the war

They fought together united

All Australian to the core

 

They fought for France’s freedom

On battlefields soaked with blood

In freezing cold conditions

Up to their waist in mud

 

When you’re fighting a battle

With your body or your mind

Spare a thought for our diggers

It’s the ANZAC spirit you need to find

 

Let bravery be a tradition

Tell your daughter and your son

To never ever give up

Stand tall and “box on”

 

harold2

 

In memory of

Private Harold Charles Wythes  KIA 5/5/1917 Bullecourt France

Sergeant Fred A. Williamson 2nd M.G. Battalion