Horace Graham Weall.
By Dee McLachlan
My grandfather was a South African soldier in the WW1 — sent off to the British Colony of Tanganika, now Tanzania. And in WW2, I believe he worked in some intelligence department.
When I was growing up he told us fascinating stories of the few years he spent marching around the grasslands in the middle of Africa. He probably avoided the blood and the killing, and so his tales were more about the wilds of Africa; How one soldier, while they were crossing a river, was snatched and drowned by a crocodile; Another was dragged away by hyenas in the middle of the night, and many more.
The one I remember clearly, was when he was lying in a shallow hole dug out with his helmet. They lay there for days in the pouring rain with a few biscuits. Then when he ventured forward to dig another hole with his helmet — a bullet grazed his scalp. For several moments he was wondering whether he was alive or dead.
Fortunately for us, this caring and empathetic father and grandfather, lived well into his 90s.
He was a prolific writer, of diaries which are kept in a safe somewhere in South Africa. But I do have a small hand-written notebook of events and statistics of the WW2, as they unfolded.
He seemed to want to make a record of the losses of the war. In this book there are charts and notes with all kinds of statistics (obviously carefully researched). As he was born in England in the late 1800s he included British Empire, Great Britain, and South Africa.
Figures and statistics get blurred with time. And large numbers are hard for our brains to deal with. The destruction was on such a grand scale. Imagine the effort it took to build 100,000 planes or 6,000 ships. The item below is from 1945.
What of all the lives lost? What is wrong with us that we allow this to happen over and over again. I used to think, it was only the kind of thing that happened to my grandfather.
But it’s happening now.
It happened in 2003, when our politicians agreed to go and bomb and kill Iraqis. The intelligence people knew that they had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11. Nothing.
Yet “we” went along with the “shock and awe” campaign to destroy and country and kill its people.
And even in these modern times we cannot get accurate statistics as to how many people were killed in Iraq. Depending on where you research, and who is providing the research, the numbers of people killed in Iraq range from 156,887 to 1,455,590 (population in 2003, nearly 26 million).
How did we let this happen.
It was in March 2003, that the West invaded Iraq. Yet on April 25, 2003, Australia held ANZAC parades remembering various wars and fallen heroes — while we were participating in the killing of tens of thousands of people.
As our former prime minister John Howard said — it was an “embarrassing” mistake. It was, and is, an utter DISASTER.
What a screwed up world.
Howard
What a lot of skeletons are in this mans closet!
Going back as far as Port Arthur and encompassing Iraq and Bali
He’d have a lot to reflect on today and IMO should be doing it, at the least, from a prison cell!
Davo, I second that thought.
Last time I went to the noonday service in Adelaide, Dame Roma Mitchell was guv, so it must have been 1990s. The SA guv today is The Honourable Hieu Van Le. He presented a floral tribute but someone else read the prayers. I liked the line “Strengthen the faint hearted, support the weak.”
It is pleasing to say that there were no body cavity searches, unlike in Canberra, and no rules against drinking water. A little boy wearing medals passed out from the heat.
When the clarinetist missed a note in “O Valiant Hearts,” he was not considered to be a terrorist or tackled by a SWAT team. Of course Adelaide is slow; maybe 3 or 4 years down the track they’ll catch up on Security.
And now let us sing “God Defend New Zealand” in the proper way:
Hey, Dee, stand up and be counted
!
Terry and Davo,
I Third that point!!! (rotten little bald prick and still getting a taxpayer-funded persion)
And I’m in Bennelong and yes, I’m ashamed to say, that I voted for the little traitor.
Long story, but I gave a presentation to Howard’s office manager in Bennelong using Howard’s desk for the overhead projector. I was explaining the actual statistics and lies coming out of the Australian Institute of Criminology. After about 10 minutes his manager said “Oh shit”, about another 10 minutes later he said ‘”Oh, shit, I can tell you right now that John doesn’t know any of this”.
He tried to get the information to Howard in Canberra. He was stopped, the information was taken from him and he was told to never try that again. – Once again the electronic surveillance state raised it’s ugly head – hopefully people will start waking up and quit using electronic media when they want some some ‘privacy’.
Later on, I connected enough dots that the receipt of the information by Howard would not have made one bit of difference.
Agree – he was probably never in charge.
Terry, who told the staffer “never to try that again”? and did he obey that?
Just wondering: Is there a rule that says when someone receives a threatening phone call she has to cave in?
What if we later find that most of such calls were bluff.
Well there you go. The lemon doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Last week I picked my 7 year old grand daughter from school, she told me about the ANZACS and the wars that we had been in.
When I was 7 years old it was 1953 and I remember all the war movies and hype of that era that I took in religiously along with my schoolmates .
So now the next generation is being indoctrinated for WW3.
I was so well enlightened about how good it is to fight the bad guys that while still 18 I arrived in DaNang loaded rifle in hand.
So how do we stop this vicious cycle? After all it could not be much more difficult than stopping false flag attacks that history is strewn with _
Stop false flag attacks with heaps of ANZAC bickies:
125g butter
1 cup (220g) raw sugar
2 tbs golden syrup
2 tbs water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup (150g) plain flour
1 cup (90g) rolled oats
1 cup (85g) desiccated coconut
Preheat oven to 160°C. Combine butter, sugar, golden syrup and water in a medium saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until butter melts and sugar almost dissolves. Remove from heat. Add the bicarbonate of soda and stir.
Combine the flour, oats, and coconut in a large bowl. Add the butter mixture and stir to combine. Line 3 oven trays with baking paper. Roll 1 tablespoonful of oat mixture into a ball and place on a lined tray. Gently flatten the ball. (from CountryStyle mag)
My granddaughter gave me some ANZAC biscuits they made in school , the little ones are such a joy to be with – guileless.
Have to focus on the good things.
I agree. There are a kazillion good things to focus on.
Anyone ever have a wander around this website?
‘The Unhived Mind’ Plenty of reading here, just type it in.
,
Dee, I have only just now blown up the size of the graphics. Your grandfather’s handwritten list of 1941 events is pretty stunning:
April 27th Germans occupy Athens [don’t laugh at the word ‘occupy’!] — May 10th Rudolph Hess lands in Scotland — May 27th Bismarck sunk by Royal Navy — etc.
Please make another article later as to his diary habits.