by Marilyn Lake
The repatriation work of the commission – dealing with the long-term damaging effects of service – was traditionally central to the Repatriation Commission’s brief. In 1996, its four programmes were defined as Compensation, Health Care and Services, War Graves and Corporate Services. History lessons had not yet assumed a major role in the work of the department, but this would soon change.
Following the public impact of the ‘Australia Remembers’ programme, the new president of the commission, Neil Johnston together with Minister Bruce Scott announced in 1996 a new commemorative programme defined as ‘Their Service – Our Heritage’ to prepare for the centenary of Federation. It was
aimed at recognising the contribution of veterans to the building of this nation as we approach the centenary celebration of Australian Federation and will ensure that the sacrifices of the veteran community continue to be remembered.
Beginning in 1997, ‘Their Service – Our Heritage’ incorporated five key elements: national days of remembrance, memorials, significant events, education and community awareness. Its educational aim was clear: ‘to educate all Australians, through school-based and other programmes, about the service and sacrifice of Australia’s veterans and their role in developing the nation’.
In 1996–97 grants dispersed by the Local Commemorative Activities Fund exceeded one million dollars and were mainly used to repair or construct over eight hundred community-based war memorials. Community awareness campaigns were also initiated to encourage the preservation of memorials, medals and memorabilia. Two booklets, Memories and Memorabilia and Valuing our Veterans explained the importance of preserving wartime heritage and the recorded memories of returned service men and women, with school students encouraged to record veterans’ experiences, including, of course, the memories of their own relatives.
The identification of wartime heritage was an ever-expanding project. In the president’s overview of the activities of the Repatriation Commission and the DVA for 1999–2000, he noted that although the forthcoming centenary of Federation marked one hundred years of nationhood, Australian involvement in overseas wars and conflicts preceded Federation.
October 1999 marked the centenary of the beginning of the Boer War and the year was notable for major commemorative activities to honour a century of service by Australians. There were strong attendances at the dedication of the Australian Services Nurses National Memorial and the Australian National Korean War Memorial in Canberra … Their Service – Our Heritage has played an important role in promoting the community’s interest in commemoration and this was recognised in the 2001–02 budget, when the Program was extended for four years.
The ‘Sharing their Legacy’ project was funded under this programme in a $60 000 partnership with the History Trust of South Australia, which by 2001 supported seventeen projects and exhibitions on wartime history. It brought together veterans, schoolchildren, historical societies and museums in rural and metropolitan South Australia. This was extended with a further grant to the History Trust of $10 150 to provide ‘An Enduring Legacy’ in the form of a conference, website and special edition of the journal Community History. The DVA also provided $250 000 to the Australian War Memorial to stage a travelling exhibitions programme.
The education programme was developed in conjunction with state departments of education, history teachers’ associations, Studies [of Society and Environment] magazine, which featured regular articles on Gallipoli, Anzac Day and other events in the military history calendar. The DVA also worked with the Australian War Memorial, which supported the National History Challenge, the schools competition with its special category of wartime history, providing a competition for students in years 5 to 12.
In preparation for Anzac Day in the year 2000, the DVA distributed Anzac Day school kits to all primary and secondary schools across Australia. Because Anzac Day coincided with school holidays that year, the DVA also sent kits to Scouts and Guides associations, the YMCA and the YWCA, ‘to encourage them to involve young people in activities to help them better understand the Anzac tradition’. The kit included activity sheets, classroom exercises based on the book Anzacs, The Pain and the Glory of Gallipoli by Peter Bowers and published by Australia Post.8
Other material included posters, information about the Australian War Memorial’s ‘Memorial Boxes’ and the Simpson Prize, an essay-based competition for year 9 students, focussing on the Gallipoli legend. The eight Simpson Prize winners visited the Australian War Memorial in February and in April travelled to Gallipoli to attend the dedication of the ANZAC commemorative site. The DVA annual report for 1999–2000 was pleased with the outcome: the Simpson Prize was regarded as a great success in ‘encouraging young Australians to find out more about the Anzac legend and its place in our history’.9
Some parents became concerned about these developments, but felt unable to query this emphasis in their children’s education. One mother told me that her son ‘did military history last year in school and was asked to submit an essay for the Simpson Prize’. The winner was offered a trip to Gallipoli to see where Australian history really happened. Her son found it all pretty ‘gagging’.
In the new millennium, military history continued to expand. With preparations for the centenary of Federation in 2001 in full swing, the DVA provided $100 000 for a specific wartime heritage component in ‘The People’s Voice’, a National Council for the Centenary of Federation community history website project. More generally the DVA conceptualised its contribution as the preservation of military heritage and the defining of a wartime legacy:
Through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Australia honours its commitment to acknowledge and commemorate the service and sacrifice of Australians in wars, defence and peacekeeping services. The Department works to ensure that the legacy of Australia’s wartime heritage is preserved and passed on to new generations.10
A key initiative was the production of the ambitious eight-part television documentary series Australians at War, a joint venture between the DVA and the Australian War Memorial, for which five million dollars had been provided in the 1999 federal budget. Its aims were to:
mark the centenary of Federation by documenting Australia’s involvement in major wars and conflicts during the past 100 years;
explore how the Australian experience of war has helped shape the nation;
communicate this heritage to all Australians, especially young people; and
provide a continuing resource for educational and community purposes.
To this end the production company established its own website and research service.
In the same year, the federal budget provided $4.4 million to complete Nominal Rolls commemorating those who have served in Australia’s defence forces since Federation. The World War 2 Nominal Roll required the data conversion of some 1.3 million service records, to be placed on the departmental website to be linked to the Boer War and World War I databases developed by the Australian War Memorial and National Archives. These would provide crucial information not only to researchers, but to families wishing to identify their relatives’ war service records. The federal government was pleased with what had been achieved and in the 2000 federal budget allocated another $17.2 million to extend ‘Their Service – Our Heritage’ for another four years beyond the centenary of Federation.
The national commitment to the expansion of war commemoration and military history seemed unstoppable. New opportunities were identified in the revitalisation of Remembrance Day on 11 November, the anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. Governor-General Sir William Deane urged all Australians to take seriously the obligation to observe one minute’s silence at eleven am. The DVA created the Remembrance Day ‘Education Resource: We Remember’ targeted at lower primary students and their teachers, with a ‘big book’ Remembrance Day, teachers’ guides and student activities. It was believed to be the first such resource designed for the younger age group.
‘Targeting
educational initiatives for young people’
Commemorative activities were designed to reach right across the nation, into all corners of the community, but the main focus was history education in primary and secondary schools. With the inauguration of the new programme, ‘Saluting their Service’, in 2002, the focus on schools intensified with a team of ‘education service providers’ established to provide quality curriculum resources. The DVA also extended sponsorship to state and national history teachers’ associations, their annual conferences and journals. As the annual report stated the department wanted to ensure that the ‘community better appreciates the significance of wartime experiences to our development as a nation’. The pedagogical note was becoming more strident.
From 1997 the commemoration of national days of remembrance – Anzac Day, Remembrance Day, VP Day – had been a key strategy in the shaping of public memory. With Australians engaged in war for much of the twentieth century every year provided new possibilities for anniversary events. In 2002, the DVA gave presentations and staged displays at the national conference of the History Teachers’ Association of Australia in Sydney to ‘broaden teachers’ awareness’ of the sixtieth anniversaries of 1942 wartime events. Teachers needed educating as well as students. The December issue of the New South Wales journal, Teaching History focussed accordingly on ‘Australia at war’.
Since 2002, all eleven thousand two hundred schools in Australia have been the recipients of curriculum materials that can be used not just on special anniversaries, such as Anzac Day, Remembrance Day, VP Day or Vietnam Veterans’ Day, but as part of the everyday curriculum. The DVA annual report 2002–03 included a special section candidly named: ‘Targeting educational initiatives for young people’. It was a busy year. Schoolchildren took lessons directing them to ‘learn about and acknowledge the events of our wartime years [and] the significance of those events in shaping our nation’. As well as take history lessons in the classroom, students were ‘encouraged to participate in commemorative events in their communities’. State-of-the-art enquiry-based methodologies were encouraged, equipping students for life-long learning.
Educational resources were now specifically crafted by ‘professional educators’ specially employed to meet the needs of different state curricula and subject designs, including ‘studies in society and the environment’ and ‘history’, and specially designed for different levels of learning appropriate to secondary and primary school students. In 2002, the DVA distributed the ‘Australians at War’ education resources, which complemented the Australians at War documentary TV series and website, and included a specially produced compilation video and teachers’ guide. The three video set of the documentary series was sent to all secondary schools in Australia.
Then there was ‘Time To Remember: Understanding Australia’s Experiences in War and Peacekeeping’, ‘an education resource for lower to middle primary school students’ distributed to all Australian primary schools in April 2003. ‘Time To Remember’ included sixteen big picture cards, a teachers’ guide and Anzac Day information pack. The pack was also sent to all secondary schools. Another resource for primary students was We Remember: a full colour illustrated big book for lower primary students and teachers. ‘The aim of the book is to educate young Australians about the contributions made by Australian servicemen and women in shaping the nation and its traditions.’ Other resources included ‘Our Past – Our Future: Commemorating Remembrance Day’, ‘Working the Web: Investigating Australia’s Wartime History’ and ‘Australia’s Wartime History: A Guide to Commemorations Resources’ and specially for primary schools, an entire Primary School Work Unit ‘The Australian Experience: Anzac Spirit’ which was defined as ‘the core values which epitomise Australians in war including endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour and mateship’.
Other ways of engaging school students included competitions such as the National History Challenge, the Simpson Prize and the Anzac Day Schools’ Activities Awards, the latter administered by the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria to encourage the now possibly wearying students to find ‘new and creative ways of commemorating Anzac Day’ while continuing ‘to observe tradition and include veterans in their activities’. In 2002, a total of one hundred and seventeen entries were received, many using video and computer technology in their presentations. The DVA reported: ‘All reflected a high degree of enthusiasm in their schools for commemorating Anzac Day and the awards represent an important feedback mechanism for monitoring interest in these commemorative events in schools.’11
DVA educators recognised the importance of engaging young people through the use of ‘innovative technologies’:
The importance of recording veterans’ experiences in a structured, accessible format was recognised and the Australians at War Film Archive initiated. Innovative technology is being used to present Australia’s wartime history though multimedia and in a way that it is more accessible and understandable to the wider community, particularly younger Australians. The Visit Gallipoli and Australians at War websites continued to be developed and work commenced on a new website about Australia’s involvement in World War II.12
There was a new focus on pedagogical concerns and the importance of identifying the needs of teachers. ‘The Department has worked closely with educators’, advised the 2002–03 annual report ‘to focus on resource materials that meet the needs of teachers and students’. Professional history educators were employed to produce state-of-the-art materials that would make school teachers’ preparation of lessons so much easier.13
DVA’s educational work with schools was supplemented by a local grants scheme whereby community organisations were offered payments of $4000 each should they wish to promote the department’s priorities: the restoration of memorials, the construction of new memorials, the writing of unit histories and organisation of reunions, the commemoration of military anniversaries, the support of research programmes in schools and building links with local museums to preserve and display wartime heritage.
Websites were continually developed, enhanced and updated. The DVA annual report for 2003–04 was pleased to record a remarkable ‘measure of success’ and suggested that its commemorative work was reaching more people than its other activities related to the provision of veteran services:
The commemorations components of the DVA website and the websites commissioned by the Department to tell the stories of Australians’ war experiences since the Anglo-Boer war, at Gallipoli and during World War 2 have attracted significant visitor numbers and have added substantially to accessible, informative data on our wartime history …Visitor numbers to the commemorations pages on the DVA website greatly increased. There were 275 134 visitors to the commemorations pages during 2003–04. This was an increase of more than 53 000 visitors compared to the previous year. Commemorations pages also featured as four out of the top five DVA pages visited for that month.
There was a further increase of forty-five per cent in visitors to the commemorations pages on the DVA website between 2004 and 2005.
But this was by no means the full extent of their ‘promotional activities’. Education materials were also sent out in hard copy and in the form of compact discs and posters, to those who mightn’t have the time or resources to access the internet, as well as to politicians for use in their ‘electoral work’:
Community awareness of and participation in commemorative activities continued to be promoted through a range of initiatives such as the distribution of Anzac Day and Remembrance Day posters and compact discs for the conduct of commemorative ceremonies to schools, aged care facilities, ex-service organisations and Federal Members and Senators.14
Through ‘Saluting their Service’, the DVA provided further funding – another $750 000 in 2004–05 – to the Australian War Memorial’s travelling exhibition programme. Twenty-five new exhibitions were developed and displayed at three hundred and ten locations around the country.
Funding was also pro
vided for major exhibitions in Canberra at the Australian War Memorial (‘The Dawn of the Legend’ $86 500) and Old Parliament House (‘My Melancholy Duty’ $125 000). Regional initiatives including a South Australian exhibition on Gallipoli and a play sponsored by the Queensland Arts Council about Australian nurses interned in Malaya were together provided with $70 000.
The year 2005 was heralded as a big one for war commemoration with both the ninetieth anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli and the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War 2 attracting special rounds of funding. The 2004–05 budget provided another $15.1 million dollars to fund the commemorations programme over the following four years and this was supplemented by a further series of ‘electorate grants’ to enable community and ex-service groups to organise activities in each federal electorate to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War 2. During the same year the Australian War Memorial spent $3 254 000 on research, information and dissemination. Staff were pleased to report that they were in increasing demand as advisers and consultants to governments, other institutions, media and educational organisations.
Commemorative missions abroad departed for numerous destinations. The leaders of ten ex-service organisations were invited to represent ‘the Australian veteran community’ at the Gallipoli Anzac Day services. A commemorative mission party of seventeen veterans and one war widow together with the national presidents of the RSL and the Australian Veterans and Defence Services Council travelled to France and London in May while another mission travelled to Borneo via Singapore.