To a newcomer to this town, the scale of slaughter in the First World War – and the impact it must have had – is simply staggering.
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I have spent a lot of time at the Anzac memorial on West Avenue and counted the names – 810 in all.
Just do the calculation: according to the census of 1901, the male population of Glen Innes was 1440. It can’t have been that different in 1914, and that total population includes boys and older men who would not have been eligible for military service.
The bald and awful mathematics means that a whole generation of men in Glen Innes was wiped out. It still jolts the mind. The circumstances can barely be imagined.
And these were the fittest men, literally the backbones of society and the economy.
Here’s how the Australian War Memorial describes the criteria: “The requirements in August 1914 were 19–38 years, height of 5ft 6in and chest measurement of 34 inches.
“In June 1915, the age range and minimum height requirements were changed to 18–45 years and 5ft 2in, with the minimum height being lowered again to 5ft in April 1917.
“During the first year of the war approximately 33 percent of all volunteers were rejected. However, with relaxation of physical standards of age and height, as well as dental and ophthalmic fitness, previously ineligible men were now eligible for enlistment.
On enlistment, recruits were examined for BC or D tattooed on their skin. These were British army tattoos. BC stood for bad character and D for deserter.”
All of this still resonates a hundred years later – the scale of the misery, the pain of ordinary people in Glen Innes, the dead, of course, and the bereaved.
The Member for New England and Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, has just urged people to apply for part of the $50,000 the Commonwealth government is providing to commemorate next year’s centenary of Armistice Day, the day in November on which the First World War ended – and 810 men did not return to the town.
Mr Joyce said: “I would like to hear of any project ideas that are currently being considered to commemorate the end of the First World War in the local community.”
The Returned and Services League in Glen Innes has identified one need.
Its president, Gordon Taylor, said remembrance boards needed to be updated with newly discovered names of the fallen.
“These guys fought for our country and our freedoms.
They gave their lives.”
