Angelina Jolie is filming her new film about how the Americans were solely responsible for winning every War ever fought and part of it is being filmed at Fort Lytton near the mouth of the Brisbane River. Funny enough, we were talking about that and a few other places in Darwin etc where the War really came to Australia in many ways. I have seen some amazing relics from the war including crashed planes in the middle of nowhere, old bunkers etc. There was for example a square chunk of concrete next to the Club hotel at Waterford (not sure if its still there) that was the base of a phony control tower for a dummy airstrip that went from Kingston Road up to Princess Street. It even had wooden aircraft on the strip so if Jap planes were overhead it looked real. There are still hundreds of remnants of the War in Brisbane and in the Territory especially. What a lot of people dont know about Ft Lytton is it was where the troops returning from the First World War were disembarked. The wounded and sick were ferried by stretcher to the Catholic Seminary not far from there and the troops were bivouacked in a large paddock between the Fort and the Seminary and not permitted to leave due to the Spanish Flu epidemic. Hundreds of people had died from it and the civilian population blamed the returning troops for its introduction. My Grandfather left his home on the corner of Caxton and Petrie Terrace in September 1914, fought on Gallipoli , and throughout the Egyptian, French and Belgium campaigns and arrived back in Brisbane in 1919. They unloaded the wounded at Fort Lytton and were put on a truck to take goods to Victoria Barracks in Petrie Terrace. He seen his mother and sisters working in their furniture shop and jumped off the truck to see them for a period of about five minutes. He was charged with being AWOL over the incident in 1925 when the Bruce National Government , predecessors of the Liberals tried to strip as many wounded and disabled former AIF soldiers of their benefits as was possible to get the budget back into surplus. Interesting that Stanley Bruce was a former British Officer, mentioned for his ability to make excellent trenches. He was probably trying to dig his way home .You can guarantee he wasnt swinging a shovel, some Aussie would have been made to do it. Interesting also that a British Officers poor treatment of AIF soldiers continued after the War. Bruce was born in Melbourne but to keep the family business going he was asked by his father to join up rather than his brothers. He then travelled to England where he was able to obtain a Commission through family contacts as in Australia he would have possibly had to swing that shovel himself. I wonder how well our soldiers will be treated when its found out that their welfare actually costs money? Menzies (another Liberal Super Hero once stated that a dead soldier cost a letter home and a plaque, Legacy provided for his family. A wounded soldier haunted governments for decades.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 03:45:22 +0000
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