Only days out from the centenary of the historic landing on the Gallipoli peninsula that saw the birth of the true legend of the Anzacs, it is sobering to reflect on some of the modern social attitudes and understanding we have.
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All around us the stories and anecdotes of the Anzac legend are swirling, as a nation prepares to honour one of its most significant events.
Around the north, we are preparing to mark such a milestone, in a myriad of ways.
It is interesting then, in the light of the World War I memories, to consider some statistics wheeled out by history authorities to provide education and awareness to all of us.
To commemorate the Gallipoli landing, the Australian family history website Ancestry revealed over 80 per cent of Australians claim to know what the acronym ANZAC stands for, yet only 29 per cent are able to accurately record its meaning.
Many of us, particularly those born and bred in the bush, where Anzac Days were our rite of passage right through school, well know that Australian and New Zealand Army Corps is the correct meaning for ANZAC, however elsewhere, there appears to be a lot of confusion over the last two words, with respondents replacing ‘Army’ with Air, Auxiliary or Armed, as well as ‘Corps’ being replaced with Command, Core or Coalition.
The disparity between what Aussies think they know and what they really know is considerable, but Ancestry and the National Archives of Australia made over 12 million WWI records available online from last week.
The research also exposed a huge disparity found between states when it comes to Anzac knowledge.
Just 34 per cent of Australians are aware of a WWI ancestor, and of that 34 per cent, nearly half (48 per cent) don’t know if their ancestor survived or died in the war.
Only 32 per cent of Australians identifying a WWI ancestor know where they are buried today, but 56.6 per cent of Australians would research their ancestor to find out more if they knew they had one who fought in WWI.
A huge disparity was found between states, with only 29 per cent of Queenslanders knowing of an ancestor who fought in WWI, while NSW boasts a larger 43 per cent of its inhabitants with such knowledge. In Tasmania, 48 per cent know of a WWI veteran in the family.
More encouragingly, 70 per cent of Australians with WWI connections were able to identify whether their ancestor was involved in the army, navy or air force.
This year will obviously bring more knowledge to all of us.