We are good at remembering those who gave their lives in order for us to live as we do today.
However, millions of the casualties of war were forgotten.
Men, like my grandfather Francis Goodwin Chapman (Frank, pictured above) who went to war a fresh-faced young man with the world at his feet, and came home four years later a different person - embittered, depressed and suffering from the long-term effects of wounds, gas attacks, shell shock and trench foot.
He was a "boy seaman" with the Union Steamship Co at the time he enlisted with the Canterbury Infantry Regiment in October 1916.
I never met him, he died of lung cancer in 1957 aged 63.
By all accounts he was a hard man to live with.
Not surprising. He was in the Battle of The Somme and was inflicted with just about everything a soldier could be.
He came back a war wreck, married and had six children. He did his best to provide for his family in slump times and got little or no help from the people who make a profit by war.
He never talked about the war and of course in those days, there was no such thing as post traumatic shock counselling.
Today you can get counselling for all sorts of menial things. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm simply making a comparison.
What these men went through is just unimaginable.
Frank was bitter about the war and his treatment by the authorities after it. I wonder what sort of man he would have been if there had been no war.
How different his life may have been. What a different life his children may have had. We will never know.
WAR IS HELL
Composed and written by Frank Chapman of Hastings, who went to the 1914/18 war, aged 18
It makes me laugh, it makes me cry,
to think of that exploded lie,
"There's Glory if you fight and die
For Country", who can tell me why?
For war is chaos, war is Hell,
the papers do their dark work well
With lies they cast a devilish spell,
On splendid youth who rush pell mell
To bravely march behind the drum
Which beats out "Come ye heroes come,
Let's go and crush the cursed scum,
Who murder babes and use dum-dum.
Come, let's to war, we'll do our best,
We'll fight the foe with all our zest.
And when we've conquered, foe suppressed
Our grateful Land will do the rest.
So, gentle Mothers, sweet and mild
Who've been with lying tales beguiled
With fev'rish eye cry "Fight my child".
For they are cursed and defiled.
And mothers of the enemy,
As sweet, as good, as pure could be
Send him they nursed on loving knee,
To fight for right, for don't they see
In Papers there that we're all brutes,
The soldier, helpless pris'ner shoots,
He rapes, and slaughters, murders, loots,
All Nature's beauties he uproots.
The clergy bless the cursed guns,
Yea, English, French, Italians, Huns,
They pray they'll murder Mothers' sons,
Blaze death, till red the landside runs.
So, enemies in battle, Hail:-
"We'll fight for Glory, tooth and nail.
We fight for God, we cannot fail,
He's with us, so we mus prevail."
A rude awakening's in store,
For, sprayed with guts, with brains and gore,
I hear them yell "Great God! No more,
To Hell with Glory, down with War!"
Thus, filled with hatred, fed by lies,
The soldier at his fellow flies,
Incoherently he madly cries,
He curses, murders, suffers, dies...
They caught me once but never twice,
My body stunk, it crawled with lice,
My food befouled by rats and mice,
My soul degraded, steeped in vice.
I cowered underneath the ground,
I shivered at the shrieking sound
Of red hot shrapnel hurtling round
On trial of death the mis'ry bound.
I heard the whizz-bang's Hellish crash,
I felt the sting of shrapnel's lash,
I saw my fellows' bodies smash,
Where face had been, a bloody gash.
I slithered thro' the filthy mud,
Saw Pulsing Youth nipped in the bud.
I tramped in pools of wasted blood,
A tragic, futile, crimson flood.
I heard my stricken cobber's cry,
I saw my boyhood playmate die,
A goran...a smile... a last long sigh,
"Tell Mum I loved her...Friend...Good-bye".
I broke my promise made to Mum,
I drank my share of potent rum,
My fear-crazed, cracking brain too numb,
Despair and fear to overcome.
I heard the bird still blithely sing,
I cried "You foolish, foolish thing,
I only wish I had your wing,
I'd fly from shrapnel's deadly sting".
I saw the "Conshie" in his cell,
I heard him my Lieutenant tell
That ere he'd fight, he'd go to Hell.
He strived for Peace, dread War to quell.
You traitorous coward was my thought
Thank God experience has taught,
That he who mob opinion fought,
Was in Heroic fashion wrought.
We poor deluded, misled fools,
Too late we found we were but tools
Of "Money Bags" who proudly rules.
Who cared not for the bloody pools
Which formed that he might gain more cash.
He cared not for the bullets' lash,
The cannon's roar, the shrapnel's crash.
The rotten stew, the mouldy hash;
Not him to shiver in the Line,
He sat at home and drank his wine.
His balance grew, Cried He "Tis fine,
But not enough, still more I pine">
He cared not for the widowed wife,
The anguished home, the shattered life,
That war-born dread disease was rife,
That 'Death' stalked on with sharpened knife.
Not him to help to pay the rent,
Of war-worn soldier, broken, bent,
Who in his purse has not a cent,
Who on the field of battle spent
His heritage, his hopes, his health,
Worth more to him than all the wealth,
Which "Money Bags' acquired by stealth
Who tales of profiteering tellth.
Who hates like Hell to pay the Dole,
To help some poor half-starving soul
Who He'd expect to join the roll,
To fight for Wealth which he has stole.
The dead are dead: they're happy dead,
If they could rise, blood tears they'd shed.
To see their cobbers in N.Z.
Beg charity for food, for bed.
To see them dressed in cast off rags,
To see their kids sleep under bags,
To see them envy well-fed lags (convicts)
To see them cadge for beer, for fags.
For them not one of hungry mob,
With neither home, nor cash, nor job.
No careworn wife to sit and sob,
No want born thought to slink and rob.
No knowing it was all for nought
He gladly suffered, bled and fought.
No being down to cadging brought,
No everlasting going short.
No living in a leaky tent,
No landlords there to suck the rent,
From paupered soldiers, sickly, spent
Who bravely to the battle went.
No being thrown out on the street,
No stinking lies, no base deceit.
No half-clothed kids with nought to eat,
With naked legs and frozen feet.
Nay, don't disturb the peaceful dead
Who thought they fought for fair N.Z.
For they have cov'ring o'er their head,
To death by "Money" they were led.
Nay, let them rest there in the grave.
Don't let them see the Old Flag wave
O'er heartless, selfish, Monied Knave,
Who'd see his fellow, tucker crave.
Nay, say your prayers and shed your tears
For sightless eyes, for damned careers,
For shattered limbs, for deadly fears,
For clouded mind which never clears.
The dead are dead, they need no prayer
No want for they, no worldly care,
No broken health, no dark despair,
No furrowed brow, no greying hair.
There'd be no wars if not for gain,
No wars are fought for bare terrain,
Which ages has neglected lain
Unfertile, sandswept, desert plain.
No war for snowclad icy pole..
Nay, wars for lucre, di'monds, coal,
And when the Heads attain their goal
The cast-off soldier's on the Dole.
Dear God, if only Youth could know
These proven facts before they go,
There'd be no war, no lies, no woe,
No broken hearts, no crushing blow.
Oh God, how Thou must laugh on High
When Clergymen Thou dost espy
Write, "Glory if you fight or die
For Country;" or, God, "Dost Thou cry?"
"What thinkest I, ye ask my Son:-
Man some day gain-born, war will shun,
The transformation's but begun,
I will it so; MY WILL BE DONE!"
- Lest we forget
Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.
