Let's pray peace reigns one day

We keep sending our young men and women into war.

NOT FORGOTTEN: Kevin Aubrey McDonnell 1942-1943. Picture: senior

"THEY shall grow not old as we who are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn, at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them."

The Ode, the fourth stanza of the poem For the fallen by Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) is traditionally recited at every Anzac Day service. And remember them we do in every town, city and community across our nation and New Zealand.

It is 70 years since my father Kevin Aubrey McDonnell, Private, Q28931, C Company, 61st Battalion, Queensland Cameron Highlanders, died. He passed away a couple of days after my birth from diseases attributed to his service defending Milne Bay in New Guinea against the Japanese invasion. We never met.

I know very little of him, except for his army records as my family never spoke about him and I was too young to ask. As I have grown older, I sometimes wonder if my life would have been different had he been about in those formidable years of youth. What would it have been like to have been able to sit down and talk with him?

Over the years, thousands of children throughout the world have been in a similar position. Yet we keep sending our young men and women into war and conflict situations. Will it never end?

The men of my father's era really hoped so. This was brought home to me when I read poetry he had written in a small note book, one of a few mementoes of his service that came to me. The following is but one example of the feelings of the men defending this nation at that time:

The Men

of Milne Bay

On August twenty five, when our camp was all a - snore,

We were suddenly awakened by the Nippon guns of war.

When they opened up at half past two, their task to maim and slay,

While their troops were landed on, The North East Cape of Milne Bay.

But the 61st were ready with their weapons close at hand,

They used them all, with Chockos' zest, as Nippon came to land.

They battled on incessantly, till dawning the of the day,

Revealed to all and sundry the attack on Milne Bay.

The battle grew intensity, the Nippon tried their all,

But the 61st undaunted rallied to their leader's call.

For this was stark reality, it was no farce or play,

When the yellow hounds of Nippon turned their guns on Milne Bay.

The Chockos did a mighty job, after all what's in a name,

The A.I.F. are fighters and the Chockos are the same.

And fighting side-by-side they made the Nippons dearly pay

For sneaking in like rats,

Upon the coast of Milne Bay.

The Air Force and the Artillery, they both had jobs to do,

They played their parts so nobly and they shared the glory too.

For the yellow hordes of Tojo,

Got a trouncing night and day

By those gallant young defenders

On the coast of Milne Bay.

Conditions were appalling, torrential rain and flood

Had turned the battlefield into a huge morass of mud.

But our fighting boys continued fighting with a grin as if to say,

We'll make the blighters pay, for their assault on Milne Bay.

Though casualties were moderate,

Yet the men of company B tried to uphold the standards,

Of the 11th A.M.C.

And they earned the praise of men who had been wounded in the fray,

When the Jappos tried conclusions on the shores of Milne Bay.

And now the show is over,

We no longer wonder whether the Chockos and the A.I.F. are birds of a different feather,

For they fought together, side by side.

And they'll do it any day if Tojo has another go

At the men of Milne Bay.

By Kevin Aubrey McDonnell 1942-1943.

Lest we forget.

Originally published as Let's pray peace reigns one day