The most famous man of the ANZACs of Gallipoli and France, the man who was revered by the men of the ANZACs in World War I and till the day they died, is a man that you’ve probably never heard of. The ANZACs, when they were in the fighting zones, when they were resting, wherever, he was sought out for his company. When he returned to Australia in early 1918, exhausted to the point where he would never be the same, he had crowds of people coming to see him wherever he was. Word spread like wildfire.

His name is William “Fighting Mac” McKenzie and you really need to hear his story. In this programme the Australians have just arrived in France after being evacuated from Gallipoli. I’ll pick up his story from there.

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Tag words: ANZACs; Gallipoli; William McKenzie; Fighting Mac; Battle of Villers-Bretonneux; First World War; Billie Hughes; conscription; Christian burial; World War II; chaplains; Sacrifice Line; Nicodemus; John 3:5-6; Corinthians 15:55; O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory; Diggers; Great War; a ‘lonely soldier’ campaign;

Fighting Mac was the man who our ANZACs revered. When he returned to Australia, after reaching a state well beyond exhaustion, having served first at Gallipoli, and then on the Western Front all the time with the 4th Battalion, he was ordered home in late 1917 reaching Australia in early 1918.

The war was nowhere near won. The Germans had beaten Russia and now over 1 million of their battle hardened soldiers were being poured into France for one mighty push to win the war before the Americans arrived.

The people of Australia, the wounded veterans who had already been sent home, and countless numbers of Australians who felt like they knew Mac personally, were willing to travel hundreds of kilometres to hear him. For many of the families, touching him was important. They wanted to shake hands with him, and they did until they were bleeding.

Who was he and what had he done to be held in awe by the men of the ANZAC – not easy buggers to win over. 

Well one of the places where he earned his fame was in the fighting for Lone Pine, the ridge above where the most forward position of the ANZACs was at that time. At 5:30 pm on Friday 6 August, the Australians were ready to launch their diversionary attack to take Lone Pine from the Turks.

The Turks had covered the front line trenches with pine logs, sleepers and earth and were doing the same to the reserve trenches behind. Coils of barbed wire had also been laid in front of the front line trenches to slow the Australians approach to the trenches, so that the men would be exposed to Turkish fire for longer – hopefully to be driven off before they ever reached the trenches. It wasn’t a case of being able to reach the trench and jump in any more with these improvements.

Prior to the attack, the men brought their packs and left them with a corporal whose job it was to stop men from other battalions, not engaged in the fight, from stealing their belongings.

The Australians had had what they called the best sport they’d ever had shooting down the Turks who had attacked them from uphill Lone Pine on 19 and 20 May – just a few weeks before. Now they were the ones who were going to be in the open – coming from downhill. That should have frightened them.

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Tag words: William McKenzie; Fighting Mac; ANZACs; Gallipoli; Western Front; Lone Pine; Turks; World War I; First World War; Saps; trenches; Mustafa Kemal; Peter Fitzsimons; chaplain; F.A. McKenzie; Salvation Army; shrapnel; Lieutenant Lecky; Private James McGregor; Chaplain Talbot; Eric Bogle; No Man’s Land; Flowers of the Forest; Diggers; Christian burial; Vladimir Putin; Clive James;

You’d have to be a right bugger to have a go at the Australian Army chaplains in World War I. Why? Well listen to this story of one of them – and he’s not even the chaplain that was a legend to the ANZACs. This is another one.

Chaplains weren’t supposed to have been landed with the first troops at Gallipoli, but somehow one was. He didn’t get that memo. He was Roman Catholic chaplain, Father John Fahey of the 11th Battalion from Western Australia. He was a man of God so it would be a bit rough to accuse him of lying about that memo.

Father Fahey was a tough and practical man, much like the man that these programmes are about, our Fighting Mac. Father Fahey had come from preaching to the hard men in the rough timber settlements and mining towns in Western Australia. He was no wimp.

He landed with the first ANZACs at 4:30 am on the morning of 25 April. His battalion landed on the northern end of the beach, looked down on by Ari Burnu. It came into what was probably the heaviest fire and probably suffered the worst casualties of all of the Australian battalions to be landed that day.

Father Fahey saw men killed to the left and the right of him. His coat, haversack, waterproof sheet and tobacco tin were all riddled with shrapnel and bullets in a series of separate incidents, the one after the other. A book was shot out of his hand, it could have been, most likely was, the Bible. A tin of jam was perforated by bullets and shrapnel as he ate from it. He was half buried by shells – not once but twice. This all happened in the first three weeks that he was ashore.

So now we come to where the enormous legend of Fighting Mac really begins – and it’s a story that has been tragically forgotten in this country today. That’s something I want to put right in this and my following programmes.

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Tag words: William McKenzie; Fighting Mac; Australian Army chaplains; World War I; ANZACs; Gallipoli; Roman Catholic chaplain; Father John Fahey; Ari Burnu; the Bible; Colonel MacLaurin; Salvation Army Commissioner Hay; Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson; Christian funeral service; Lone Pine; C.E.W. Bean; kangaroo shoot; Corporal Alfred Mower; evangelistical gatherings; snipers; Lieutenant-Colonel Le Maistre; Brigadier-General John Forsyth; Jesu, Lover of my soul;

The most famous Australian that you’ve never heard of is William “Fighting Mac” McKenzie. He is known as the man who the ANZAC’s revered. Don’t worry, don’t feel embarrassed that you haven’t heard of him. It’s highly unlikely that you’ve heard of him or that anyone you know has because sadly we’ve let this man’s story be forgotten. 

But back in the day, in Australia, between the wars and through to soon after World War II when Mac finally found eternal peace, there wouldn’t be anyone who hadn’t heard of him, and vast numbers of Australians, living and dead, then were in his debt. In these programmes I’m talking about this sadly forgotten legend whose memory I’m trying to revive. 

On Good Friday 2 April 1915, one of the lesser known battles of the Australian soldiers took place. The landings at Gallipoli were just a few weeks into the future then. That battle was in Cairo, Egypt, it was the day when the Battle of Wassa took place. Wassa was the Red Light district of Cairo. It was an area where the worst of the brothels were located. It was an area where Mac had gone many times, including into the brothels themselves, to confront young Australian soldiers who he found inside these establishments and persuaded them to come back to leave what they were intent on doing there and to come back to the camp with him. 

Legend has it that Mac, driven to distraction by what the brothels in this area was doing to our young men, to protect them, took matters into his own hands. He led a group of ANZACs into the red-light district and burnt the place to the ground. To make sure that that was going to be the result, the men slashed the fire-hoses so that the blaze couldn’t be put out. 

Is that just a colourful story, or did he really do that? Certainly the red-light district was burnt down by the Australians, but could really a chaplain have led the raid?

Well I’m going to tell you.

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Tag words: Fighting Mac; William McKenzie; ANZACs; Battle of Wassa; Salvation Army; Lance Shilton; adultery; Commissioner James Hay; War Cry; Sir Ian Hamilton; The Fountain of Public Prosperity; Stuart Piggin; Robert D Linder; World War I; Christians; Gallipoli; Psalm 23; Private Henry Thorpe; Aboriginal soldiers; Military Medal; Dublin Core; Lake Michigan; Lemnos; Mudros; Colonel MacLaurin;

At the end of World War I “Fighting Mac” was the most famous ANZAC. Even before the Australians landed at Gallipoli he was a hero to the Australian soldiers.

After the ANZAC landings, and right through to the time that he was sent home from the Western Front, exhausted from his super human exertions in the War, he was a legend and the man that the ANZACs revered.

For decades after the end of the war he attracted huge crowds of adoring soldiers and their families wherever he went. “Fighting Mac” never rose above the rank of major, he served only with the 1st Brigade AIF, he wasn’t one of the wartime leaders, or one of the great generals, but his fame spread throughout the entire AIF and back home where people were desperate to shake his almost sacred hands, until at the end of a day of meeting people, they were left bleeding.

And how is it that today if you say the name “Fighting Mac” people will have no idea who you’re talking about?

Fighting Mac is Australia’s forgotten hero. He’s been forgotten for too long and I’m going to share his story with you in these programmes. It’s a story that we all should know.

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Tag words: World War I; Great War; Fighting Mac; William McKenzie; ANZAC; Gallipoli; 1stBrigade AIF; Charles W Bean; Keith Murdoch; Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918; Salvation Army; chaplain; Adolf Hitler; William Booth; Samuel Logan Brengle; Euripides; boxing; Rupert Brooke; Dean Talbot; Battle of Wazir;

He was the most popular man in the Australian Imperial Forces by the end of the First World War. He’d been amongst the first men to land at Gallipoli and he was one of the last to leave those dreadful shores. He served on the bloody Western Front until late in 1917. 1917 was the worst year of the war for the Australians. 55,000 casualties, 38,000 at Passchendaele alone. He was always amongst the worst of the fighting.

The need of his men for him to stay with them was great, but the man was shattered by the end of 1917 and ordered back to Australia. Then he was shattered at having to leave them.

When he got home, the government organised for him to go around Australia to bring news of the war, and because he was an absolute legend to so many people. When he was touring, people travelled hundreds of miles to where he was going to be. To see him, or better still to hear him speak. Most importantly of all, for so many tragic people, to feel the touch his precious hands.

There was a kind of magic about his hands. It wasn’t magic like in some goofy TV series, it was a tragic magic that drew many many Australians, irresistibly to him like a magnet. His hands were often left raw and bleeding at the end of a day. Why?

This is a man whose story you need to hear from me, because nobody else is telling it – and it should be told. This man is one of the greatest Australians – and at the same time nothing.

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Tag words: Australian Imperial Forces; First World War; Gallipoli; Western Front; William McKenzie; Fighting Mac; Christians; Presbyterians; Great War; Salvation Army; Jesus Christ; angels; Pope Francis; Abraham Lincoln; Garden of Gethsemane; Greg Sheridan; Lyn Edge; Morotai; God bless the Salvos; The Fountain of Public Prosperity; Stuart Piggin; Robert Linder; Lone Hand; ANZAC; chaplain;

The world we live in today has been inspired out of the teachings of the Christian faith. And so it was that as part of that tradition, in 1912, the Presbyterian Church commissioned the Reverend John Flynn to look into the needs of bush communities in remote outback Australia. The Australian Inland Mission (AIM) was set up in 1912 as a result of his recommendations. Then in 1928 a new and exciting step took place using modern aircraft. It was done as a one year trial to see if it was worthwhile. It was called the AIM Aerial Medical Air Service. This morphed into The Royal Flying Doctor Service. It looks like it was really a good idea.

It was a way of rapidly bringing medical aid to people in extreme need and of rapidly getting those people to the medical aid they needed.

You know what it’s like when you go to the markets. If you see something unique and really great on a stall one month, by the next month that same thing is available on a lot of stands. Aerial delivered medical services were clearly an unbeatably brilliant idea and as the crucial moment of World War 2 in Europe was coming, the invasion of continental Europe by the British, Americans and Canadians on D-Day, there was going to be an urgent need to get the wounded away from the landing areas on D-Day and the following days, back quickly to first rate medical help in England.

This is the story of the nurse volunteers who took to the air, at considerable personal risk to themselves, to bring this urgent medical evacuation help to severely wounded soldiers who bringing liberation to Europe from Nazi tyranny. The “Flying Nightingales” they’re called. One of only two of them perhaps still alive, lives in Malanda, the other in Western Australia. This is their story.

Tag words: Christian; Presbyterian Church; Reverend John Flynn; Australian Inland Mission; AIM; Royal Flying Doctor Service; D-Day; Flying Nightingales; Nazis; Edith Lord; C-47 Dakotas; Red Cross; Women’s Auxiliary Air Force; Nurse Iris Bower; Mollie Giles; Corporal Lydia Alford; Rosa Powell; Leading Aircraft Woman Edna Birkbeck; Leading Aircraft Woman Margaret Walsh; KG406; Leading Aircraft Woman Nora Helen Speed; British Empire Medal; Margaret Wilson; Edith Lord; Camilla Parker Bowles; Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman; Distinguished Flying Cross; Wing Commander Charlotte Thompson-Edgar; Associate of the Royal Red Cross Award;

On 14-15 April 1912, the mighty, unsinkable, Titanic struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. It took just 2 hours and 40 minutes for the Titanic to sink. 1,500 lives were lost. But the size of that maritime disaster was dwarfed on 30 January 1945, when the Germans were carrying out the largest seaborne evacuation in history – 2 million people fleeing the onrushing Russian forces.

One of the ships taking part in this evacuation was the luxury cruise liner, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Built to carry 1900 people, on this night it was carrying 10,582 people, 5,000 of them children. Most of the passengers were refugees. 9,343 of them perished in the icy waters of the Baltic when the Wilhelm Gustloff sank in 90 minutes after being torpedoed at night by a Russian submarine. This is the tragic story of the greatest maritime disaster ever …

Tag words: Titanic; Wilhelm Gustloff; Adolf Hitler; Strength Through Joy; Joseph Stalin; The Patriotic War; Napoleon; The Great Patriotic War; Communist Party; untermenschen; Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee; Tsarist Russia; Ilya Ehrenburg; Pravda; Isvestia; The Red Star; Nemmersdorf; Goldap; rape; Operation Hannibal; Ruta Septys; Heinz Schen; Women’s Naval Auxiliary; Captain Paul Vollrath; S-13; Alexander Marinesko; Nazi; General von Steuben; hospital ship; Combat Order of the Red Banner;

On 14-15 April 1912, the mighty, unsinkable, Titanic struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. It took just 2 hours and 40 minutes for the Titanic to sink. 1,500 lives were lost. The people who died with the sinking of the Titanic died alone – in the middle of a vast ocean.

Tag words: Titanic; Halifax; Nova Scotia; Mt Blanc; Mont Blanc; World War I; Royal Navy; Battle of Jutland; Taliban; GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb; The Mother of All Bombs; SS Imo; Benzol; Vincent Coleman; J Robert Oppenheimer; father of the atomic bomb; Hiroshima; HMCS Acadia; Frank Baker; Governor Samuel W. McCall; Massachusetts-Halifax Relief Committee; Thomas Raddall;

There have been three naval military disasters where the loss of life was greater than the 1,500 lives lost in the sinking of the Titanic. The stories are incredible. Over the next three programmes I’ll talk about them, beginning with the riverboat sinking on the Mississippi River in 1865 just as the American Civil War drew to a close – the worst maritime disaster in American history.

Tag words: Titanic; American Civil War; Andersonville; Yankee prisoners; Dr John M Howell; Griggs Holbrook; Secretary of War; Edwin M Stanton; General William Tecumseh Sherman; Confederate; Charleston Harbour; Captain Henry Wirz; Jefferon Davis; Old Capitol Prison; Cahaba; Alabama River; Vicksburg; Mississippi River; Camp Fisk; Sultana; Memphis; 23rd Arkansas Cavalry; Franklin Hardin Barton; shipwreck; President Lincoln; John Wilkes Booth;