The Danger Zone (DZ)

It’s been said that “no other band … is as synonymous with the words party and good times than the B-52’s. Their infectious music is layered with dance grooves galore, that frankly just makes your body move, and has been in high gear for the past 35 years”.

Athens Georgia is a university town - the University of Georgia. Athens Georgia is located just 70 kilometres from Atlanta, the capital of Georgia. It all started for the B-52s in October 1976. After having drinks at a Chinese restaurant a group of people, Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson and Ricky Wilson, decided to form a band. They called it the B-52’s because of the bouffant hairstyles that Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson wore at the time. Their hairstyles, popular at the time, looked like the nose cone of a B-52 bomber – which is what that hairstyle was called.

The B-52s played their first gig at a friend’s place on Valentine’s Day, 1977. By 1992 the band was coming to the end of its road as a main stream popular band at the fore front of the music world, but even today they continue to tour.

This Danger Zone programme’s about the plane that the B-52 group took their name from, an American strategic bomber that first went onto the drawing board in 1948. This bomber, the B-52 stratofortress, is scheduled to remain in service until 2060. It will be over 100 years old, if it retires then. I guess that’s why is has the Jurassic Park sounding nick name – the Stratosaurus.

Tag words: B-52 stratofortress; Stratosaurus; B-52s; Fred Schneider; Kate Pierson; Keith Strickland; Cindy Wilson; Ricky Wilson; Cold War; United States Air Force; Colonel Pete Warden; Pratt & Whitney; B-29; BUFF; Big Fat Ugly Fella; Strategic Air Command; Soviet Union; Stanley Kubrick; Dr Strangelove; Bikini Atoll; Vietnam War; Ho Chi Minh Trail; North Vietnam; Khmer Rouge; Memphis Belle; B-17 bomber; Diamond Lil; Operation Linebacker II; Mig21; Albert Moore; The High and the Mighty One; Balls 8; NASA; X-15; Joint Direct Attack Munitions; Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles; B-21 Raider; B-1B Lancer bomber; hypersonic missiles; South China Seas; Communist Chinese; International Court of Justice; Anderson Air Force; If you want peace, you have to prepare for war;

Nothing much surprises me today but this did. You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you. There are people out there who are against electricity, modern medicine, hospital, worldwide telecommunications – almost instantaneous (like Skype, Facetime, Zoom – all of that stuff), international travel, cars, highways, plentiful food with virtually no famines, television, live streaming - I could go on and on and on but I think you get the point.

And these people are trying to convert you, yes you, into agreeing with them. They’re a bit sneaky about it – well the smart ones. The dumb ones are too dumb to know their being had by the smart ones – things never change.

If it wasn’t for this thing, that they’re complaining about and telling you was terrible, you wouldn’t be living in the modern world. What is this thing. Well I’ll tell you.

Tag words: Colonialism; racist; right to self-determination; empires; God; Charles Darwin; evolution; Christianity; Adolf Hitler; Jesus Christ; Casesar; Star Wars; Hollywood; Roman Empire; Constantinople; Istanbul; Western Empire; Byzantine empire; Seljuk Turks; British Empire; Christian evangelical empire; World War II; Assyrians; Babylonians; Persians; Greeks; Alexander the Great; Alexander’s successors; Ptolemaic Empire; Antionchus Philadelphius; Septuagint; Hebrew; Yuval Noah Harari; Sapiens; King David; Dacia; Monty Python; Life of Brian; Cicero; Seneca; St Augustine I; Haydn; Mozart; Zulus; Cyrus the Great; Nebuchadnezzar; Trajan; Hadrian; Marcus Aurelius; Australian aboriginals; Geoffrey Blainey; Western Front; World War I; Governor Philip; First Fleet;

This is the final episode in the story of the man who the ANZAC’s Revered – Fighting Mac.

Mel Gibson told the story of Desmond Doss – the Seventh Day Adventist who refused to kill, was rejected by the men in his platoon and by the Army but at the Battle of Okinawa, on one day, 5th May 1945, saved the lives of 75 men.

This story is about a man who risked his life for 2½ years in the bloodiest fighting from being with the Australians at Gallipoli and then on the Western Front in Europe. A man whose repeated acts of bravery and selfless devotion to the men of the ANZAC, earned him their undying respect, and the undying respect of their families and loved ones back in Australia until the day that he died on 26 July 1947.

He was a man mobbed wherever he went when he returned to Australia from World War I. A man who was invited to give one of the three eulogies for the famous General John Monash after his funeral, with the first eulogy being delivered by Sir Harry Chauvel – commander of the legendary Australian Light Horse. After the war he was the guest of honour at many ANZAC Day services. At the end of those services it was not uncommon for his hands to be bleeding from shaking so many hands. So many hands desperate to touch his.

Yet today no statues of this man stand for the modern haters of the left to tear down – maybe that’s a good thing. What isn’t a good thing, is that this remarkable man, who makes the heroism of Desmond Doss, told in Mel Gibson’s movie, “Hacksaw Ridge” pale into insignificance, is almost totally forgotten – a fate that reflects poorly on us all.

God bless the Salvos - the Salvation Army.

Tag words: William McKenzie; Fighting Mac; ANZACs; Mel Gibson; Desmond Doss; Seventh Day Adventist; Battle of Okinawa; Western Front; General John Monash; Sir Harry Chauvel; Australian Light Horse; Hacksaw Ridge; Salvation Army Chaplain; Commissioner Hay; Salvation Army Commissioner Henry Howard; ANZAC Padré; Edward; Prince of Wales; King George V; Digger Prince; Chiang Kai-Shek; Mao Zedong; General George Carpenter; Salvation Army Brigadier Arthur McIlveen; Chinese Academy of Social Sciences;

William “Fighting Mac” McKenzie is the most famous man of the ANZACs of World War I that you’ve never heard of. When he returned to Australia in early 1918 he was mobbed wherever he went, by the veterans who had come home, by the families and friends of ANZACs who he had helped – by writing to them about the deaths and the circumstances of the deaths of their loved ones, by helping distribute thousands of letters and parcels from Australia to our boys, his “Lonely Soldier” campaign, and most importantly of all, for what I am going to talk about in today’s programme about Fighting Mac, by lifting up the dead bodies of our fallen, often in the middle of No-Mans Land, and burying them in that place and for the whole time he did this he was in great danger of death or maiming himself.

To many of the people who were so desperate to shake his hand when he got home, the reason they were desperate to shake his hand was because his hands was the last human contact that their loved one’s lifeless body had, Mac digging a grave for him and then gently lifting the man’s body into the grave to bury him with a Christian burial service:

Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God, in his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed. We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to Himself.

Fighting Mac was a Salvation Army chaplain with the AIF. He was the man the ANZACs revered. Do you know how difficult it would have been to have been so respected, venerated, by these men?

God Bless the Salvos. The Salvation Army.

Tag words: William McKenzie; Fighting Mac; ANZACs; World War I; Lonely Soldier campaign; No-Mans Land; God Bless the Salvos; Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson; Battle of Lone Pine; Gallipoli; Daniel Reynaud; The Man the ANZACs Revered; Battle of Pozieres; Captain Walter Stack; Commissioner Hay; Mouquet Farm; Salvation Army; War Cry; Proverbs 16:27; Benjamin Franklin; General Birdwood; Poperinghe; Combat Stress Fatigue; Lieutenant Colonel McKay; Sunshine Song;

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.

God Bless the Salvos - the Salvation Army.

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.

God Bless the Salvos - the Salvation Army.

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.

God Bless the Salvos - the Salvation Army.

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.

Thank God for the Salvos - the Salvation Army.

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.

Thank God for the Salvos - the Salvation Army.

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.

No wonder they say "Thank God for the Salvos" - the Salvation Army.

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;