Never forget

ON Thursday, in public places right around our region ——on Torquay and Eastern beaches, down main streets, at the Boer War Memorial and in Johnstone Park, and numerous other significant sites — thousands will solemnly gather to commemorate Anzac Day.

As battles go, the Gallipoli campaign is now viewed by historians as a leadership and strategic failure of monumental proportions.

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist who wrote the seminal The Art of War 2500 years ago, said “tactics without strategy are just the noise before defeat”.

These words are particularly apt given the ill-considered attack and ultimate military failure of the Gallipoli campaign.

That Anzac Day has become the principal time when Australia recognises our overall military history is not lost on satirists, who often comment on the rather perverse fact that we focus on perhaps our country’s most spectacular wartime failure in recognising our successes.

Thousands of Anzacs were left dead or severely maimed from the whole Gallipoli episode.

The now-renowned withdrawal from Gallipoli — using a system of self-firing rifles innovatively devised by Australians to trick the Turks — is widely regarded as the only militarily successful stage of the entire campaign.

Arguably, no other aspect of our nation’s history has been so researched, analysed and eulogised as the Anzac story.

But at its core must always remain stories of the individuals — those soldiers exposed in the water, on unprotected beaches and craggy cliffs, and in muddy, stinking trenches.

The names of those who performed self-sacrificial heroic acts are now etched into our understanding of Gallipoli, and rightly so.

Yet the many thousands of those who served effectively but quietly equally deserve their stories told.

Many of their names are inscribed on memorials around the country, but the name of Bob Densham appears on no honour board.

What we know of his story is sketchy, but here it is.

Bob Densham, service number 305, was overly eager to enlist, like so many of his generation.

Apparently somewhat of a larrikin teenager, he loved the sea and was a member of the Naval Reserve for four years.

He signed up on April 20, 1915, bringing his skills as a Victorian Railways’ fitter turner and his experience in handling horses to serve his country.

Densham’s unit was quaintly named the 1st Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train.

This unit camped on the Melbourne Domain until May 1915, their training concentrating on horsemanship.

En route to training in England, the unit was diverted to the Greek island of Lemnos, where they came under British Army command.

From there, they became involved in the Gallipoli campaign, landing at Sulva Bay on the Aegean Coast of Gallipoli Peninsula on August 6, 1915.

Reports of this battle suggest it was as ill-planned and fated as that on Anzac Cove.

In the landing, one of Densham’s main duties was to swim the horses to the beach, ducking underwater to dodge sniper bullets.

Despite intense enemy fire, he took quiet pride that only one of his horses did not make it ashore.

No one will ever know the full horror which Densham saw in subsequent months in the Battle of Sulva Bay nor the fear he felt — like many of his cohort, such experiences remained untold his entire life.

Densham’s unit served at Sulva Bay until evacuation in December 1915.

Upon the unit’s eventual return to Australia in May 1917, Densham was ordered to the Western Front in France but refused.

This would have been an extremely difficult and, most likely, a most unpopular decision in a wartime society.

As a consequence of his refusal, Densham was dishonourably discharged.

For a person who had already risked his life for his country and was no doubt deeply affected by what he experienced in combat, such treatment now seems unconscionable.

Densham returned to Victorian Railways, and led a quiet, faithful life.

His daughters say he was always a gentle man. Vale Bob Densham. No doubt many such stories exist in families which warrant telling and retelling, and not just on Anzac Day.

This article was first published in 2017 and is reprinted today in memory of Bob Densham’s daughter Betty Neyland who passed away in August, 2018.

Bob Densham signed up on April 20, 1915, bringing his skills as a Victorian Railways’ fitter turner. He returned to Victorian Railways post-war and led a quiet, faithful life.