Canberra War Memorial

To me a visit to Canberra (rare for me) is not complete without a visit to the War Memorial. The place is often filled with school students who are (hopefully) learning about what it all actually means to have died in service of your country and perhaps given some sense of what that sacrifice means for those left behind.

Inside the place is divided into the various major wars with many exhibits of what people went through in the form of dioramas depicting some of the battles

some actual artifacts

as well as some equipment and machines

One of my personal interests is (of course) the Japanese mini-submarine which was destroyed while in Sydney Harbour (link of interest here)

This has now been brought in from being outside (way back when they had far less room) and restored to original paint. This set of shots depicts clearly the destruction wrought by the depth charge which took it out. Clearly the poor bastard inside would have been killed by the compression blast of that explosion from below.

Its tragic that the Japanese so favored veritable suicide missions which highlights

• how little they valued their people
• why there were quickly so few experienced soldiers, airmen and navy personnel
• their desperation (which proved unfounded)

There is a lot of very interesting stuff there and I fully recommend a reflective couple of days (in short sessions of under 3 hours) to appreciate it. 

To me nothing summarized the bravery and oft futility of war more than this statue from WW1 in the "Hall of Valour" depicting one more soldier leaving the trenches to face the machine guns.

Lest We Forget