Boy's Own War. G. S. Willmott
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CONTENTS
Introduction
School Days
Cricket is War
The Spirit of ANZAC
Sun Surf & Sex
Feeling a Little Piste
The Difference Being…
They’re in the Army Now
The Prodigal Son Never Returns
Private Investigations
Bulldog
Where’s My Dad?
To Catch a Thief
Baby Boy Warrior
ANZAC
Father and Son
The Rock
Wild Rivers
Forty Thousand Horsemen
Beersheba
Jungle Boy
I Want to be Like My Dad
Jungle Warfare
Hitler’s Boys and Girls
Loyalty to the Fuhrer
United We Stand
Benedict Arnold
An Uncivil War
Union Boys
Rebel Yell
March to the Beat of a Different Drum
Chickamauga
African Conflict
Demonising the Innocents
Boko Haram
A Stolen Childhood
Payback
Suicide Boy
Bibliography
Copyright
First published 2016 by Crabtree Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Copyright © Crabtree 2016
ISBN 9781925281712 (pbk)
ISBN 9781925281729 (ebook)
Boy’s Own War is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
Jane Sexton for the toughest yet most thorough edit I have experienced.
My wife, Anna Shearer for tolerance.
JUST A BOY
He left home
To fight with men
Just a boy
Won’t come home again
In the mud
In Flanders Field
He fell too soon
But did not yield
A boy so proud
To die a man
On foreign soil
Was not the plan
But fight he did
Until his death
The poppy remembers
His last breath !
Carolyn McAllan 21.9.15
Introduction
This book is about war; so how do we define war?
“War is a state of armed conflict between autonomous or coalitions of such organizations. It is generally characterized by extreme collective aggression, destruction, and usually high mortality. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called peace.
While some scholars see warfare as a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature, others argue that it is only a result of specific socio-cultural or ecological circumstances.
In 2013 war resulted in 31,000 deaths down from 72,000 deaths in 1990. The death toll in 2014 would be even greater with the wars in Syria, Iraq and northern Africa raging. The deadliest war in history, in terms of the cumulative number of deaths since its start, is the Second World War, with 60–85 million deaths, followed by the Mongolian Conquests. Proportionally speaking, the most destructive war in modern history is the War of the Triple Alliance, which took the lives of over sixty per cent of Paraguay's population.
In 2003, Richard Smalley identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problems facing humanity for the next fifty years. War usually results in significant deterioration of infrastructure and the ecosystem, a decrease in social spending, famine, large-scale emigration from the war zone, and often the mistreatment of civilians.
‘Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely military targets, and can result in massive civilian casualties’
Wikipedia
This definition does not mention children however, since time immemorial, children have been fighting along side the grown ups. During the age of chivalry, Pages as young as ten followed their masters into war particularly during the Crusades. Drummer boys marched in front of Napoleon’s army’s as they did leading the British into battle. Both the Union and Confederate armies also used them extensively during the American Civil War.
The First World War was the first wholesale use of children, boys as young as twelve were fighting in the trenches.
It is estimated over 700,000 boys under the age of eighteen fought coming from all sides with over 100,000 dying in the “War to End all Wars”.
Although the same participation rate was not as great in the Second World War many still fought particularly from Germany. Hitler used his “Hitler Youth” as cannon fodder when the Russians were invading Germany and ultimately Berlin. It is estimated that close to 30,000 boys and girls lost their lives trying to defend Germany and their Fuhrer.
So now that the world has learned from these ferocious wars and we have become much more sophisticated and knowledgeable does child exploitation in war still go on? Yes, unfortunately more now, than ever before.
The use of child soldiers is far more widespread than many can believe; current estimates are that over 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are fighting with machine guns and machetes in war zones around the globe.
It might be argued that eighteen isn’t that young, however the average age of these warriors is twelve. So far, the youngest captured fighting in Uganda was five. In Columbia a terrorist bomber was captured, he was seven.
It’s not just boys fighting, 30% of the armies employing children also use girls, these girls are being used to fight in approximately fifty-five countries around the world.
A frightening statistic is children currently serve in 40% of the world’s armed forces including rebel