Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Aussie Diggers- Past & Present

Australian Lighthorse Regiment
Even today in Beersheva, now a bustling and modern desert city, the legend of the Australians is still remembered, particularly the rapport they struck up with the local children.


Soldiers in Afghanistan have backed the brass and political leaders who have warned Australia to prepare for bad news as the enemy steps up its campaign to target Australian troops.

Defence chiefs have pledged the nation's best fighting men will not take a backward step as they hunt down extremists.

"Our aim is not to wait for them to come to us, but to take the fight to them," a Defence spokesman said. - http://www.news.com.au


Diggers kill Taliban insurgents
From correspondents in Kabul
October 30, 2007 04:00am
Article from: Reuters

No coalition troops killed in attack
Air strikes called to defeat rebels
At least 50 Taliban insurgents killed

AUSTRALIAN soldiers have fought a six-hour battle with Taliban insurgents, killing at least 50 militants in a joint operation with Afghani and other NATO troops in southern Afghanistan.
No coalition troops were killed in Sunday's attack on a Taliban stronghold in Uruzgan province, which followed the deaths in the last three weeks of Australian soldiers David Pearce and decorated SAS sergeant Matthew Locke in Afghanistan.

Australian, Dutch and Afghani army soldiers launched the attack on Baluch village during a gathering of local Taliban, provincial police chief Juma Gul Himat said.
Charles Anthony, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said that "several dozen militants were killed" in the clash.

"This was a well-led and well-co-ordinated engagement, with the Afghani National Army and ISAF working in conjunction with each other," he said.

Afghani Defence Ministry spokesman Zaher Murad said Afghan and ISAF forces, including Australians, fought the insurgents on the ground and called in air strikes to defeat the rebels.

Mr Murad said the Taliban had suffered at least 50 dead and 13 insurgents had been captured.

"We don't know exactly how many insurgents were killed, their bodies are still on the battlefield," he said.

Two policemen and an Afghani soldier were also wounded, Mr Jumat said.

Dutch and Australian troops form the bulk of ISAF forces in Uruzgan.

Afghan and mainly Western forces are struggling to contain a Taliban insurgency based in the south and east, which is hampering reconstruction and undermining faith in the Government of President Hamid Karzai.
Sunday's clash, in the south-central province of Uruzgan, comes as ISAF troops and Afghan forces are conducting a large offensive in the area against Taliban rebels.

"This is part of the Spin Ghar operation, which began on Thursday," Mr Murad said.

Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the 2001 US-led invasion, and more than 5300 people have died because of insurgency-related violence.

Also in the south, a roadside bomb against a US-led coalition convoy killed one soldier and wounded another, a coalition statement said. In the east, coalition forces raided a compound suspected of housing al-Qaeda facilitators, killing several militants on Sunday.

--

Lighthorse descendants ready to charge again
Martin Chulov, Jerusalem October 27, 2007

Descendants of soldiers of the Lighthorse Regiment in Jerusalem with a picture of the charge of Beersheba. Picture: Amit Shabi

Ninety years to the day on October 31, Mr Edgar's father, Sergeant Ian Swan Edgar, joined the charge of the 12th Australian Lighthorse Regiment -- a death-defying gallop across the sands of Beersheba, now known as Beersheva, that was to change the course of World WarI in the Holy Land.

On Wednesday, Mr Edgar and 50 descendants of the original Lighthorse men will don the 1917 period costume of their forebears and re-enact their gallantry at the site of the original charge.

Another 90 Australians have made the journey to Israel ahead of the unveiling next April of a life-sized bust of a Digger on horseback, to be erected at the new Park of the Australian Soldier, a $3 million project funded by Australian businessman Richard Pratt.

The Light Horse legacy prompted the chief executive of the Pratt Foundation, Sam Lipski, to set up a theme park alongside the bust of the Digger, catering for the needs of children with and without physical disabilities. It will be unveiled on April 28, three days after Anzac Day.

The 3m-high bronze horseman, crafted by Melbourne sculptor Peter Corlett, who designed the Australian War Memorial's statue of Simpson and his donkey, will be the first memorial dedicated to the Australian victory in Beersheva. The memorial will include panels explaining

Australia's role in the Middle East in World War I, World War II and current missions.

The Beersheba commemoration this year has taken on a spirit of celebration, with representatives of the Turkish and New Zealand governments set to attend along with participants from Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland as well as large numbers of Australians resident in Israel.

The 12th Lighthorse was no stranger to the Turks, with most of the men who took part in the charge having landed at Gallipoli two years earlier. But unlike the gruesome campaign in the Dardanelles, the Australians routed the Ottoman soldiers that October afternoon.

The surprise attack by 800 horsemen was one of the last great cavalry charges.
Just after 4.30pm in the desert heat of late autumn, the men set off, first in a canter, but soon breaking into a strong gallop.

The 4th Lighthorse took the right flank and the 12th the left. They rode north across flat ground towards entrenched Turkish positions defending Beersheba and then onwards to the town. It was a pivotal seizure hailed as one of the most heroic in Australian military history.

Casualties during the charge were low, with 31 Australians killed and 36 wounded. More than 1000 Turkish prisoners were captured on the day, with the help of British forces who took substantial casualties in earlier softening-up battles, with up to 1300 dead and wounded.

Mr Edgar will not be attempting quite the same rigour, nor will the other 50 riders.

Sergeant Edgar's three brothers were all Light Horsemen, of the 8th, 9th and 10th regiments. All four soldiers were wounded in the war, but Sergeant Edgar recovered to live a long life, dying in 1984 at the age of 95.

Bill Hyman, whose grandfather Major Bill Hyman joined the charge, said he was travelling to Beersheva in a bid to "find out what it was like for him".

"I understand the bigger picture of what happened, just not how it happened," he said at a function in Jerusalem's Old City at which the Australians were presented with goodwill certificates by an Israeli tourism official.

Most of the Diggers shared little of that afternoon with their families, as was the custom of men of that generation. "All we heard was that it was pretty much a desperate measure," said Grant Pike, whose great-uncle Harold Seale survived the charge.

"They had 20 minutes to form up and get going."

Even today in Beersheva, now a bustling and modern desert city, the legend of the Australians is still remembered, particularly the rapport they struck up with the local children.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/

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posted by 10 men at 8:19 AM

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