Glenda Humes is the daughter of Gunditjmara soldier Captain Reginald Saunders, the first Aboriginal man to be commissioned as an officer in the army. She joins Amy McQuire to talk about her father’s story in the lead up to ANZAC Day.
Captain Saunders followed in the footsteps of his father Chris Saunders – who fought in the first world war, and his uncle Reg Rawlings, who was awarded a Military Metal and fell in the line of duty.
Reg Saunders is now well-known and he is recognised with a gallery named after him at the Australian War Memorial. He joined the Greek Campaign in World War II, and fought in the famous Battle of 42nd street in Crete – his 2/7 battalion fought alongside a Maori Battalion. Captain Saunders was left behind when the British evacuated Crete in May 1941. He hid out among the locals, in fact I think one family in particular, and was evacuated by sea. He later served in New Guinea. In the Korean War, he led the C Company, 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment. He had been commissioned a lieutenant in 1944 and raised to the rank of captain in Korea.
But of course, like so many other stories, when Aboriginal diggers came back from the battle field, they came back to the racist country that had been stolen from them.
We discuss what happened when Aboriginal diggers came back from war, and why the nation refuses to confront the truth of the Frontier Wars.
