News
By Trench & Troopship: Journals of New Zealanders on Active Service
13 April 2010
| Source: | Dunedin City Council |
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25 April 2010 marks the 95th ANZAC Day anniversary - the national day of remembrace in Australia and New Zealand. To honour the event, the latest Reed Gallery exhibition highlights the Dunedin Public Library's collection of soldiers' newspapers written by and for members of New Zealand's armed services.
Also known as 'trench' or 'troopship journals', these periodicals relayed official campaign news, offered up satirical commentary on military life, and provided a medium within which soldiers published topical poems and caricatures (particularly of officers).
The Library's Troopship Journal Collection numbers approximately 379 items, the majority of which were donated by returning servicemen or their familes starting in 1915. The thirty-four journals on display are primarily from the two World Wars, with three dating to the Second South African War (1899-1902). One item of particular interest is a 1944 ANZAC Day commemoration booklet, written by Allied P.O.W.s in Stalag 383 and printed by a local German firm. The booklet was posted by a New Zealand prisoner to the Dunedin Returned Services' Association. Exhibited alongside is the envelope that carried the booklet from Germany to New Zealand - bearing the Stalag ID stamp and Red Cross seal - and a typescript describing the event.
For members of the armed forces on active service these journals provided much needed relief from the horrors of war. To the modern reader, their impact is perhaps best summarised by Professor Graham Seal of Curtin University (Australia):
'Through this mostly forgotten literature, language and art we can connect with the common concerns of foot soldiers and perhaps understand a little better how they endured the unendurable and why, at its end, many of the survivors experienced oddly mixed feelings of relief and regret'.
The exhibition runs until 13 June. A brief Gallery Guide is available for download as a PDF:
http://www.dunedinlibraries.com/home/?page=exhibit&item=reedtroops
