ADELAIDE'S NATIONAL WAR MEMORIAL

Just days before, the ArtLab specialists were giving the familiar bronze figures on North Terrace a final clean and polish, and now the National War Memorial's seventieth anniversary remedial project has rendered this most symbolic of our monuments ready for another Remembrance Day, November 11th. As passers-by note, it is now as good as it looked when it was unveiled on Anzac Day 1931.

Then, it was the physical representation of how Adelaide and the state chose to express the profound and appalling effect of World War I on its youth . . . on everybody. We're lucky that it is now a long time ago, and that the memorial is in one sense just part of the monumental furniture of our cultural boulevard. In 1918, however, peace returned after four years of dreadful conflict, the debate began. What kind of memorial should be raised? And where? Montefore Hill was suggested, as was Victoria Square. A giant monument on Mt Lofty was also proposed, and the Torrens parade Ground was considered. Some republicans were all for taking over government House and using all the grounds. Finally, after seven years of discussion, one corner of the Government House grounds was declared as the site.

The design that won the competition for South Australians only was submitted by Walter Bagot and Louis Laybourne-Smith, principals of an architectural firm that's still practising as Woods Bagot. It is now wrought in Harcourt granite, grey marble from Macclesfield and white marble quarried near Angaston. They had to enter twice, however. All twenty-six designs in the first competition were destroyed in a building fire. With more than 5,500 South Australians killed in the Great War, 15,000 more wounded and yet another 20,000 who served overseas, the State government was willing to commit more than three million dollars in today's terms to erect a suitable war memorial. By 1928, construction had begun, with the giant marble blocks cut and placed by the staff of Tillett and Son, still a family company today. It was a truly monumental task and a troubled project. A 44-hour-week campaign and a push for better wages saw several stonemasons depart and Tilletts remained in receivership until its completion. It has been suggested that the “rustication” of the marble arch - the very rough stone dressing - is perhaps a little bumpier than originally intended.

The overall precision, however, is in contrast to the simple wooden crosses placed round the Government House wall. These are the soldiers' own first memorials, rescued from the battlefields of France in World War I, where they stood while the slaughter was still about them. That was not “the war to end all wars” as had been hoped, and so more memorials for more losses in more conflicts accompany the main edifice. Inside the main chamber of the war memorial there are thousands and thousands of names in bronze of young men who did not return to see it built. Beside one entrance door there is a lighter touch, however . . . a stonemason's sign that goes back to the ancient Greeks. Wedged tight between the blocks of marble is a two-bob-bit from 1928.

In the language of architecture, a giant archway can be code for overcoming the enemy . . . as in Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe. In Adelaide's War Memorial, however, the arching structure is not about triumph of a material kind. The designers felt the huge loss of lives deeply and so this was about a victory of the spirit that showed a willingness to serve and to sacrifice.

Sydney sculptor George Rayner Hoff was asked to realise the statues in detail. His angels in stone are far more art deco in style than the “nineteenth-century-gravestone” realism of the Bagot sketches. After a successful tryout with the mould of the imperial lion's head above the oval pool, Rayner Hoff was happy to see local firm Dobbie and Co cast his figures in bronze for the podium group. They provide an unusual feature, for this is a war memorial where no soldier is portrayed. It is a civilian farmer, scholar and young girl who respond to the call of duty.

Rayner Hoff's greatest and most controversial work is in the great war memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park. He saw his Adelaide work but once, while it was still under construction, and within six years of its unveiling he was dumped by a wave as he surfed at a Sydney beach, and he died of pancreatitis.

People at the Remembrance Day Dawn Service will not notice the only real change that the Sarah construction people have wrought during their three month remedial job on the National War Memorial during its seventieth anniversary year. There is a new access cover built into the granite steps that leads to a North Terrace secret . . . an underground chamber for the foundation piers. Inside there is evidence of extensive reinforcement replacement and concrete respraying.

The rest of the work has been about restoring the granite steps and Macclesfield rough-hewn marble arch and smooth Angaston marble images. The imagery is powerful. On the North Terrace face, the Spirit of Duty calls young men and women in a prologue to war and sacrifice. On the other side, the passive epilogue sees the Spirit of womanhood with sad regrets bearing her sacrificed sons and lovers. I recall thinking as a lad that it was an unbearable image, and perhaps that is appropriate. The pool below with water splashing from the Imperial Lion's mouth is calming, signifying the endless flow of memories of the fallen, of the lost loved ones.

The State government's restoration project comes seventy years after the memorial was unveiled before a huge gathering of some 75,000 by a fine soldier. The Governor, Brigadier General Sir Alexander Hore-Ruthven had earned a Victoria Cross at the turn of the century, and was wounded at Gallipoli.

The crowd heard his speech that could have been made today, as he appealed that “those who follow may be inspired to devise some better means to settle international disputes other than by international slaughter”.

That was Anzac Day, 1931. Every Anzac Day and Remembrance Day and on several other occasions each year, this monument again assumes its great meaning. It rises above the traffic and noise to evoke the silent and powerful message in the official name of our National War Memorial - The Spirit of Sacrifice.

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