Friday, October 16, 2015

Australian ANZAC Hospital - Harefield and the Red Ensign


Harefield is the the only town in the United Kingdon to annually honour ANZAC day - The link dates back to the establishment of the Australian Hospital at Harefield during WW1.

Every ANZAC day fresh flowers are laid on the graves of the soldiers and nurses who died at Harefield Hospital by local school children.

The Red Ensign

During WW1 Australian soldiers often used the red ensign version of the Australian flag -

An Australian historian who has researched the issue of the Australian red and blue flag has commented

"A wealth of pictorial evidence which proves that the red ensign was the flag which both the public and members of the Armed Services overwhelmingly related to and "adopted" as Australia′s de-facto national flag prior to 1954. This period of course includes both World War I and World War II.

In fact, in 1967,  Conservative Liberal Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies (who had seen Hitler as a patriot) wrote in his book Afternoon Light, Some Memories of Men and Events
"In the year of my birth 1894 - Queen Victoria was on the throne of the United Kingdom and Ireland and the Dominions and Colonies beyond the Seas... For us, the maps of the world were patterned with great areas of red, at a time when red was a respectable colour."

It seems clear Menzies′ arbitrary changing in 1954 of the then popular Red Ensign to blue, without consulting the Australian people, was for blatant political purposes in his campaign against the "red" communist peril."


So it would be our our contention that the Australian red ensign best flag represents true historical continuity.