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Airdate: The Digger

On Anzac Day the History Channel screens the premiere doco, The Digger, narrated by actor Neil Pigot.

The History Channel always has a good track record of producing Aussie docos for Anzac and Remembrance Days.

This Anzac Day it has The Digger, a 90 minute documentary film, narrated by actor Neil Pigot, that looks at the Aussie Diggers who have fought alongside our allies.

It is produced by Michael Tear of Bearcage productions.

History will also screen Kapyong on April 24th.

Countries have affectionate names for their soldiers. In Australia, he’s The Digger.

The digger’s story is of attack and resolute defence, of characteristic humour and of questionable discipline. It is also, surprisingly, more truthful than most military legends, more fact than myth.

Australians have fought alongside the British, the Americans, the French, the South Vietnamese and the South Koreans. They famously battled the Turks on Gallipoli and fought by their side in the Korean Peninsula. Australians and New Zealanders, combining their countries’ initials in a legendary acronym, have gone to war as ANZACS.

What The Digger explores as it takes viewers on a journey to the key battlefields where Australians have fought is this: they have never fought on home ground, but from the end of the nineteenth century to the present in Afghanistan, they have fought all over the world, beginning in Africa.

Colonial contingents served in the Anglo-Boer Wars at the end of the Victorian age, and the story of The Digger starts there. The outlines of the digger were drawn in action against Boer, an outline that was almost wholly filled-in by the First World War.

The film follows the digger’s story on some of the key battlefields of the Western Front where most of Australia’s 60,000 casualties were killed. Also uncovered is the warren of Cairo’s old quarter, the ground over which Australians fought “The Battle of the Wazza” – a notorious rampage through the streets of the red light district that did much to cement the Australians’ reputation for ill discipline.

WWII returned Australian troops to Africa – the Ninth Australian Division played a key role at the Battle of El Alamein and we retrace its exploits on that battlefield before turning our attention to the war where Australians suffered and achieved the most – the Pacific. Diggers inflicted the first land defeat on the Japanese, holding them on the Kokoda track but, before that, repelling their attempted landing at Milne Bay, the battlefield from which we tell the story.

The story of The Digger is then brought up-to-date by travelling first to Korea and finally to the scene of Australia’s longest war, Vietnam.

At each battlefield, in every war, individual stories of ordinary soldiers are told – stories ignored by the history books.

The film shares anecdotes, jokes and songs, uses letters, diaries, memoirs and features graphic re-enactments – both the military actions and the off-duty conduct that have created a unique reputation.

With archive material and with specially prepared, exploratory animated graphics, The Digger rounds out the story of the Australian soldier.

Filmed on location in eight countries, featuring reconstructions of incidents and actions from five conflicts, this is The Digger.

A history. His story.

It airs on The History Channel on Anzac Day, April 25th at 7.30pm

2 Responses

  1. Congratulations on a sensitive, thought provokiing and straightforward portrait of the Australian soldier. All too often we only hear about the Generals, Colonels, Admirals etc. without getting to know the stories of the ordinary people forced into action under extraordinarily severe conditions. To all who participated in presenting this documentary I can only say, a job well done and look forward to future offerings with much anticipation.

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