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Fighting Mac
by
Commissioner Wesley Harris
IT IS said that Australia was defined as a nation at Gallipoli
and that there amid the blood and guts of battle the Anzac
spirit of ‘mateship’ was born. It might also be said that it
was there that the legend of Salvos always being where needed
was epitomised in the first Australian Salvation Army military
chaplain, William McKenzie or ‘Fighting Mac’ as the
Scottish-born Aussie was known.
He was a big, tough man with a great sense of humour, ready as
the next to carry a kit bag for a mate, march for miles or dig
a trench and his practicality opened the door for his
spirituality enabling him to lead 3,000 diggers to Christ. His
signature chorus was, “And so to keep my heart from ever
growing weary, I’ll carry my sunshine with me wherever I go’
.And that is what he did.
Gallipoli was a terrible tragedy which has become an enduring
testimony. Fighting Mac and his ‘boys’ as he called them were
in at the beginning of the ill-fated operation. If the
chaplain had a bible in one hand he had a spade in the other
for according to his biographer he buried 647 young men he
described as the best soldiers in the world.
Under heavy fire he would crawl out into ‘no-man’s land’ to
comfort a dying soldier or in a crouching position conduct a
funeral service for one who had died. Then Mac would dig a
shallow grave. He had no rest for three days and nights at
Lone Pine where corpses were piled up, sometimes on top of the
wounded.and the sights and sounds were to haunt fighting Mac
to the end of his days.
This man whose biographies would be among the most moving I
have ever read not only had a ministry to the soldiers but
also to their anxious families to whom he wrote hundreds of
letters. Again and again he would risk his life to reach a
body and take a precious memento to send to grieving
relatives. With this in mind he would often have many identity
discs hanging from his belt.
Later when he had returned to Australia he traveled all over
the country taking keepsakes to grieving families. No halls
were big enough to contain the crowds wanting to meet him. For
example, 6,000 packed the Exhibition Building in Melbourne
with many unable to get in.
After the withdrawal from Gallipoli Mac had an interlude in
Egypt and then saw service with Aussie troops amid the mud and
blood of France where again he had to cope with harrowing
scenes of mass slaughter.
Following the war he became the territorial commander in
China. He loved the Chinese although my mother-in-law who was
his secretary old me that some of the Chinese people were a
little frightened of him because he was so big compared with
them. His final appointments were as the territorial leader in
each of the Australian territories. and then came retirement
when he still relived the costly experiences of the war.
Today Salvationists have a wonderful heritage of acceptance.
In Australia the Salvo legend is incredible and we can be
humbly proud. But let us remember that it was bought with a
great price by people of whom we may feel all unworthy.
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