The cultural cost of war - an Anzac eve reflection

Did the artist Napier Waller - who served with the first AIF during World War I, who lost his right arm at Bullecourt in 1917 and who taught himself to draw again with his left hand - have a more provocative intent? Was Waller’s troubled Flying Officer placed not in embattled England, but in defeated Germany? Might the innovative and contentious Waller have intended a close encounter with the "perverted ingenuity" of allied bombing? Could this cathedral, with statues shattered but walls largely intact, represent Germany's majestic Cologne cathedral?

While Coventry's Cathedral was turned to rubble, Cologne's twin-spired, medieval cathedral was spared serious bomb damage. This massive and magnificent German church stood comparatively and mysteriously untouched throughout the war despite widespread devastation all around.

The questions have long been asked whether Cologne Cathedral was miraculously saved, or was it deliberately spared? How could the allies' carpet-bombing have permitted such a huge structure to remain purposely unscathed? Whether spared by luck, miracle or skilled bombing, the cathedral soon became in fact a useful landmark for allied bombers to locate their military targets.

Since World War I aerial attack has been critical in most military conflicts. Since World War II air power has been the United States' principal tool for waging war. The Gulf war, the Iraq war and the ongoing military operations in Afghanistan have demonstrated not only the amazing effectiveness of bombs and missiles, but also their fallibility. Non-military damage and civilian injuries can still accompany air strikes. Not to mention the "collateral damage" and occasional casualties from "friendly fire" on your own side.

This Anzac Day, as we commemorate our nation's war dead, let us reflect on lives lost as well as on lives taken. Let us be moved not only by the remembrance of war-time killing and suffering but also, like the Hall of Memory's airman, by war-time "destruction of beauty and human ideals".