Australian ABC Radio National’s Encounter program has an episode featuring Australian military chaplains during World War 1.
The program is available for listening at Encounter’s web page.
Here’s the introduction:
On the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, we focus on the men and women known affectionately as ‘padres’, chaplains who have served the Australian Army officially since 1913. At the heart of the program is the untold story of one of Australia’s earliest WW1 padres, an Anglican minister who by war’s end was Major The Reverend R.H. Pitt-Owen. A Senior Chaplain, he served in Egypt and on the Western Front in France for almost four years. Drawing on original unpublished letters, sermons and newspaper accounts of the time, we chart his harrowing story from parish life in Sydney to the bloody battlefields of the Somme.
We’ll also hear from Padre Pitt-Owen’s grandson David Pitt-Owen, historian Dr Michael Gladwin, and the current Principal Chaplain Anglican to the Australian Army, Geoff Webb, who tells producer Geoff Wood how chaplaincy has evolved to meet contemporary military and peace-keeping missions.
mgpcpastor's blog 