Digger awarded Victoria Cross for heroic gallantry

[ricklind]

Digger awarded Victoria Cross

 

http://www.theage.com.au/national/digger-a...90116-7inm.html

[CaptO]

Impressive feat. But I must have missed it; what's a digger?

[roque_riojas]

Capt. my thoughts of a digger is an old dogface.

I did some diggin' rocky-----

[Walt's Daughter]

Digger is the New Zealand and Australian military slang term for soldiers from New Zealand and Australia. It originated during World War I.

[Walt's Daughter]

There are numerous theories about the origin of the term. Before the war, the term "digger" had been widely used in Australasia to mean a miner, or a Kauri gum-digger in New Zealand. On 25 April 1915, General Sir Ian Hamilton sent a message to the commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), General William Birdwood, following the landing at Gallipoli. It contained the postscript: "P.S.—You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig, until you are safe." However, there is no hard evidence to support the theory that Hamilton's message is the reason why digger was applied to ANZAC troops in general. W. H. Downing, in Digger Dialects (1919), a glossary of words and phrases used by Australian personnel during the war, says that Digger was first used to mean a New Zealand or Australian soldier in 1916. It appears to have become popular among New Zealand troops, before being adopted by Australians. The word was not in wide use amongst soldiers until 1917. One other theory is the fact that ANZAC troops were especially good at digging tunnels between their own trenches and the enemies, and were regarded by both sides as diggers, one being derogatory and the other more in jest. The job of digging between the trenches was very hard, especially when both sides' diggers met in the tunnels. ANZACS believed that it was a compliment to be referred to diggers, because it indicated you were good at a very difficult job.

[roque_riojas]

Well I guess I was a little off base. Rocky