Commemoration

Rifle Volleys and Gun Salutes

The origins of salutes fired with personal weapons, field pieces or ships' cannons are a little obscure. Noise has long been a form of celebration and it is perhaps for this reason that firearms were adopted as a means of salute. Another possible explanation that has been advanced suggests that the salute was originally a signal of trust originating around the fourteenth century. In the days of muzzle loading cannons, it took a while to reload a ship's armament once it had been fired. Thus, when approaching a foreign port or another friendly ship, all of the cannons on board would be fired to show that they were empty and posed no threat. As the weapons could not fire again in a hurry, this action also demonstrated that those aboard trusted those on land or in the other vessel not to open fire on them. In time, this practice was adopted as a way to honour dignitaries and at some stage also passed into use on land.

A twenty one gun salute at Royal Military College Duntroon, 1946.
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The salute today is not fired in one large burst of gunfire but rather as a rolling volley, where one gun fires after another. This modification is said to have originated in less chivalrous, more pragmatic times. By firing one gun after another a symbolic salute could be fired to honour a VIP, but still leave guns loaded so as not to leave the vessel totally defenceless.

Soldiers firing a volley at a funeral in New Guinea, 1942.
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A specific number of guns is fired to honour VIPs in accordance with their status. Royalty and heads of state receive a twenty-one gun salute, field marshals, state officials and equivalents receive a 19 gun salute; generals and equivalents receive 17, and so on down to 11 for a brigadier.

Three rifle volleys are fired to honour the passing of a soldier below the rank of brigadier or as a general gesture of mourning and remembrance. The three volleys are believed to have originally represented the holy trinity. Other sources, however, place the origins of this practice much earlier, when at pagan funeral ceremonies dead warriors were honoured by their comrades riding three times around the funeral pyre.