It was exciting last month to finally launch the printed version of the website.
The book Together They Served was launched in front of about 50 people at the Torquay RSL. It was great to meet and speak with family members of the men and women in the book as well as fellow historians and RSL members.
After five years of research, 700 men and women associated with the Surf Coast Shire have been identified as having enlisted in World War 1. Not all of these names were identified on the memorials scattered across the Shire.
Like the website, the memorials and honour boards form the basis of the book but there is much more information contained in the 460 pages. There are letters, diary excerpts, many more photos and stories of involvement in battles.
Complementary copies have been placed in the Torquay, Geelong and mobile libraries as well as the RSL’s across the Shire. Next week complementary copies will be distributed to schools and retirement villages.
Click on the book image below to access the digital copy. It is a low resolution pdf file. If you would like a larger resolution let me know via email.
With this large task now behind me, early next year I will begin the task of updating the website.
Please contact me if there are any omissions or errors via the ‘Contact Us’ page.
It has been five years since the research began on the men and women from the Surf Coast Shire who enlisted in World War One.
The results of the research into the honour boards and memorials that identified some of their community members has been published on this website in the early stages of the research. Since then over one hundred more names have been found and yet to be added to the website.
Now the research has been exhausted, the information has now been compiled into a book due to be launched next week. I would like to thank the supporters of the website and Facebook page who have contributed to extending the knowledge of one or more veterans and also for your support and encouragement of the research.
Through Torquay Museum Without Walls this comprehensive 460 page book, covering the 700 men and women from the Surf Coast Shire who enlisted will be distributed to local schools, public libraries, history groups, RSLs, as well as to families who assisted in providing details of family members who fought in the Great War or helped with relevant photographs and artefacts.
The book is abundantly illustrated. Seventeen short historical chapters deal with different aspects of the war, recognizing local veterans experience over those five years. The chapters discuss how they prepared for war, their experience at Gallipoli, the Western Front, the sinking of HMAT Ballarat, being part of the Charge of the Light Horse Brigade and the experiences of those left behind. There are letters from home and messages in bottles thrown overboard by those leaving our shores. The core of the book is the investigation into the location of the local memorials and honour boards, their history and who the men and women identified on these honour boards and memorials are. Wonderful photographs accompany each story.
Details of purchasing a printed or digital copy will be available soon.
Matron Elizabeth Hunter, M.B.E known as Lila, died at the age of 74 in the Waverley War Memorial Hospital in Sydney where she had been administrator for many years.
Lila was one of thirteen children born to Thomas and Catherine Hunter, farmers at Wurdale. After her training at Geelong Hospital she was a nurse at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne before being a director of hospitals at Corowa, Honolulu and the US.
When the war broke out two of her brothers and her brother-in-law, Luke Monkovitch (KIA) joined the AIF. Lila went to England and joined the Queen Alesandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve (QAIMNSR) on 6th June 1915, where she was appointed Matron at Hawarden Castle, a hospital for English officers. From there she took to the field as a Red Cross Matron in France, Malta, and Germany where she evacuated wounded German prisoners.
After the war she came home and in 1920, became the first Matron of the first Methodist Hospital in NSW even though she was an Anglican. Offers from Geelong Hospital and other attractive positions in Victoria couldn’t sway her to return home. She stayed with the hospital which became known as the Waverley War Memorial Hospital for 24 years before her retirement, building the hospital from a small 19 bed facility to a 130 bed hospital. Lila received the M.B.E. for her services to the nursing profession in the 1941 King’s Birthday Honours. After her retirement she maintained her interest in nursing as a member of the A.T.N.A executive. Just prior to her passing the doctors of the hospital commissioned her portrait, a canvas oil painting, by the well-known artist Joshua Smith; which was entered into the 1948 Archibald Prize.
In memory of Alfred Ernest GREEN (Deans Marsh), Charles Leslie ANDERSON (Ceres) and Sydney Gordon CHALLIS (Connewarre) who died this day.
Caption
c Heather Johnson
Caption
More than 3,000 Australians were killed, wounded or missing during this battle.
Approximately 1,200 Australian Prisoners were captured on the fateful day. Many died of wounds later, or died in POW Camps, factories, mines or forced labour between the front and Germany.
Early evening, 100 years ago today, men of the AIF sat in trenches waiting for the command to move from the trenches to attack the German line at Fromelles / Fleurbaix. It was the first major battle fought by Australian troops on the Western Front. It was a disaster. The British bombardment of the area prior to the offensive warned the Germans of a likely attack. The Germans watched the troops move into position, heavily shelling the assembly area and communications trenches, causing hundreds of Australian and British casualties before the attack even started.
At 6.00pm, the assault began with three hours of daylight remaining. Some Australian units quickly crossed no-man’s-land, seized the German front line, and then pushed on for 140 metres in search of a supposed third and last line of the German trench system. No such line existed and the Australians began forming a thin disjointed series of posts in the intended position. Other Australians attacked from another direction. The Germans had survived the shelling and manned their machine guns. Within 15 minutes they had decimated the attacking waves of Australians, forcing the survivors to find shelter.
Albert Clery
The next morning the Australians that had breached the enemy’s lines were forced to withdraw to their own lines. The Australians suffered 5,533 casualties in one night, the worst 24 hours in Australia’s military history. One of these victims was Albert Clery, a Connewarre labourer, and member of the newly formed 60th Battalion. Having only arrived in France on 28 June, the Australians became embroiled in this first major battle without the benefit of an introduction to the trenches in a “quiet” sector. The battalion, in a single day, was virtually wiped out, suffering 757 casualties. Albert was initially reported missing during this battle, and with no evidence he became a POW, he was reported as being killed in action on 19 July 1916. His body has never been identified, so he is commemorated on the Fromelles V.C. Corner Memorial.
From across the Shire, Robert Smithers, Charles Smith, Ray Trigg and John Lamb also met their death during this early evening battle. Only Robert’s body was ever found.
The Australian toll at Fromelles was equivalent to the total Australian casualties in the Boer War, Korean War and Vietnam War put together. It was a staggering disaster that had no redeeming tactical justification whatsoever. It was, in the words of a senior participant, Brigadier General H.E. “Pompey” Elliott, a “tactical abortion”.
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Somme offensive, a series of fierce and ultimately futile battles that consumed the British, Australian and Dominion forces for much of 1916. The offensive was eventually abandoned on 18 November with staggering troop losses and very little ground gained.
The initial day of the offensive, 1 July 1916, remains the costliest day in the history of the British army. It suffered almost 60,000 casualties, a third of whom were killed. The attack on 1 July, and the operations that followed, were undermined by a failure to appreciate the strength of the German defences, and the relative ineffectiveness of the British artillery against them. British command had a lack of confidence in the abilities of Britain’s volunteer army, which meant there was a distinct lack of imagination or innovation in the tactics employed.
Despite the enormous losses of that first battle at the Somme, the offensive continued through summer and a particularly wet autumn until the first snow fell on 18 November 1916. The Australian Imperial Force, consisting of men who had fought at Gallipoli and fresh volunteers from home, arrived at the Somme in late July.
The major contribution of Australian troops to the Somme offensive was in the fighting around Pozières between 23 July and 3 September. The 1st, 2nd and 4th Australian Divisions suffered more than 24,000 casualties at Pozières, including 6,741 dead.
Nine men from the Surf Coast honour boards were killed in action during the Somme offensive. William Traill Appleton (Anglesea); Charles Smith and John Lamb (Ceres); Albert Clery (Connewarre); Francis Gannon, Ray Trigg, Lester Crossley (Deans Marsh); Robert Smithers and Ernest Armistead (Lorne). Five of these men, who were attached to the 21st and 22nd Battalion, died on July 19 at Fromelles / Fleurbaix.
Ernest Armistead
William Trail Appleton
Albert Clery
When exhaustion, and the sticky mud of a particularly wet autumn, caused the offensive to be abandoned in November, the allied forces had managed to advance only 12 kilometers. It had come at a cost of 430,000 British and Dominion troops and 200,000 French casualties. The offensive destroyed Britain’s mass volunteer army, and for the rest of the war it would be reliant upon conscription for reinforcements. Participation on the Somme also put the first strain on Australia’s voluntary recruitment system, and led to the first unsuccessful referendum to introduce conscription.
January marks the month that two Surf Coast diggers died. While they died two years apart it was the war that contributed to their deaths in different ways.
Pte Arthur Stanley PALMER, from Mt. Duneed, died on 25 January 1917. He is commemorated on the South Barwon and Mt. Duneed
Mt Duneed State School Honour Roll
State School Honour Boards. Arthur was the eldest of three brothers who enlisted and the only one not to return home. In April 1916, Arthur enlisted in Geelong as a married man, 24 years of age. He previously enlisted and was a member of the 8th Battalion but was discharged after two weeks medically unfit because of a varicose vein in his left leg. Arthur left Melbourne for France on 1 August 1916 as part
of the 8th Reinforcements aboard the HMAT Orsova arriving on the battle fields of France six months later. Within four weeks he was killed in action. As a member of the 29th Battalion he was doing maintenance work on the roads and railway in towns such as Goisy, Buir, Fricourt, Montauban when on the 24th January they relieved the 54th Battalion on the Intermediate Line and occupied the ‘Needle Blighty’ and ‘Cow’ trenches. It was during this time that Arthur was killed, one of three killed in action during January. He is buried at the Guard Cemetery, Les Boeufa, 4.5 miles south of Bapaume.
Corporal Harry GAVENS, journalist, died on 15 January 1919, after the armistice. He is commemorated with his brother (who was KIA) on the Anglesea Sport and Recreation honour board. Harry had seen a number of battles being a member of the 5th Pioneer Battalion working hard at many different tasks on ensuring the roads, bridges and trenches were in good order as the Pioneers duty it was. During September 1918 Harry was congratulated for gallant services rendered during recent operations – the attack on the Hindenburg Line. The cause of death was listed as heart failure, however after interviews of others in the unit a post mortem examination was requested. He had a bout of appendicitis the month before, but the hospital chose not to operate. Some reports indicated that he was not the same since returning to the unit and ate little since then. Nevertheless, the post mortem examination revealed his appendix to be normal and that the anatomical diagnosis finding were consistent with those of death from acute alcoholism. This result is not at all consistent with members of the unit who between them could only identify one occasion prior to the night before his death where he was drunk. The night before his death it appears that he may have consumed a bottle of whiskey on his own. Harry is buried at the Maubeuge Centre Cemetery.
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the evacuation from Gallipoli in Turkey.
The strategy to invade in April 1915 was intended to allow Allied ships to pass through the Dardanelles channel to capture Istanbul and ultimately knock Turkey out of the First World War.
Eight months later winter starts closing in on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm for the Allied campaign is cooling. Sleet and snow cover the hills; a storm floods dugouts and washes away trenches spreading waterborne disease. Instead of suffering from the heat, soldiers suffer from frostbite.
In November, the British minister for war, Lord Kitchener, visited the peninsula to see firsthand whether troops should stay or go. The conditions there are more difficult than he had imagined so on return to London he reports back to the War Committee and in December, Cabinet orders that the troops get out. Australian General Brudenell White oversees the evacuation, setting chief engineer Captain Alexander Jackson (Jack) Cunningham MC [from the Anglesea Honour Board] the task to build a light pile footbridge to the S.S. Milo and step ladders along for men stepping down into boats. Jack wrote in his diary that ordnance had been packing up a lot of stuff, rumours were strong but he believed it seemed hardly credible there would be an evacuation. The rumours were confirmed, when he received the orders that he and his men had to prepare the SS Milo as a point of evacuation by blowing holes in her side. From this day on most of the remaining troops on Anzac became aware that a full withdrawal was in progress. Charles Bean wrote:
“The cemeteries of Anzac were never without men, in twos and threes or singly, ‘tidying’ up the grave of some dear friend, and repairing or renewing little packing-wood crosses and rough inscriptions.”
Soldiers slipped away in boats at night. Although Anzac Cove was used, the chief evacuation points were the piers at North Beach such as the pier to SS Milo built by Jack and his men. It was at North Beach, therefore, that many men spent their last moments on Anzac and caught their last glimpses in the dark of the Sari Bair Range as they pulled away from the piers. Stores were surreptitiously destroyed or removed, ammunition buried. Engineers were instructed to blow heavy guns to bits – in explosions no louder than gunshots.
At 4am on December 20, Jack was one of the last to slip away from Gallipoli, he had to ensure that the piers stayed intact for the withdrawal of all men. His role had been crucial to the successful evacuation from the Gallipoli Peninsula. The Anzacs left behind dumps of tinned meat and biscuits and more than 8000 Australians and around 2700 New Zealanders who died in the fighting.
Within a couple of weeks, all British and French troops had also left Cape Helles.
The Allied forces have battled on the peninsula for eight-and-a-half months; more than 40,000 of their men died: British, French, Indian, Canadian and soldiers from Nepal and Ceylon. The Turks lost twice as many soldiers defending the invasion; more than 86,000 dead.
Within months of sailing from Gallipoli, the first Anzacs arrived in Europe on March 7, 1916 where they started fighting again, this time in the main theatre of World War I, the Western Front.
Henry Haigh STORRER (Torquay) one of five men who died during the month of December in The Great War.
Henry, the son of H.J.H Storrer, member of the Torquay Improvement Association, was working as a shipping clerk/manager at Mota Garage while in his final year at the Victorian Institute of Accountants when he enlisted on 15 November 1915, five months after his brother had been killed at Gallipoli. He had prior experience in the military through his commissioned service in the 8th Australian Garrison Artillery. Henry was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, Australian Flying Corps at Laverton and embarked for overseas service from Melbourne aboard HMAT Ulysses on 25 October 1916. Having applied to be a commissioned officer in the Australian Flying Corps and the application granted on 1 October to the rank of Lieutenant Henry arrived at Plymouth on 28 December 1916.
The following week Henry transferred to Carlton for higher instruction in Aviation re-joining his unit on 24 March 1917. Another course of instruction was undertaken at 22nd Squadron, Harlaxton. This was immediately followed by attendance at the serial gunnery school Turnbeery and wireless/observers school Brooklands. Finally arriving back at his unit in July upon which he was promoted to Captain, then graded as Flight Commander in August. Henry arrived in France on 25 August attached to the 69th Squadron. Then on 2 December 1917 Henry died as a result of a freak twist of fate. Henry and his observer (Lt. William Scott) had just taken off and turned to avoid a line of trees, when a sudden squall turned the plane upside down and brought it down onto the stone wall of Bailleul Cemetery. The two airmen were buried side-by-side in the cemetery.
Others who died during December include John Frederick JUKES (Winchelsea); Michael Philip CAHIR (Puebla); John BELL (Anglesea); Edwin CHALLIS (Connewarre)
Together They Served 