I live in Sydney’s Inner West and swim regularly with a group of people at Victoria Park Pool. On Anzac and Remembrance Days I usually provide a bit of history just to reinforce the fact that these days are not all about flags, medals, bands, marching and wind-bag politicians mouthing platitudes. Today I provided readings about some fellows who served in the First World War from the local area. I found their names and places of association from Bill Gammage’s book The Broken Years in which he quotes extracts from their letters and diaries.

Recruitment & fate

L/Cpl Charles Lee, 1st Infantry Battalion. Horse Driver of Newtown. He was killed in a charge on the German Officer’s trench at Anzac on 5 June 1915. 50 men went with Capt. E. E. L. Lloyd to destroy a machine gun in that trench. The MG was destroyed but 27 men were wounded and five killed including L/Cpl Lee, aged 22.

Diary, 17/8/14: 

Left home early in the morning* and went to Victoria Barracks … had to wait outside the gates with about 1,000 or more other recruits for about an hour. When the gates opened there was a big rush of men to get in. We were then drafted into two batches one body composed of those who had done soldiering before and those that had not

* Probably on 11 August 1914 when recruiting began – his service number was 100.

Capt. Duncan Victor Mulholland, 1st Machine Gun Battalion. Bank clerk of Ashfield. He enlisted in February 1915. Initially he served with the 1st Light Horse Regiment at Anzac from 29/8/15. After some hospitalisation for illness, he was seconded for duty with the 1st MG Coy on 1/4/16, serving in France. In September 1917 he transferred to the 3rd MG Coy (redesignated 1st MG Battalion on 1/4/18) as its commander. He was wounded in action with that company on 31/5/18 (multiple shell wounds), dying of those wounds on the same day east of Ebblinghem, France, aged 27

Letter, 8/8/15: 

We are all looking forward to showing the world what we are made of and I, for one, have not the slightest fear of what there probably is in store for me (loss of limbs, a mortal wound, loss of memory, deafness, etc.) but I have impressed upon my mind our return to Australia, covered with glory and this vision I can’t get away from. 

& Letter, 17/7/17:

Prisoners we are not troubled with now for we kill every bosche at sight. 

Excited Anticipation, the Landing, Brotherhood and Horror at Anzac

Sgt William Echlin Turnley, 1st Field (Engineer) Company. Telephone mechanic of Sydney & later Shellharbour. Enlisted in August 1914 and was wounded in action at Anzac in July 1915. He was again hospitalised suffering some serious kidney and heart illnesses and was discharged on return to Australia on 10/6/16 aged 27.

Diary re 25/4/15:

 … How we wish they would fire —- or that we could land …! The suspense is nerve-racking. … The thought comes to me that we are the unfortunate ones to sacrificed in drawing the enemy’s fire. … Oh, why the dickens don’t they fire at us! … Crack! Swish! Ping! At last we breathe a sigh of relief, the suspense is over! … some get ashore safely, some are hit slightly, others are drowned in only a couple of feet of water because in the excitement no one notices their plight … [One] … he … looks at us dazedly, leaning forward on his rifle. A sailor  … touches him on the arm, and the soldier falls forward in to the bottom of the boat, dead. 

& later that day on the exposed Anzac hillsides, Diary, 25/4/15: 

One of our fellows goes out three times to bring in wounded comrades … The third time he is shot through the head and pitches forward on his face within a few feet of his goal.

Pte. Alfred Terah Elwood, 2nd Infantry Battalion. Carpenter of Glebe. Enlisted 24/8/14. Died of bomb wounds received in action on Anzac, 17/5/15 aged 25.

Letter, 30/4/15: 

I am slightly wounded … but am leaving tomorrow for the front again and very pleased I will be I want to get my own back I got hit in the head and right arm. last Sunday it happened it has not healed up yet but I am quite fit to go back again.

Capt. William Henry Sheppard, 17th Infantry Battalion. Insurance surveyor of Potts Point. Enlisting in August 1914, he was wounded at Anzac by a bomb in September 1915 and was evacuated, then returned to Australia on 17/3/16. He returned to serve in France again with the same battalion in late December 1916. He eventually returned to Australia on 10/3/18 aged 30.

 Letter, 28/8/15: 

My word war is a horror alright, until one comes right into it & sees the real thing he has no idea of what it means, glorious charges, magnificent defences, heroic efforts in this or that direction all boil down to the one thing, the pitting of human beings against the most scientific machinery & the result can be seen in the papers 

Sgt. Harry Melville Jackson, 13th Infantry Battalion. Builder’s clerk, born in Petersham. He served at Anzac and sustained a bomb wound in the knee. Later, he was initially reported “missing” and then he was recorded as having died whilst a German PoW, of wounds received in action in France, 15/8/16 aged 23.

Letter from Anzac, 21/8/15: 

We charged three hills that night [6-7/8/15]. On the first hill I bayoneted a Turk who was feigning death, with a few extra thrusts. He was an oldish man & on the first thrust which did not go right home he tried to get his revolver out at me, but failed … coming up the third hill, a gigantic Turk … grabbed me around the chest … he was a veritable Samson … [and] slowly began to crush the life out of me. I was almost gone when a mate of mine called Tippen came up and bayoneted him … We made sure of him and then continued up the hill. Poor Tippen got shot just in front of their trench in the stomach with two bullets. he died groaning horribly. I killed his assailant however by giving him five rounds in the head. I … let him have it full in the face. It was unrecognisable.

2Lt. Joseph Henry Dietze (aka Sandoe), 45th Infantry Battalion. Engineer of Marrickville. He enlisted aged 20 on 22/8/14. He was wounded in action on Anzac in May and August 1915. He was commissioned as an officer in August 1918 and was killed by shellfire in an advance in France on 18/9/18 aged 24.

letter from Anzac, 19/9/15, on Lone Pine: 

The dead were 4 & 5 deep & we had to walk over them: it was just like walking on a cushion … I daresay you will be surprised how callous a man becomes: a man may have a very close chum well if someone tells him his chum is killed all he says is — “poor chap” —& he forgets all about him 

The Horror in France

Lt. Leslie James Martin, 1st Machine Gun Battalion. Warehouseman of Dulwich Hill. He enlisted in August 1915. Sustained a gunshot wound to the leg in July 1916 and multiple ‘dangerous’ gunshot wounds in France in May 1918. These wounds resulted in the amputation of his right arm in November 1918. He returned to Australia 28/8/19, aged 30.

Letter on the battle of Fromelles* 31/7/16: 

we had to get up as close to the parapet as possible anybody who did not do this was simply courting death for shells were falling all round . . . there were dead and wounded everywhere . . . I had to sit on top of a dead man as there was no picking and choosing . . . I saw a shell lob about twelve yards away and it . . . lifted [two men] clean up in the air for about 6 feet and they simply dropped back dead . . . one or two of the chaps got shell shock and others got really frightened it was piteous to see them . . . One great big chap got away as soon as he reached the firing line and could not be found . . . I saw him in the morning in a dug out he was white with fear and shaking like a leaf. One of our Lieuts. got shell shock and he literally cried like a child, some that / saw carried down out of the firing line were struggling and calling out for their mother, while others were blabbering sentences one could not make out . . . [a] badly wounded [chap] . . . had his body partly in a small hole that had a good deal of wood work about it, this somehow got alight and all I could see was the lower parts of his legs and a piece of his face, all the rest was burned 

* Fromelles was possibly the most tragic event in Australian history, in which almost over 5,500 Australians became casualties with almost 2,000 killed in 24 hours.