Sporting ANZACs
This year on ANZAC Day we remembered some sporting ANZACs during our regular Saturday morning swim session. Here are my notes.
Three Olympic Games: 1908 – Silver in the 400m freestyle & Bronze in the 1,500m freestyle | 1920 – Silver in the 4*200 freestyle relay & Bronze in the 400m freestyle | 1924 – Bronze in the 1,500m freestyle & Silver in the 4*200m freestyle relay. He was banned from the 1912 Olympics as he was employed as a PT Instructor! His three silver and three bronze was the leading medal performance record for an Australian until it was broken by Murray Rose.
He enlisted in the First World War as an infantryman, but was rejected due to appendicitis. In 1916 he became a YMCA Commissioner and coordinated and managed their welfare and recreation centres in England and France. He had to return to Australia after getting trench fever and possibly some gassing in 1918. His service was commended by General Monash.
His only Olympics were in 1912 in Stockholm where he won a Silver in the 100m freestyle and a Gold in the 4*200m freestyle relay for Australasia (a combined team with NZ – thus truly ANZAC!). He also competed in the 1906 Intercalated Games (aka the unofficial 1906 Olympics) in Athen where he won a Bronze in the 100 freestyle. He did not have the funds to go to the 1908 Games. He was a great exponent of the relatively new “Australian Crawl” stroke and did exhibitions all over Europe and the UK. He protested to have the US swimmer Duke Kahanamoku allowed to race in the final of the 100m freestyle after he had earlier been DQed on some administrative technicality and his sportsmanship was widely applauded. Duke won the Gold.
He enlisted in the AIF in 1915 and served mostly as a Quarter Master Sergeant in Egypt and France until he undertook officer training in England, so he could get closer to the actual fighting. He was then posted to the 19th (Sportsman’s) Battalion and killed in his first action leading his infantry platoon in the first battle for Mont St Quentin on 29 August 1918 (aged 36).
He also competed in the 1912 Olympics for Australasia as a 400m hurdler. He did not make it to the finals.
He enlisted in the AIF’s 6th Battery, 2nd Brigade and landed at Gallipoli on what is now ANZAC Day. he was twice evacuated with illness. Later he was discharged from the AIF and commissioned into the (British) Royal Flying Corps, 45 Squadron (Special Reserve), but was killed in action in the skies over France in August 1917. He is not listed on the Australian War Memorial’s Roll of Honour, which I find very odd.
A very well known name in equestrian events, Bill won Gold in 1960, Bronze in 1968 and in 1976, all in equestrian teams events. His Bronze in 1976 alongside his son Wayne was the first father-son to win a medal together. He also competed in the 1964 and 1972 Olympics, one of only five Australians to compete in five games. He was 45 years old in his first Olympics.
Earlier Bill had served in the Second World War from 1940-45 as a Sergeant in New Guinea and New Britain with the Field Ambulance and the 2/14th Field Regiment. After the war he settled onto a 200ha soldiers block near Boorcan in western Victoria.
In the 1936 Olympics he finished 8th in the 800m on the track and also competed in the heats of the 1,500m. He won Silver in the 1938 Empire Games in the Mile and finished 7th in the 880 yards
He served as a Sergeant in the RAAF in the Second World War, allocated to 1 Coastal Operational Training, RAF. He died in an aircraft accident during a practice bombing flight on 28 December 1941 in Cumberland, England.
In 1948 Les was the Australian team flag bearer at the London Olympics and a member of the water polo team. He had been a champion surf swimmer and also won a Gold with the water polo team in the 1950 Empire Games.
He had been a laundry manager before the Second World War and on enlistment he saw service as a Major, initially with mobile bath units, in the Middle East and South West Pacific Area.
A 1924 Olympian, Richard competed in the long jump, but in his own words he did his “worst jump for the last seven years” as they had nowhere to train in Paris. Later he broke the British long jump record in 1926 with a leap of 7.43m.
He was mobilised as a Major in the Australian Army Medical Corps in early 1942 and served in military hospitals principally in Goulburn and Alice Springs.
FromMelbin 