The TSO Chorus remembers
ANZAC stories related by June Tyzack, TSO Chorus Master
PART ONE
The Trip of a Lifetime
From Mathinna to the Somme (via the Tower of London)
I spent a lot of time with my Nan. She was a great story teller and I never tired of hearing
about her teen years at Mathinna. The most memorable stories involved rabbits, floods,
milking the cows, delivering the milk by horse and cart and then walking umpteen miles to
school, the bull that gored her brother to death, and the Tyne River murder mystery, but
never any war stories. She was the ninth child in a family of ten children which included two
sets of twins and I shared a birth date with Auntie Dot and Uncle Ern.
My memories of Uncle Ern and his younger brother, my Uncle Eric, stem from when they
were living in Victoria. Uncle Ern had a little dog, but my recollection of Uncle Eric, the baby
of the family, is far more comprehensive. He was so distinctively suave looking, with a
manicured moustache and taller than the rest of the family, and he was an amazing ‘play
anything-by- ear’ pianist with his very own grand piano!
Uncle Ern - Ernest Lionel Whittle - was the only one of the five boys to go to war. Nan was
sixteen and he was just shy of 22 when he enlisted. His journey from farmer to soldier
began in October 1916 - from the Tyne River at Mathinna to Perham Downs training camp
in Salisbury, England. Sapper Whittle was deployed to the infamous Hill 60 in the Ypres
area of Belgium as part of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company of the 92nd Infantry.
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The ‘Second Battle of Ypres’ (1915) is historically significant as it was the first time
poisonous gas was used in warfare. Three years later, on Wednesday, 20th March, just prior
to the ‘Fourth Battle of Ypres’, Sapper Whittle was gassed: Mustard Gas1. It was his first
eight hour shift ‘up the lines’. Although his Military Record classifies his injuries as severe,
Uncle Ern makes little of it in his notebook, rather providing an itinerary of travel
arrangements and ‘accommodation’.
He left the dugout the morning after he was gassed and walked three miles to Ypres for
dressing, was treated at “Dicky Bush”2, ambulanced to the 2nd Canadian Casualty Clearing
Station and then entrained to the 54th London General Hospital at Wimereux, a coastal
town in northern France. Eleven days after the attack he was on a ship bound for “Blighty”.
In England he marched, trained and motored between Clandon Park Hospital 3 and the
No.3 Australian Auxiliary Hospital in Dartford. From Dartford he transferred to Hurdcott
Camp near Fovant in South West England, but not before relieving the ‘blues’ with a visit to
the Tower of London. (I read, that included in the items for sale when Hurdcott Camp was
demolished, were five pianos, six billiards tables and hundreds of cricket bats.) He was later
transferred to Sutton Veny, a concentration area for troops going to or from France. It was
here that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic claimed the lives of over 150 Australians but Uncle
Ern survived this particular killing field.
Within five months of his father in Mathinna receiving advice that his son had been
wounded, Sapper Whittle was back in France, on duty in the Somme. From Le Havre he
moved through Pernois, Amiens, La Neuville, Bray-en- Somme to Maricourt where he
camped in ‘death trap gully’ before working on the railway line through Cartigny to
Lincourt, and finishing at Roisel. Here he witnessed ‘two of Jerries planes down in flames
by gun fire”.
As part of the ‘Hundred Days Offensive’ which ultimately pushed the Germans out of
France and led to the end of World War 1, Uncle Ern notes that on the 18th September the
big offensive started with five hours of bombardment and over 3,500 prisoners being
escorted to the Cartigny Depot. This ‘Battle of Epehy’4 was followed by the ‘Battle of St
Quentin Canal’ 5. Now stationed in Busigny, Uncle writes that “on September 29th at
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5.45am the stunt commenced with four hours bombardment.6 On the 1st October the
Huns planes dropped 6 bombs on the camp killing 3 men and wounding 10 severely.”
A total break in the Hindenburg Line was achieved by October 10th and Uncle Ern opted for
a week’s spell!!
Travelling from Busigny to Felleries and then marching 12 miles north-east, Sapper Whittle
crossed the Belgian border, and this is where his Notebook entries cease.
The last pages are filled with riddles, such as:
Why do girls like looking at the Moon? Because there is a man in it.
What grows bigger the more you take from it? A hole.
He returned to Australia aboard the Aeneas, disembarking on the 12th July 1919.
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Embroidered postcards from WW1 are generally known as "WW1 Silks". They were first
produced in 1914 through 1918.The cards were hand embroidered on strips of silk mesh.
They were mostly produced by French and Belgian women refugees who worked in their
homes and refugee camps, and then sent the finished strips to factories for cutting and
mounting on postcards. Because of their beauty and uniqueness, the WW1 Silks were wildly
popular with British and American servicemen on duty in France. From http://www.ww1propaganda-cards.com/silks.html
1
Mustard Gas (Yperite); “…one of the most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used
during the war. It was almost odourless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so
powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective.
Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks.
The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to
vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes,
stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be
strapped to their beds. It usually took a person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas
poisoning. One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote in her autobiography, Testament of Youth (1933):
"I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the
soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes,
all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying
that their throats are closing and they know they will choke." From http://spartacuseducational.com/FWWmustard.htm
2
Dickie Bush
A camp situated between Ouderdom and Dickebusch in the Ypres Salient behind the front
lines. In the years 1915-1917 Dickebusch (now Dikkebus) had one of the largest
concentrations of troops.
3
West Clandon, Guildford, Surrey
Clandon Park is one of England’s most complete examples of a Palladian mansion. It was
built by a Venetian architect for Lord Onslow in the 1720s. In 1914 Clandon became an
Auxiliary Military Hospital remaining open until April 1919 in order to treat victims of the
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Spanish flu epidemic. There were 5059 admissions, and 747 operations were conducted in
the operating theatre which had been Lord Onslow’s dressing room.
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_%C3%89pehyhy
5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_St._Quentin_Canal
6
Wikipedia: On 29 September, the Australian Corps attacked, this time with the addition of
two American divisions from the American II Corps … supported by approximately 150
tanks of the 4th and 5th Tank Brigades … The US divisions launched the initial attack, with
the Australian 3rd and 5th Divisions intended to "leapfrog" through the American forces.”
1
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum est
As under a green sea, I saw him
(1917)
drowning.
Bent double, like old beggars under
In all my dreams, before my helpless
sacks,
sight,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we
He plunges at me, guttering, choking,
cursed through sludge,
drowning.
Till on the haunting flares we turned our
If in some smothering dreams, you too
backs,
could pace
And towards our distant rest began to
Behind the wagon that we flung him in.
trudge.
And watch the white eyes writhing in his
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their
face,
boots,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
But limped on, blood-shod. All went
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
lame, all blind;
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
lungs,
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent
fumbling,
tongues,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
My friend, you would not tell with such
But someone still was yelling out and
high zest
stumbling
To children ardent for some desperate
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
glory,
Dim through the misty panes and thick
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
green light,
Pro patria mori.
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PART TWO
Eight Arms for the War; Seven for the Farm
My Nan married my Pop in 1925. He was the eighth child of twelve from one of the
Alexander families living at Table Cape near Wynyard, and his ten cousins from the other
Alexander family included Frederick Matthias Alexander, founder of the Alexander
Technique.
My childhood memories clearly separate the Alexander great aunts and uncles from the
Whittle’s: there was much laughter and celebration and warmth within Nan’s family whereas
I found the Alexanders quite strange and frightening. Perhaps I now have a better
understanding of the times.
My great uncles Bertie, Claude and Elton served in the 40th battalion; a battalion recruited
solely from Tasmanians. Lt General Sir John Monash wrote of the 40th Battalion:
"The fact that it was composed wholly of the men of a small island state, gave it a special
stimulus to the highest emulation of all other units. In no other unit was the pride of origin
and sense of responsibility to the people it represented stronger than in the 40th".
Along with three Victorian-raised battalions, the 40th battalion formed the 10th Brigade, 3rd
Division, and joined with other divisions that had been transferred from Egypt. The
Tasmanians had to undertake training for three months at Claremont, but without proper
equipment and weaponry (jam tin bombs for example) their training was mostly musketry
and drill, and their departure for overseas couldn’t come soon enough. On 1 July 1916
three of my uncles embarked on HMAT Berrima from Hobart, and arrived in England on the
22 August. Uncle Allen, of whom I have no recollection, sailed on the Orontes from
Melbourne in August 1916 and served with the 46th Infantry: Machine Gun Company.
After further training at Lark Hill on Salisbury Plain, the eagerly awaited transfer to France to
the ‘action’ came in November 1916. Initially the ‘Fighting Fortieth’ assisted other
battalions and one of their dreaded duties was to carry the heavy and awkward gas
cylinders to the front line trenches. Life in the trenches was undeniably exceedingly
miserable; standing, eating, and sleeping knee deep in mud and muck, with rats that
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gnawed through haversacks to find a saved biscuit. Little did they know that their whole
campaign would be bookended by perilous mud.
Their first major battle wasn’t until June 1917 - the battle of Messines.1 Four months later
they were involved in the battle for Broodseinde Ridge, and just a week later the battalion
took part in a follow-up attack in the Battle of Passchendaele.2 Advancing across muddy
ground, the battalion came under machine gun fire from their front and sides and the attack
ultimately failed.
“The conditions made the last stages of the third battle of Ypres one of the most terrible
conflicts in the history of war. Mud was the enemy's real defence, and under heavy fire we
had struggled through it. It was under terrible conditions which made the fighting men
reach the lowest possible depth of human misery. Belgium should no longer be called "the
cockpit of Europe," for after the third battle of Ypres it became one of the biggest
graveyards of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Strategically the battle was a failure, for we were never within measurable distance of the
great objective aimed at, and it cost the British and Overseas Armies 260,000 casualties.”
Captain F.C.Green 40th Battalion
https://archive.org/stream/fortiethrecordof00greerich/fortiethrecordof00greerich_djvu.txt
When my Pop’s four brothers enlisted, their father was already deceased, and so it was
Maria, their mother, who received the dreaded, sparsely worded, “We regret to inform
you” notifications. The first arrived as early as July 1916 - (Uncle) Elton, hospitalised in
France, and thereafter, a relentless stream of hastily typed ‘wounded in action’ notes
perforated 1917: in February – Bertie; 3rd March – Allen; early June – Elton for the 2nd time;
26th June – Claude; 19th July – Elton for the 3rd time. The brothers’ hospitalisations treated
infected toenails, gunshot wounds to arms & thigh, multiple gunshot wounds to back and
arm, bronchitis, pneumonia, and cerebral concussion.
Despite these documented physical injuries, Elton, the farmer, Claude, the butcher, and
Allen, the labourer, all returned to the front after being ‘fixed up’ in England and were in
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active service for over two years. Bertie’s injuries sent him home to Tasmania within thirteen
months of his deployment.
The casualties suffered by the 40th Battalion were horrendous and it is miraculous that
Maria didn’t receive the pink telegram of death.
Trench warfare, Flanders (1916-1918): 470 casualties - 66 killed
Messines (7 June 1917): 343 casualties - 46 killed
Battle of Broodseinde (4 October 1917): 247 casualties - 50 killed
Passchendaele (12 Oct 1917): 241 casualties - 79 killed
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflictsperiods/ww1/1aif/3div/10bde/40th_battalion_aif.htm
In the Spring of 1918 when the Germans attacked the Somme, the little village of
Dernancourt became the new front line and the 3rd and 4th Australian Divisions were asked
to help stop the advance of the German troops. Of the four brothers, only Allen in the 46th
Infantry was still active, despite not being able to carry a pack due to shrapnel lodged in his
back and shoulder.
Bertie was discharged on 3rd May 1918; Elton, on 8th November 1918; Allen on 6th July 1919
and Claude lost his discharge notice, lost his left arm, and his Victory Medal was lost down
a drain. Despite the unimaginable suffering, the excruciating mental and physical
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distortion, Maria’s four sons all lived well into their eighties and she survived both WW1 and
WW2, dying at 98 years of age.
1
Battle of Messines: a successful assault on the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge, a strong
strategic position held by the Germans since late 1914. The detonation of 19 mines
beneath the German font line caused an estimated 10,000 German casualties. The
combined British, Australian and New Zealand infantry advanced behind a carefully coordinated artillery bombardment and achieved their objectives within the first hours of the
battle. https://www.awm.gov.au/military-event/E81/
2
As a part of the continuing Third Battle of Ypres, on the 12 October 1917, Australian, New
Zealand and British troops were involved in an unsuccessful attempt to seize the
Passchendaele Ridge from the defending Germans. The brutal attack took place in horrific
waterlogged conditions: the name Passchendaele became a synonym for slaughter.
https://www.awm.gov.au/military-event/E83/
Interestingly the infamous Tyne Cot Cemetery stands on ground captured by the Allies in
October 1917, specifically the 40th Battalion, the only all–Tasmanian battalion to fight with
the AIF in World War I.
“Today the view from Tyne Cot looks over peaceful fields and farms, but in October 1917 in
this countryside 6,405 Australians were killed in action or died of wounds and a further
19,194 were wounded. This makes October 1917 the worst single month of the war for the
AIF.”
http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/zonnebeke/visiting-tyne-cot/40th-battalion-at-tynecot.php
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PART THREE
A Road to Recovery
It wasn’t until the Vietnam conflict that the word ‘war’ was ever spoken in our home, and
then it expressed an unfathomable depth of dread and anguish. My parents’ friends with
sons the same age as my sister were heavy with fear that they would ‘win the lottery’. They
did in fact win the lottery when the birthday marbles fell either side of their sons’ birthdays.
Fate.
Fate had determined the return of five out of five known (great) uncles from WW1 conflicts,
and two out of two – my father’s brothers - from WW2. There was just one missing in action
from the Burma Railway nightmare: Nan’s sister’s husband, my uncle Jim, if I had ever met
him. Nonetheless the aftermath of war shaped their futures in ways I am only now
appreciating.
And yet our home was so often alive with the animated singing of songs that originated in
WW1: songs that had boosted the morale of soldiers and comforted those at home; songs
that belied the wastefulness and hideousness of war; songs that wished the soldiers a safe
return.
My Mum was a competent amateur pianist, well-practised in the art of the "oom-pah"
(alternating bass note / chord) action of the left hand. Often the harmonies weren’t
compatible with the tune but it went unnoticed as Mum played with such flare and spirit
that everyone huddled around the piano was having a bonza time. As a child hearing these
tunes, had I known the word ‘war’ I would have thought it meant a party. I loved these
songs and would share the piano stool with Mum until inevitably I was sent to bed for the
very last time!!
Her favourite song book has 1938 pencilled inside the cover and those songs listed in the
Contents she favoured have a tidy pencil tick next to them; songs like – Comrades, Goodbye-ee!, Men of Harlech, Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!
The Boys are Marching, When Johnny Comes Marching Home et al. Curiously It’s a long
way to Tipperary is not in that collection so I must assume Mum played that one from
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memory, as I vividly recall it always being given a rowdy rendition in this medley. Written in
1912, it became a massive hit and by the outbreak of WW1 the publishers were selling 10
000 copies a day.
But the ‘Red Book’ wasn’t the only source of entertainment as Mum had a vast collection of
sheet music and the nostalgic Keep the Home Fires Burning, Till we Meet Again, and If you
were the only girl in the world are indelibly printed on my disintegrating memory sheet. So
too, more so because of my dad’s antics, are songs like Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the
Morning and How ‘Ya Gonna keep ‘em down on the Farm (after they’ve seen Paree?).
Although I don’t recall hearing Mum play these, I have her volume of E.T.Paull’s ‘Famous
Marches ‘ which includes the Battle of the Nations March (1915) complete with explanations
like “Heavy Cannonading”, “Bugle call to Arms in the Distance”, “Whole army Falling
Back” and a “Rule Britannia” quote to finish.
With all this fresh knowledge I’m wondering what emotion, if any, Pop experienced when
he heard sung “Brother Bertie went away To do his bit the other day…Tho’ it’s hard to part,
I know, I’ll be tickled to death to go…” After drill after drill at Claremont I’m guessing this
summed up Bertie’s attitude.
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