Duty
A HUMAN SACRIFICE
ON THE ALTAR OF DUTY
PRIVATE EDWIN MARTIN
On the 28 March 1918 the 40th Battalion Australian Infantry were rushed up to the front to try and close the gap that was developing between the British 3rd and 5th Armies under pressure from the German offensive. The Germans were held for a short while but eventually the Australians were forced to withdraw, having suffered huge casualties, among them Private Edwin Martin.
Martin was first treated for a fractured femur, and for gun shot wounds in his thigh and side at a Field Ambulance on the 28th. He was passed the same day to a Casualty Clearing Station. Four days later he was admitted to a hospital in Etaples. Here his left leg was amputated but he died that same day, 1 April 1918.
Martin's brother, Howard Martin, chose his inscription - who was sacrificing who? Christ sacrificed himself on the cross to save mankind. I would suggest Edwin Martin sacrificed himself.
There was no conscription in Australia, every Australian soldier was a volunteer. It was a deeply controversial issue but despite there being two referendums on the issue, the public never voted for it. Martin enlisted on 14 November 1916, just two weeks after the first referendum had voted 1,087,557 in favour and 1,160,033 against; a majority of 72,476 against conscription. Martin sacrificed himself for what he saw as his duty.
A NOBLE SON
WHO DID HIS DUTY TO GOD
KING AND PARENTS
CAPTAIN HARRY WEBBER
Captain Harry Webber, aged 23 when he was killed in action on 10 March 1918, is not to be confused with his namesake, Lieutenant Harry Webber, who was 68 when he was killed on the Somme by a stray shell on 21 July 1916. Lieutenant Harry Webber is thought to have been the oldest man to have been killed at the front in the First World War.
Captain Webber enlisted on 20 August 1914. Webber, a turner and fitter, was already a sergeant in the Australian militia, the 92nd Infantry Regiment based in his home town of Launceston, Tasmania. He embarked from Hobart for Egypt on 20 October 1914 and served on Gallipoli after the landings in April 1915 where he was wounded and hospitalised. He rejoined his battalion in France and was wounded again. In January 1918 he was mentioned in dispatches. The recommendation reads:
"For conspicuous devotion to duty. He has always shown great energy, initiative and efficiency as Lewis Gun Officer, 2nd in Command & Company Commander. Although one of the youngest of the officers in the Bn he always sets an excellent example to the others. Was recommended for gallantry in action on 25/27 Feb. 1917."
His father, Henry Webber, signed for his inscription, describing his son as noble, in other words as having fine moral principles, and referring to the duty, the sense of moral responsibility, that his son felt towards God, King George V and his parents. There is something infinitely touching about the juxtaposition of these three, and for an Australian-born soldier it shows the unity his parents still felt with Britain, the Motherland of the Empire.
HIS LAST MESSAGE
"I DIED DOING MY DUTY"
PRIVATE NORMAN JOHN WARREN HOFFMEYER
What is duty? For some people today it has become synonymous with the word chore, but that is not how men like Private Hoffmeyer saw it. To them 'duty' was something you owed, in this case to your country, something you felt to be morally right despite the fact that it might involve self-sacrifice. There was no conscription in Australia so those who volunteered did so for any number of reasons, which in Norman Hoffmeyer's case amounted to a sense that it was his duty to do so.
Hoffmeyer, a farmer from Bendigo in Victoria, enlisted in September 1916, admitting that he had previously been rejected on the grounds of 'bad feet'. He served at the front from March 1917 except for two weeks in June 1917 when he was wounded, and two weeks in Britain in March 1918 when he was on leave.
On the 31 August 1918 at 4.20 am, the 38th Battalion took over the front line near the Canal du Nord prior to an attack. The war diary reported that at 3.15 pm the 37th Battalion moved through to continue the attack and the 38th went into reserve. 'Moved through' gives a hint as to how the fighting in August had changed from the trench warfare of the past four years, so do the diary's references to 'semi-open' and 'rapidly moving' warfare.
There is no indication as to how Hoffmeyer met his death. His family did not request information from the Australian Red Cross perhaps because, as his inscription suggests, someone was with him when he died who passed on the information. This suggestion is supported by a chance discovery in 2007. Two cousins, sorting out a shed in the family property on the outskirts of Bendigo, came across a collection of First World War photographs that had been taken by their fathers, Jack and Bert Grinton. The brothers served with the 38th Battalion and among the images in the collection is one of Hoffmeyer's grave, marked with a wooden cross. Evidence perhaps that Hoffmeyer was among friends when he died.
HE TRIED TO DO HIS DUTY
PRIVATE HARRY RUSHWORTH
This is a very famous inscription or should I say it was a very famous inscription, not because it belongs to Harry Rushworth but because these are the words Sir Henry Lawrence is said to have asked to have inscribed on his tombstone. Lawrence was the Chief Commissioner of Oudh in May 1857 when the Indian Rebellion broke out. On the 30 June the residency at Lucknow came under siege. More than 1,280 civilians, many of them women and children, had gathered within the grounds of the residency for protection. Lawrence tried to organise the defence with the 1,700 British and Indian soldiers and civilian volunteers he had at his disposal. However, Lawrence was badly wounded by a shell on 2 July. He died two days later having apparently said, "Put on my tomb only this; Here lies Henry Lawrence who tried to do his duty". As was the way with 'heroic' Victorian deaths, the death scene and Lawrence's dying words became famous, especially as they echoed the dying words of another great hero Admiral Lord Nelson, which were not "Kiss me Hardy" but "Thank God I have done my duty". Lawrence's tombstone in St Mary's churchyard Lucknow reads:
Here lies Henry Lawrence
Who tried to do his duty
May God have mercy on his soul
Sir Henry Lawrence was a fifty-one-year-old soldier and statesman born into a military family in India. Harry Rushworth was an eighteen-year-old boy whose father was an engine driver in Huddersfield. Rushworth, who served with 'C' Company 8th Battalion King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, was killed near Ecoust. As the Germans withdrew in front of the British advance they left behind teams of machine gunners hidden in the folds of the rough terrain who wrought havoc on the advancing British. Rushworth was one of the many casualties.
LEAVING A WIDOW
AND THREE CHILDREN
HIS DUTY DONE
PRIVATE HAROLD ST CLAIR HENSTRIDGE
Henstridge's three children, Kevin, Betty and Bobbie, were aged 6, 5 and 2 at the time of their father's death. Interestingly, because
his whole service file has been digitised, we can see that subsequently his widow, Violet, received a fortnightly pension of £2, Kevin 20 shillings, Betty 15 shillings and Bobbie 10 shillings.
Henstridge, who described himself at his attestation as an advertisement writer, enlisted on 14 August 1915, trained as a machine gunner and served with the 3rd Company Australian Machine Gun Corps in France and Flanders. He was killed by a shell on 20 September 1917, the witnesses in his Red Cross Wounded and Missing file giving slightly contradictory accounts as to exactly what happened. The most lurid describes how they were advancing in open formation at Polygon Wood when a shell came over and hit him:
"It was about midnight ... when it happened ... Henstridge was the only one hit. We looked for him and found pieces of fresh flesh ... I feel sure the shell wiped him out ...".
Others also say that he was blown to pieces but some say that they saw his body and helped to bury him. I've always wondered how much detail the Red Cross passed on to the next-of-kin; who would want to know about finding pieces of their son's or husband's 'fresh flesh'? However, the letter the Red Cross wrote Mrs Henstridge is in this file and I can see that they say nothing about Henstridge being blown to pieces and only mention that he was killed and probably buried near when he died.
Regardless of the conflicting reports, this does appear to have been what happened. In March 1919, Henstridge's body was discovered at map reference J.8.c.5.0. Although there was no cross on the grave, Henstridge did have his identity disc, which meant that he could be buried under a named headstone. The identity disc was despatched to Mrs Henstridge on 9 June 1920.
FOR DUTY
TO KING AND COUNTRY
TROOPER JAMES ANDREW BURROUGH
James Burrough died of para-typhoid fever in hospital in Mudros Bay on the island of Lemnos. Paratyphoid, previously known as enteric fever, was, until the invention of antibiotics, the great military killer caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi.
Burrough was an engine driver from Adelaide. Born and educated in South Africa, he served with the Uitenhage Volunteers on the side of the British during the Boer War. He arrived in Australia in 1908 aged 29. Four months after the outbreak of war, in December 1914, he volunteered although at 35 he was not expected to. He embarked from Australia on 12 February 1915, his eventual destination being Gallipoli.
At the time of his death Burrough was married with two small sons. His wife Laura chose his inscription, emphasising his continuing loyalty to King and Country. She gave her address as: Lemnos, Randolph Avenue, Fullarton, South Australia, Laura Burrough had named her house after the island where her husband was buried.
GOOD-BYE FRED, YOU HAVE
NOBLY DONE YOUR DUTY
THOUGH YOUR MOTHER'S HEART WAS BROKEN
PRIVATE FRED LAND
There's no sign of Fred's mother on the War Grave Commission's records. It was Fred's stepfather, Henry Morgan, who chose his inscription. I have a feeling that Henry Morgan meant it when he said "your mother's heart was broken"; I think his mother must have been dead.
BORN
IN BRIGHT SOUTH AUSTRALIA
DIED DOING HIS DUTY
PRIVATE WILLIAM CARL MEYER
I completely misread this inscription thinking that bright was an adjective describing South Australia. I rather liked the idea that William Meyer's parents wanted to contrast the sunny land of his birth with the rain and muddy fields of Flanders where he died. But I was completely wrong because Bright is a proper noun, the name of the town where he was born.
William Meyer's great-great niece has uploaded photographs and information about him to the RSL Virtual War Memorial, which tells us more about this farmer from the township of Hilltown, near Clare, who died in Belgium "doing his duty". However, it doesn't mention the fact that whilst he gave his religion on his enlistment papers as Methodist, his father, Johann Heinrich Friedrich Meyer, had him buried under one of the War Graves Commissions' Jewish headstones, which are clearly marked with the star of David. One has to assume from his names that Johann Meyer was of German or Austrian extraction. Is this why he emphasised his son's Australian birth and commitment to duty on his headstone?
HE LOVED DUTY
AND HE FEARED NOT DEATH
CAPTAIN BRYAN DOLPHIN PAULL
Bryan Paull left school, Charterhouse, in 1914 and enlisted immediately. He was gazetted Lieutenant in February 1915 and promoted Captain two months later. He was just 18 and one month, surely one of the youngest Captains of the war. He was 19 and 9 months when he was killed leading an attack on the German trenches in September 1916. His promotion indicates that he was a natural leader; his inscription, confirmed by his mother, that he was a brave and serious minded boy.
HE DID HIS DUTY
WE LOVED HIM SO
PRIVATE RICHARD WARING
Ever since Nelson's famous signal to the fleet on the morning of 21 October 1805 before the Battle of Trafalgar, every Englishman has known what is expected of him: "England expects that every man will do his duty". And your duty was to fight, and if necessary to die, for your country.
Private Waring was killed so early in the war, scarcely five weeks after the outbreak, that he must have been a regular soldier. Because he was killed so early in the war the exact location of his grave became lost. This explains why the words 'Known to to be buried in this cemetery' appear across the top of his headstone. His mother's simple and direct words at the base of the stone make for a very touching inscription.
NOT ONCE OR TWICE
IN OUR ROUGH ISLAND STORY
WAS THE PATH OF DUTY
THE WAY TO GLORY
SERJEANT THOMAS MOTTERSHEAD VC
Serjeant Mottershead was awarded the Victoria Cross for safely bringing his burning aircraft back to land behind Allied lines, thus saving the life of his observer. Mottershead however was caught beneath his burning plane and died of his injuries five days later. He was the only non-commissioned RFC officer to win a VC in the First World War.
His inscription is a quotation from Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, which emphasises that greatness lies in quietly doing your duty. The following is the extract from which the quotation is taken.
Yea, let all good things await
Him who cares not to be great,
But as he saves or serves the state.
Not once or twice in our rough island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory:
He that walks it, only thirsting
For the right, and learns to deaden
Love of self, before his journey closes,
He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting
Into glossy purples, which outredden
All voluptuous garden-roses.
A DEARLY BELOVED SON
WHO BRAVELY DID HIS DUTY
RIFLEMAN FREDERICK DYE
Frederick Dye was one of three brothers killed in the war (see previous and next inscription). Frederick's surviving brother, William, signed the form confirming both this and Harry's inscriptions. Despite the numerous references on headstones to King and country, or to abstract ideals such as honour and liberty, many men simply saw themselves as having done their duty.
DUTY NOBLY DONE
LANCE CORPORAL WALTER MAGARRY
Taken from King George V's message to the Expeditionary Force, 12 August 1914: Duty is your watchword, and I know your duty will be nobly done.