Goodbye
OH THAT WE COULD
HAVE CLASPED HIS HAND
& SOOTHED HIS PARTING HOURS
SERGEANT GEORGE LOWBRIDGE
As if the death of your son was not enough grief, the fact that you had not been at his side when he died, had not been able to say goodbye, hold his hand or soothe his brow, added another layer of sorrow. The nineteenth century had idealised the 'good death': the loved one lying surrounded by their family who had gathered to say goodbye, hear their last words, comfort them. For George Lowbridge's parents, it was unbearable to think of him dying alone.
Lowbridge, a bootmaker from Newcastle, New South Wales, had been at war since he left Australia in November 1915. Travelling across France from Marseilles in the spring of 1916 he told his parents how lovely and fresh the air was after Egypt, how like home. But he was struck by the general air of sadness in all the towns and villages:
"It would do some of our Australian boys good to come here and learn a lesson - the slackers I mean. All that are left are the old men and women. Their sons have all gone to war."
By October 1917, Lowbridge was a sergeant who had been recommended for a Military Medal for "conspicuous bravery" at Polygon Wood less than a month before he was killed. There are no details of his death but the war diary records:
"22nd October Support line Anzac Ridge. Officers 40, ORs 811. Fairly heavy shelling all day. Carrying party supplied, heavy casualties to our NCOs during the day. 2 ORs killed in action, 9 ORs wounded, 2 evacuated sick."
Among the dead were two sergeants, George Lowbridge and Eustace King, and Corporal David Price. Price and Lowbridge enlisted in Newcastle on the same day - 18 July 1915 - embarked from Australia in the same ship on the same day - 9 November 1915 - and were killed in action on the same day. Sometime later, in the In Memoriam column of the local Newcastle newspaper, the following announcement appeared:
"In loving memory of our dear comrades, Sergeant George Lowbridge and Corporal D. Price, killed in action October 22, 1917 - Inserted by their comrades, F.W. Keen, F. Field and D.T. Brewster."
"I'M ALL RIGHT MOTHER
CHEERIO"
LIEUTENANT HAROLD ROWLAND HILL
What would you say to your mother as you signed off the letter you were writing to her just before you went up into the front line? You'd tell her that you were OK. The inscription is in quotation marks, surely the words are therefore Hill's, and given the fact that they have been used for his inscription, they must be something like the last words he wrote to her.
On the night of the 1st/2nd October the Battalion arrived at Esplanade Saps, Zonneke. Its effective strength was was 35 officers and 989 other ranks. They spent the 3rd, 'In Front Line' and then on the night of the 3rd/4th the War Dairy records:
"Jumping off tape was laid by midnight along frontage and along Coy. flanks. The Battalion was on same by 4.30am on 4th. At zero the Bn. closed up to within 50 yards of barrage and fought its way to the objective where it consolidated."
On the 7th October the battalion moved back into the support lines. Their casualties for this period were two officers and 38 other ranks killed, 10 officers and 185 other ranks wounded and 16 other ranks missing.
Witnesses recorded in the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files inform us of Hill's fate:
"Lieutenant Hill was killed before the hopover just behind Zonnebeke, near Zonnebeke Church. He was with Brigade Sig. at the time in charge of 25th Hd. Qrts. Sig."
"He led the 7th Bde. Signallers advance party over the top, near Zonnebeke about 6.30 am on Oct. 4/17. I was quite close to him when he was severely wounded during the heavy barrage, and was taken by S/Bs to the Menin Road Hospital near the Comforts Fund."
"I helped to bandage Lt. Hill. He was so badly wounded in the head and hit almost allover his body too, that he could not have lived more than an hour if that. Afterwards I heard that he had lived nearly two hours."
"Mr Hill went over the morning of the 4th October with a party of Bde. Sigs and we, the Battn Sigs were not with him at the time he was hit. But from particulars I gathered from one of our A.M.C. men I think he passed through the battalion Dressing Station unconscious but still alive, and died on the stretcher on the way to the A.D.S."
I COULD NOT SPEAK
THAT LAST GOOD-BYE
BUT KISSED HIM O'ER AND O'ER
PRIVATE WILLIAM THORN CARR
William Carr's father describes the scene so vividly that it is really quite affecting. It's a scene that must have been repeated in households all over the world - the saying good-bye to your son who was going off to fight. And Carr was an Australian, which meant that he would never be able to come home on leave
William Carr enlisted on 25 January 1916 and sailed for Europe from Brisbane on 16 August the same year. He served with the 52nd Battalion Australian Infantry made up of veterans from Gallipoli and new recruits, like Carr, fresh from Australia. The autumn and winter of 1916 were spent on the Somme and then early in 1917 the battalion transferred to the Ypres sector. Involved in the the battles of Messines Ridge, Polygon Wood and 1st Passchendaele, Carr was killed as the battalion transferred out of the line to a rest area at Ottawa Camp. The 15th to the 19th October had been spent in the trenches at Broodseinde Ridge, on 20th the Battalion was resting and 'cleaning up' in Ypres and then on 21st it moved out of the town:
52nd Battalion Australian Infantry War Diary 21st October:
"Moved from Infantry Barracks, Ypres to Ouderdum Area - route march - vide Operation Order in appendix. (Casualties - 6 other ranks killed, 32 other ranks wounded, 1 other rank previously reported Missing - reported Killed in addition to those shown on 19th inst.) Lieut A.M. Playfair wounded. Casualties occurred through shell fire as Battalion was leaving Ypres (1 p.m.) 7 other ranks killed, 3 other ranks wounded, on 21st October."
The soldiers might have been out of the direct front line but Ypres was not far from it and the German guns pounded the town incessantly. They knew where the roads were and had their range, which made the whole environs very dangerous.
FAREWELL MY DARLING SON
MY BEST BELOVED FAREWELL
PRIVATE ARNOLD ERNEST JONES
It was ten years before Arnold Jones' body was discovered and identified. Although he was known to have been killed between the 22nd and the 23rd September 1917, his grave was lost until it was discovered along with those of four other Australian soldiers on 24 February 1927.
His mother had instituted a Red Cross search and the files reveal that he was killed by a shell, wrapped in a ground sheet and buried on the spot. Although the grave was marked with a wooden cross, which had a tin can nailed to it with his name written inside the can, the grave was lost in the subsequent fighting.
Arnold Jones served under an alias: he called himself Arnold Ernest St Leon. The name St Leon was attached to one of Australia's famous circus families whose founder was John Jones. Arnold himself had been a tailor before he enlisted but I have a feeling that he could have been a member of the St Leon / Jones circus family.
GOOD OLD FRANK
AU REVOIR FROM ALL AT HOME
PRIVATE FRANK STRANGER
Private Stranger was admitted to hospital on 15 March 1918 suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to the head, legs and right forearm. He died of wounds eight days later. He was one of three brothers originally from Guernsey who were all killed within two months of each other: Frank on 23 March, George on 11 April and Harry on 11 May.