Tribute
HIS EXAMPLE
CAN NEVER BE LOST
TELL MY MOTHER FOR ME
I DIED AT MY POST
PRIVATE OLIVER RUMBLE HAY HAY
9th Battalion Australian Infantry War Diary
"6.3.1918
HOLLEBEKE, Belgium
Enemy commenced a heavy gas shell bombardment at about 4 pm which lasted approximately four hours. Area shelled was mainly the reserve line in the vicinity of Battalion H.Q. and 'D' Company.
7.3.1918
As a result of yesterday's bombardment the following officers [9] in addition to about 150 other ranks were evacuated gassed."
The next day, Private Hay was admitted to a Casualty Clearing Station suffering from mustard gas poisoning. He died on the 13th.
The Hays received the news that their son had been wounded on the 18 March, five days after his death. Ten days later, on 27 March, a notice appeared in their local newspaper, the Townsville Daily Bulletin, saying:
"Mr W Hay, Prairie, who for many years was a very prominent member of the Salvation Army in Charter Towers has received the distressing news of the death in France of his son, Oliver, Rumble Hay, who was killed by gas shells on March 13th."
The effects of mustard gas take some time to develop. First, several hours after exposure, a mild skin irritation appears. Eventually the affected areas turn yellow and agonising blisters develop. The eyes become red, sore and runny and extreme pain and sometimes blindness can follow. These symptoms can be accompanied by nasal congestion, sinus pain, hoarseness, coughing and in extreme cases respiratory failure. Hay was an extreme case. He took seven days to die but not before he had sent his mother a proud message - 'I died at my post'.
Hay, a drover, who had been born in Charter Towers, enlisted on 29 June 1916. He embarked from Brisbane on 21 October 1916 and arrived in England on 10 January 1917. He spent a month in hospital with mumps and then joined the 9th Battalion in France on 3 May 1917.
HE WAS A FATHER TO HIS MEN
THE END OF THE UPRIGHT MAN
IS PEACE
LIEUTENANT FREDERICK GEORGE LEWIS
The paternal relationship officers had with their men has often been commented on and here it is confirmed by one officer's mother. Of course an officer was concerned that his men had the correct equipment, were on time for parades and duties and remained fit, but there was more to it than that. Lieutenant Ewart Alan Mackintosh expressed it most powerfully in his poem, In Memoriam, written in 1916. This is verse 5:
Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers',
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.
Mackintosh was 23 when he wrote the poem - he was killed the following year. Lewis was nearly ten years older.
The second part of Lewis's inscription references Psalm 37, which is much concerned with the just deserts of the virtuous and the wicked man. The inscription comes from verses 37/8:
Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.
But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.
Frederick Lewis's mother not only chose his inscription but also filled in the form for the Roll of Honour of Australia, making an unusually thorough job of it. Beside the request for 'Unit and number if known' she has replied, 'In Command D Company, 42 Battalion, 3rd Australian Division'. And asked for where he was killed she has put, 'Peronne Sector, N.E. Mont St Quentin, Near Clery sur Somme'. She also tells us that he was 'a valued officer - staff - of the Bank of New South Wales, Brisbane Branch' and that he had been a scholarship boy at Brisbane Boys Grammar School.
Lewis was killed in action on the 1 September 1918 in the Australian attack on Peronne.
DIED AS HE LIVED
A PATRIOT AND A MAN
PRIVATE NORMAN MARSHALL RAMAGE
You can sense a father's pride in this inscription: his twenty-four-year-old son had died 'a patriot and a man'. In fact, Private Ramage's father elaborated on this when he filled in the circular for the Roll of Honour of Australia. In answer to the question as to whether there were any biographical details that might be of interest to the historian of the AIF Mr Ramage wrote:
Who answered the call of duty and died as he lived a patriot and a man.
Ramage enlisted - 'answered the call of duty' - on 2 August, two months before Australia held a referendum on whether or not to introduce conscription. The answer was 'no'. He went missing on 25 October 1917 and his body was not recovered until the war was over. Enquiries by the Red Cross failed to find any witnesses but a letter from Sergeant Short in May 1918 related how Norman:
... was going along the communication trench at Passchendaele on Oct. 25th when a shell got him and killed him instantly. He was very badly knocked about. He was buried in the communication trench near where knocked. I did not see it happen and the person who was with Ramage at the time and saw it has since been killed. He told me about it.
A WHITE MAN
AND TRUE FRIEND
SADLY MISSED
SAPPER VINCENT O'SULLIVAN
There's something rather moving about this inscription. Vincent O'Sullivan had no family; the best the War Graves Commission could come up with was that he was a 'native of Ireland'. And no family included no wife.
So where did the inscription come from? It was written by Mr S.J. Millane, Brown Hill, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. And who was he? We only know who he was because it was Millane who filled in O'Sullivan's form for the Roll of Honour of Australia and in the section that asks for the form-fillers relationship to the soldier he has written, "friend and partner". In this context he would have meant partner in business, and what was the business - prospecting. Otherwise all Millane knew about his friend was that he was "about 40 years" and that he had served in the Boer War having enlisted in Ireland.
It's what Millane says that is so touching; this burly prospector - I am imaging things here - refers to O'Sullivan as his sadly missed true friend and describes him as 'a white man'. By this he does not mean a man with a white skin but a man who was good company, decent and trustworthy - a good bloke.
Vincent O'Sullivan, who described himself on enlistment as a miner, served as many miners did in the Australian Tunnelling Corps. Here they laid cables and dug saps, trenches, dug-outs and mines. There is no record of what happened on 11 August 1918 but three miners from the 3rd Australian Tunnellers died that day and were buried in Hersin Communal Cemetery Extension.
A GOOD SON
A GOOD CITIZEN
A BRAVE MAN
PRIVATE REGINALD HASTINGS COOK
A lovely tribute from a father to his son - what more could a father want his son to be, except alive of course.
Reginald Hastings Cook enlisted on 25 May 1915, sailed for Gallipoli on 14 July and was killed on 25 November.
"He was killed a half past six on the 25th November, a Friday at Larges Post. Detailed with three others for patrol duty and whilst climbing out over the trench was shot right through the head by a Turkish sniper about fifteen yards off, who must have gained the knowledge in some way that the patrol was to start from this point and lay in waiting. Death was instantaneous. Buried the following morning at eleven o' clock in a cemetery close to Shrapnel Green. The memorial service was held over the grave at two thirty. Cook was very great friend of informant. The above facts were taken from informant's diary."
Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files
OUR IDEAL SON
A GENTLE, TENDER, BROTHER
A STEADFAST FRIEND
PRIVATE HAROLD MARCUS SARGANT
According to Harold Sargant's father, who completed the form for the Roll of Honour of Australia, his son "volunteered to restore the line of communication in the big push under very heavy shell fire and his officer said he just completed it when a shell burst and killed him."
Sargant, whose qualities are beautifully described on his headstone, was a farmer before he enlisted in 1916. He embarked from Australia on 9 November that year and was "21 years all but 12 days" when killed in action on 4 April 1918.
BRIGHT, INTELLIGENT LAD
WAS RESPECTED & LOVED BY
ALL HIS REGIMENT
LANCE CORPORAL SYDNEY JAMES ARMSTRONG SAWYERS
This inscription has the ring of a letter of condolence from Sawyers' senior officer. However, unlike many letters, this sounds as though the officer actually knew Sawyers and recognised him to be a "bright, intelligent lad".
Sawyers' mother filled in the form for the Roll of Honour of Australia and she described him as a photographer who had also worked in "postal services". Other sites describe him as a miner. He lived in Norseman Western Australia, a gold mining town, so Sawyers certainly could at one time have been involved in the gold industry. He enlisted on 5 July 1915, embarked for Europe on 1 October that year and died of wounds just under a year later on 7 September 1915 at No. 49 Casualty Clearing Station, Contay.
A VERY GALLANT OFFICER
AND GENTLEMAN
TRULY DEPICTED
IN PSALM XV
SECOND LIEUTENANT TERENCE DONOUGH O'BRIEN
Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil against his neighbour, not taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
Psalm XV
Psalm 15 was known as the gentleman's psalm as it appeared to summarise the qualities of a Christian gentleman, into whatever station of life he had been born.
Terence O'Brien was the only son of Brigadier-General Edmund Donough John O'Brien and his wife Harriet. He was killed on 3 March 1916 during an aborted landing at Abeele aerodrome in which the pilot, Lieutenant RA Pierpont, is variously said to have been either injured or unhurt.
Terence O'Brien was educated at Winchester where their memorial site gives more details.
"HIS WAS THE JOY
THAT MADE PEOPLE SMILE
WHEN THEY MET HIM"
LT. S.L. REISS
LIEUTENANT RONALD WILLIAM POULTON PALMER
"By the death of Lieutenant Poulton Palmer Rugby football has lost one of its most brilliant exponents. As a three-quarter back - he could play either in the centre or on the wing - his name will go down to posterity as probably the greatest player of all time."
The Times 8 May 1915
Poulton captained the English side during the 1913-14 season leading England to a 10-9 victory against the Welsh, 17-12 against the Irish, 16-15 against Scotland and 39-11 against the French. In all the close run games it was generally agreed that Poulton's contribution, both as player and Captain, had tipped the balance.
After his death it distressed his father that the newspapers concentrated on his sporting career. In the memoir Edward Poulton wrote of his son he was keen to point out that to Ronald rugby had only been a game. His main interest was Boys Clubs to which he had devoted much of his free time since his school days. Wherever he went, Rugby, Balliol, Manchester or Reading, he helped out at these clubs on a weekly basis. He believed firmly that by talking, teaching, playing and praying with these boys, who came from poor and disadvantaged families, he could help them break the cycle of poverty and deprivation which so reduced their chances in life. As a good sportsman he was greatly admired by the boys but he never overestimated the impact he was having on them. Describing one club evening he reported to his sister: "I think it was rather successful, and they were fairly quiet - that is to say they only whistled and talked and threw chairs about".
After Oxford Poulton went to work for his mother's uncle, G.W.Palmer, in the family biscuit business of Huntley and Palmer in Reading, as his heir. It was 1912, and when his uncle died in 1913 Ronald adopted the name Palmer as he promised his uncle he would. This is how he comes to be known as Ronald Poulton Palmer.
In 1912 he also joined the Territorials, the 4th Battalion the Royal Berkshire Regiment, believing that "in no other position could I so place myself that my training at Oxford [in the OTC] might be of use in a future war". And when the war broke out he volunteered for foreign service, even though his family felt strongly that his first duty was to the company. In response to his family he told them that although he considered war to be a ridiculous way for two countries to resolve their differences, he was a trained soldier, his country required his services and everyone should obey their own conscience. In a letter to his parents, who were in Australia when the war broke out, he put it rather less pompously: "You cannot realise in Australia what is happening here. Germany has to be smashed, i.e. I mean the military party, and everybody is volunteering. And those who are best trained are most wanted and so I should be a skunk to hold back".
After all the drama and excitement of mobilsation the battalion spent seven months in training and home defence in Chelmsford before embarking for France on 30 March 1915. Edward Poulton later expressed his regret at his inability to speak of anything personal on Ronald's last leave; he said had not wanted to cast a shadow over the occasion but was sure that his son "knew he was loved; he knew the fears we felt, speech was not needed to tell him this".
If Poulton's family hadn't felt able to speak to him his friends not only felt they could but did. William Dimbleby from the Reading Boys' Club wrote later, "His heart was not in it at all. He went solely from a sense of duty and as an example to others". And his landlady in Chelmsford claimed, "He didn't want to die, he had everything on earth ... he couldn't imagine anything better in heaven". One of his very best friends, William Temple, later Archbishop of Canterbury, recorded his last evening with Poulton in his diary. Poulton had said:
"I don't want to be killed yet; there is such a lot I wanted to do, or try anyhow." I asked if he felt sure he would be killed; "Oh yes" he said, "sure of it". I said nothing and again there was a long silence. Then he suddenly said, "Of course it's all right; but it's not what one would have chosen."
The 4th Battalion went into the trenches on 4 April. Poulton wrote home regularly, constantly referring to the danger from snipers. "The snipers are very good shots. We had three periscopes smashed, and yet they only show 3" by 3" over the parapet and the German trenches are quite 500 yards away". Not surprisingly his family were obsessed by the need for him to take care. On 29 April he wrote to reassure them, "Don't worry about me in this respect ... I am always thinking of it and keeping my head down". However, it was only six days later that they received the following telelgram: "Regret your son killed last night. Death instantaneous. Colonel Serocold."
In the early hours of 5 May Poulton had been superintending a working party when he was shot through the heart. A brother officer assured Poulton's parents, "I reached him the moment after he fell but he never spoke or moved again". His father was one of many who felt sure that the Germans had made a point of killing him, knowing what a huge blow this would be to British morale. However, reports suggest that Poulton was caught by an unfortunate ricocheting bullet.
Whatever the cause, his men were devastated. As Lieutenant Crutwell told Poulton's parents, "When I went round his old company as they stood to at dawn, almost every man was crying". He was buried in Ploegsteert Wood on the evening of 6 May in the presence of his whole company. Captain Sharpe reported the event to his wife, "I wept like a child ... as did many of us". The next night the Albert Road Lads' Club in Reading, of which Poulton had been president, recorded in its Log Book, "The saddest day the Club has known. We could not hold a club, no one felt like it".
Poulton's inscription comes from a letter written by a Balliol friend, Lieutenant Stephen Reiss, to Ronald's father. Reiss was killed on 13 October 1915.
"OUR NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN
CAPTAIN AND LEADER"
COMPANY MESSAGE
CAPTAIN JOHN LLEWELYN THOMAS JONES
At 4.45 am on Thursday 16 August 1917 Captain J. Llewelyn T. Jones led his men over the top in an attack on the German held village of Langemarck. A brother officer later told Jones' father that, "We went over the top together ... were under terrific fire, he was absolutely cool and collected and, in fact, joked with me as we parted". But by the end of the day he was "missing, believed killed in action". This is when the company message referring to him as "Our never to be forgotten Captain and leader" would have gone round to the remainder of his 250 men.
It was only just under a year since Llewelyn Jones had left for the front with the good wishes of the firm of printers for whom he worked. They had presented him with a sword as a mark of their esteem and his father, a partner in the firm, had assured them all that it "would be treasured as an heirloom".
It was a measure of Llewelyn Jones' ability that a year later he was a Captain - it was a measure of the casualty rate for junior officers too of course. Llewelyn Jones knew the score and four months before his death he had written to his father "in the event of anything happening to me."
"You know what an undemonstrative nature mine is, but my love for you all is, nevertheless, strong, and deep, and though I said nothing about these things before I left England, it was just because - I couldn't - my heart was too full ... War is cruel and I detest it, but since it was not possible to keep out of this without loss of prestige and perhaps worse, it behoves us to carry it on to a successful conclusion ... the thought that I may not see you dear ones again in this world brings a lump to my throat and the tears to my eyes. I trust that I shall return, but ... ".
Llewelyn Jones has been incredibly difficult to identify, which is why I called him J. Llewelyn T. Jones at the beginning of the blog because that's how I first found him once I'd searched the CWGC site. I believe he's commemorated on the Llangollen war memorial because the family came from Dee Mount, Llangollen. The Clwyd Family History Society have researched the names on the memorial but they haven't given any details beside Llewelyn Jones. Perhaps one day some one will see this blog and identify him.
"HE WAS A VERY FINE FELLOW
AND BRAVE, FOR HE KEPT ON
WITH HIS LEWIS GUN
ALL THE WAY DOWN"
THE PILOT
SECOND LIEUTENANT FREDERICK HORACE REED
This is one of the very rare instances when the War Graves Commission doesn't give an exact date of death. Frederick Reed, an observer with 6 Squadron RAF, was shot down on 23 October 1918. His plane crashed behind the German lines and he was taken prisoner. He died of his injuries sometime between the crash on the 23rd and the 27 October. That is why the Commission's records and his headstone give his date of death as 23/27 October.
Reed was buried by the Germans as an 'Unknown British Aviator'. On 16 September 1920 his body was exhumed and reburied in Englefontaine Churchyard - still as an unknown British aviator. The exhumation record shows that there was nothing in the grave to identify him, not even a uniform; he had been buried only in a ground sheet.
At the bottom of the form are the words, 'Dame Adelaide Livingstone Informed'. In September 1920, this remarkable American woman was head of the War Office mission to trace British soldiers reported as missing in France and Flanders. At some point Reed's body was identified and the details in the Graves Registration documents amended. This means that when in February 1975 the body was exhumed again and reburied in Terlincthen Military Cemetery (for what reason I don't know) he was known to be Second Lieutenant Frederick Horace Reed.
BOYS, YE FOUGHT
AS HEROES FIGHT
AND DIED AS MEN
PRIVATE ARTHUR JEFFERSON LANE
Arthur Jefferson Lane was killed on 25 April 1918; his twenty-year-old brother, William Gladstone Lane, was killed two days later on the 27th. William's body was never found so he has no grave. His name is commemorated on the memorial to the missing at Villers-Bretonneux. It was their father who confirmed Arthur's inscription. Initially I thought that the reference to 'boys' was a reference to all the Australian soldiers in that battle. Now I feel sure that the father was directly addressing his two sons. But it's true, all the Australians fought "like heroes fight" at Villers-Bretonneux between the 24th and the 27th of April 1918.
AS STRAIGHT AS A DIE
AS TRUE AS STEEL
LIEUTENANT, ACTING CAPTAIN RALPH WILLIAM HOMAN
After his death Ralph Homan's Major wrote to his parents to say, "I have lost not only one of my best Officers, but one of my best friends. He was straight as a die and as true as steel." One of Captain Homan's privates writing to a friend was rather more prosaic though no less heartfelt: "He was a very brave chap, what the boys call a 'Trump'." Captain Homan was injured on 10 August in the recapture of the trenches at Hooge. He died the next day of a "shrapnel wound in the head".
"HIS GALLANTRY UNDER FIRE
WAS ALWAYS AN EXAMPLE
TO HIS MEN
AND OTHER OFFICERS"
SECOND LIEUTENANT ARCHER BENJAMIN LAXTON
Both the tone of the words and the quotation marks make me think that this is an extract from a letter of condolence to his mother from Lieutenant Laxton's senior officer. The fact that she quoted from it for her son's headstone inscription indicates that she derived the intended comfort from it. Her son, after all, was only 19. He died in a Casualty Clearing Station at Lijssenthoek "of gunshot wounds head, right shoulder and right thigh".
"MY SON, MY SON"
"NO REWARD CAN BE TOO GREAT"
CAPTAIN THOMAS RIVERSDALE COLYER-FERGUSSON VC
Thomas Colyer-Fergusson quotes from two sources in his son's inscription. The first is the Old Testament, 2 Samuel: 33:
And the King was much moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, thus he said, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son".
The second quotation comes from the citation for his son's Victoria Cross. Captain Thomas Riversdale Colyer-Fergusson won the VC for his capture of two enemy machine guns in an attack where his conduct throughout "forms an amazing record of dash, gallantry and skill, for which no reward can be too great, having regard to the importance of the position won".