Somebody’s Darling …

In keeping with what seems to have become a tradition for my Anzac Day posts, I thought for this year I would use this poem which I found in an album belonging to my grandmother’s sister, my great-aunt Belle Dewar.  

We stumbled across Aunty Belle’s album only a year or so ago, tucked into a bookcase at my brother’s home.  No-one recalls ever seeing it before, and no-one knows how it got there, but it must have been passed on at some time by an older family member.  The album is dated 1884, when Belle would have been about nineteen.  It contains poems and writings which obviously struck a chord with her, as well as sketches and autograph-style entries from family and friends.

This particular poem was entered in the album on 26/09/1885 by “Madge”, who I think was the wife of Belle’s eldest brother Jimmy.  Although it pre-dates the Anzac era, the sentiments expressed are just as relevant today, highlighting the tragedy that is war.  Somebody’s Darling was written during the American Civil War by Marie Ravenal de la Coste, a nurse in Savannah, Georgia whose own fiance had been killed while fighting with the Confederate army. It was first published in 1864.

SOMEBODY’S DARLING

Into a ward of the white washed walls,
Where the dead and dying lay,
Wounded by bayonets, shells and balls,
Somebody’s darling was borne one day.

Somebody’s darling so young and brave
Wearing yet on his pale sweet face,
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave,
The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.

Matted and damp are the curls of gold
Kissing the snow of that fair young brow;
Pale are the lips of delicate mold –
Somebody’s darling is dying now.

Back from the beautiful blue-veined brow
Brushed all the wandering waves of gold;
Cross his hands on his bosom now;
Somebody’s darling is still and cold.

Kiss him once for somebody’s sake,
Murmur a prayer soft and low;
One bright curl from it’s fair mates take;
They were somebody’s pride you know.

Somebody’s hand has rested there;
Was it a mother’s soft and white?
And have the lips of a sister fair
Been baptized in the waves of light?

God knows best! He was somebody’s love,
Somebody’s heart enshrined him there.
Somebody wafted his name above,
Night and morn on the wings of prayer.

Somebody wept when he marched away,
Looking so handsome brave and grand;
Somebody’s kiss on his forehead lay;
Somebody clung to his parting hand.

Somebody’s watching and waiting for him,
Yearning to hold him again to her heart;
And there he lies with his blue eyes dim,
And the smiling child-like lips apart.

Tenderly bury the fair young dead,
Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
Carve on the wooden slab at his head,
“Somebody’s darling slumbers here.”

Marie Ravenal de la Coste,

Savannah, Georgia 1864

In the Service of his Country…

My Anzac Day tribute this year is in honour of my husband's grandfather.  The following piece was written for "Families at War", a unit in the University of Tasmania's Diploma of Family History.

                                                     

                                               JAMES JOSHUA PERRY
                                   1889 - 1934

The physical and psychological injuries sustained by so many Australian men returned from World War 1 (WW1) changed the course of not only their own lives, but those of their families too.  His children grew up believing that James Joshua Perry died as a result of being gassed in the trenches of France.  In reality, 44-year-old Jim died from aortitis resulting from syphilis contracted while convalescing in England after being wounded.  Jim was one of an estimated 60,000 Australian troops treated for venereal disease during WW1.
 
The fourth child of James and Catherine Perry, Jim was born in 1889 near Jugiong in rural New South Wales.  He left home as a youth and spent several years as a sailor on trading vessels. Jim enlisted for service in Melbourne on 6th October 1914.  There is no record of what motivated him to enlist, but he was subsequently posted as a  deserter from the steamship Marere on 16th October. The Marere had spent the previous month in Sydney being converted to a troop ship, and was in Melbourne en route to Albany, Western Australia, where she joined the first convoy of Australian Imperial Forces.  
 
After enlisting, Jim would have spent a few weeks at the Broadmeadows Training Camp north of Melbourne. Initial training consisted of instruction in the use and care of weapons, entrenching tools, and instilling military discipline into the recruits.  Jim was assigned the rank of Driver in the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade Reinforcements, a role for which his family background of breeding horses would have suited him well.  In WW1, Driver was an equivalent rank to Private and was responsible for a wagon and team of horses used to transport weapons, ammunition and supplies to the Front, and transport the wounded back. Drivers were responsible for the care of the horses in their team.  Although not directly involved in fighting, they were often a target for enemy fire because of the work they performed.
 
Jim embarked from Port Melbourne on 22nd December 1914, on board HMAT A30 Borda.  The ship then sailed from Albany, Western Australia in convoy with 16 other vessels on 31st December 1914 as the Second Detachment of the Australian and New Zealand Imperial Expeditionary Forces.  On arrival in Egypt, Jim was transferred to the 2nd Field Company Divisional Engineers.  It is uncertain what part he played in the Gallipoli campaign, as his record does not reflect this.  Field diaries reveal the 2nd Field Company didn’t land at Gallipoli until 7th November.  Jim’s record shows that after the Gallipoli evacuation in December 1915, he was transferred to Maadi, the Cairo camp of the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade, so it is possible he was with them. 
 
Jim re-joined the 2nd Field Company Engineers at Tel El Kabir at the end of December 1915.  This was a training camp set up in the Egyptian desert for recuperation and re-organisation of troops, with intensive training in preparation for transfer to the Western Front.  Three months later he proceeded to Alexandria, embarking on S.S. Simla, to arrive at Marseilles on 30th March.  
 
From Marseilles, the unit had a grueling three day train journey to the village of Steenbecque in Northern France, arriving at 0200 on 2nd April only to find they then had a twenty mile march to their camp.  Although tedious, several diarists commented on the contrasting beauty of the landscape compared with Egypt.
 
Throughout April, the men moved north to the battlefields. Jim was re-mustered as a Sapper, and the remainder of 1916 was spent working to reinforce trenches, create new dug-outs for gun crews and road-building works.   The appalling weather conditions of the 1916-17 winter hampered progress as the men faced freezing temperatures and constant mud & snow.
 
On 27th January Jim took a gunshot wound to his left thigh. He was treated at the 45th Casualty Clearing Station at Edgehill (Dernancourt), before being transported via Rouen to 2nd Birmingham War Hospital, England on 1st February 1917. 

                

                                             Figure 1: Description of wound

‘Gas’ was the dreaded gas gangrene, caused by the bacteria Clostridium Welchii, which thrived in deep wounds and often led to amputation.  Prevention included leaving the wounds open to allow oxygen circulation and minimise the infection.  This delayed healing time compared with suturing wounds closed.  Jim spent two months at Birmingham, where he probably met his sister Eleanor who was stationed there with the Australian Army Nursing Service.  

                                                      
 After six weeks convalescing at 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, Jim had 3 weeks furlough, following which he spent time at various command depots and training camps in preparation for returning to the Front.  However on 25th July, Jim was admitted to hospital diagnosed with venereal disease. He was treated for both gonorrhoea and syphilis at 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital at Bulford for 2 periods of 20 days and 22 days during the months of July to September.  Treatment was complicated, painful and not guaranteed to be effective.  In Jim’s case he was deemed to be cured, as evidenced by a negative screening test obtained in March 1918. 
 
The next eight months were spent in training camps recovering and building up strength before returning to France in May 1918, to the Australian General Base Depot at Le Havre. There is no record of where Jim went from there, or if he saw any active service again. As a 1914 enlister, Jim qualified for six months ‘Special 1914 Leave’, and left for Australia on 13th October 1918.  When the Armistice was signed on 11th November, he would have been at sea.
 
Back in Australia, Jim returned to his former life on the trading ships, until his brother’s wife introduced him to her cousin Mary Forristal. They married on 10th February 1923, and Jim took employment with the Tramways.  The following year, they became parents to twin daughters Theresa and Patricia, followed in 1930 by son Jack.

In September 1933, Jim presented to his doctor with pain in his left leg, shortness of breath, and swelling of his face.  He was referred to the Alfred Hospital where his heart condition was diagnosed. His application to the Repatriation Commission for a pension in November 1933, when he could no longer work, was rejected on the grounds that his condition was not due to war service.   Two appeals were also rejected.  It was not until Mary Perry notified the Repatriation Commission of her husband’s death, and requested a pension for herself that the Board relented and granted approval in September 1934.
 
James Perry died in the Alfred Hospital on 12 July 1934.  The War pension enabled Mary to bring up their young family, and provide them with a good education.  Jim was as much a victim of his war service as anyone else who served.  He was one of an estimated 38 men and 1 woman from Jugiong who enlisted, but surprisingly there was no war memorial raised in Jugiong after WW1.  In 2014 a memorial was erected to mark the 100-year anniversary, but although his brother John is listed, Jim and his sister Eleanor are not mentioned.  His many grandchildren and great grandchildren are a testament to his sacrifice and service.

Jim & Mary Perry with Theresa & Patricia c1928

  © Katrina Vincent 2018. Written for Families at War unit, University of Tasmania. A fully referenced PDF of this work is available on request.

Bougainville 1945 …

BOUGAINVILLE 1945

We’ve nineteen dead on the Buin road,

Ten more on the Jungle track,

And all day long there’s a broken tide

Of our wounded streaming back.

We’ve fought all night by the Hongarai,

With never a bite or sup;

And tomorrow’s back-page news will quote:

“Our Soldiers are mopping up.”

  

As dawn wakes with a jaded eye,

Discarding its misty pall,

White crosses mourn on the Numa trail

For fellows who gave their all.

In Taimba’s ridges, Sorokin’s groves,

They drained the dregs, Hell’s Cup;

The blood they gave was a passing thing,

They were merely “Mopping up.”

The screaming silence of ambushed swamp,

The horror of obscene bog,

The vicious foe in a filthy league

With blanketing rain and fog,

Are trifling things which the critics know

Should never hold heroes up.

Good Lord!  Why, this isn’t war at all!

We simply are “Mopping up!”

We make no claim to heroic mould,

But this little boon we ask;

Those armchair critics please send up here

To share in our “simple task.”

When they’re on intimate terms with Death,

And have tallied the blood-cost up,

Maybe they’ll coin more adequate phrase

Than casual “Mopping up.”

- “BLACK BOB”   

   

I found this poem among my father’s papers relating to his service in Bougainville during World War 2.  Dad was a bit of a bush poet, so initially I wondered if this was one of his own efforts, but a bit of research soon ruled that out.

“Black Bob” was Lieutenant Adrian L. O’Neill (1907 – 1980) of 38th Battalion.  From Echuca, Victoria, he enlisted in Narrabri, NSW and served in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville during World War 2.  His satirical poems compared the reality of jungle warfare with the perceptions of government officials, the press and those at home.

His poems are held in Australian War Memorial, Canberra.  Reference Number: MSS1328.

---------------

Capt. C.D.H. Pilkington

Bougainville 1945

                                              photo from private collection C.D.H. Pilkington©

My father, Charles Dewar Haughton Pilkington (1908 – 1978),  known to all as Haughton or ‘Haught’, served as an Australian Army Chaplain in World War 2.  He was stationed at Mt. Isa in Queensland, then Bougainville and Fauro Island in the Pacific Islands.  Army chaplains carried the rank of Captain, but were generally known to the men as “Padre”.

Anglican chaplains outside Pattison Chapel, Headquarters 3 Division

Torokina, Bougainville 9/11/1945

my father is seated 2nd left

                                                     Photo from Australian War Memorial 098674

A much more in depth account of the Bougainville campaign than I could ever give can be found on the Last Battles website – In the Shadows.

Bougainville

Native troops, Bougainville

Numa Numa Tramway, Bougainville

Japanese surrender, Bougainville 1945

photos from private collection C.D.H. Pilkington ©

                                                               

Dad never spoke about his war service experiences in anything other than a general way.  As a Chaplain, I don’t think he would have been involved in the hands-on fighting.  His work would have involved providing spiritual and emotional comfort to the wounded and dying. 

I know from the records I have seen that he conducted battlefield burials – done hastily at the end of the day, with the exact locations of each burial carefully recorded in relation to surrounding landmarks, so that the bodies could be exhumed at a later time and re-interred in the Torokina War Cemetary. 

After the war, all those buried at Torokina were again exhumed and transferred to the Bomana War Cemetery in Port Moresby, PNG.

Bomana War Cemetery, Port Moresby, PNG

©Kaypilk 2008

                                                 

Once the day’s burials were over,  the Chaplain’s work included writing to the family of the deceased soldier.  This could not have been an easy task, but any fragment of comfort or information provided would have been welcomed by those at home, as a follow-up to the stark reality of the official telegram.  Among Dad’s papers are a handful of letters written back to him by the families of fallen soldiers.  The contents reveal how much appreciated the letter written by my father was.  

As one mother wrote:  “It was such a relief to know that he did not have to suffer long, and that he had a decent burial.” 

Another widow wrote: “it is of great comfort to know he had a proper Christian burial and was not left lying in some unknown spot.”

Some day, I would like to use these letters to write about these men, regular Aussie blokes who gave their lives in the service of their country.  But that’s another project, and for now I would just like to acknowledge these men today, and to recognise all those who served - in Bougainville, and all other conflicts. 

Private Archibald Campbell HARRIS – Chiltern, Victoria

Private Callander William Kenneth SCOTT – Hampton, Victoria

Private Leslie Edward Palmer NORTH – Ararat, Victoria

Sapper Ewing Arthur WINWARD – Whittlesea, Victoria

Corporal Robert NASH – Leederville, WA

Private Keith GUNTER – North Bondi, NSW

Sergeant Howell Keith MIDGLEY – Billabong, Victoria

Sergeant Arthur Allan BENNETT – Merbein, Victoria

Private Leonard Birdwood HATELEY – North Williamstown, Victoria

Lieutenant Frederick Richard LONGMORE – Elsternwick, Victoria

- LEST WE FORGET -

                                                                 

The Bravest Thing God Ever Made …

My tribute to Anzac Day this year comes about as a result of a little book I came across recently when looking through a box of old books:

THE AUSTRALIAN and other verses, by Will H. Ogilvie.  Published in Australia in 1916 by Angus & Robertson.


William Henry Ogilvie (1869-1963) was a Scottish poet and journalist who spent some 12 years in Australia as a young man.  Inspired by the works of Adam Lindsay Gordon, his poems told tales of life in the Australian bush.  Back in Britain during the 1st World War, he overheard a British Officer describe Australian soldiers as “the bravest thing God ever made”, and consequently penned his poem The Australian.

Clement Semmler, 'Ogilvie, William Henry (Will) (1869–1963)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ogilvie-william-henry-will-7890/text13719, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 23 April 2016.

 

THE AUSTRALIAN

“The bravest thing God ever made” –

A British Officer’s opinion.

 

The skies that arched his land were blue,

His bush-born winds were warm and sweet,

And yet from earliest hours he knew

The tides of victory and defeat;

From fierce floods thundering at his birth,

From red droughts ravening while he played,

He learned to fear no foes on earth –

“The bravest thing God ever made!”

 

The bugles of the Motherland

Rang ceaselessly across the sea,

To call him and his lean brown band

To shape Imperial destiny;

He went, by youth’s grave purpose willed,

The goal unknown, the cost unweighed,

The promise of his blood fulfilled-

“The bravest thing God ever made!”

 

We know – it is our deathless pride!-

The splendour of his first fierce blow;

How, reckless, glorious, undenied,

He stormed those steel-lined cliffs we know!

And none who saw him scale the height

Behind his reeking bayonet blade

Would rob him of his title-right –

“The bravest thing God ever made!”

 

Bravest, where half a world of men

Are brave beyond all earth’s rewards,

So stoutly none shall charge again

Till the last breaking of the swords;

Wounded or hale, won home from war,

Or yonder by the Lone Pine laid,

Give him his due for evermore –

“The bravest thing God ever made!”

  

Private Leonard James POSTLETHWAITE died 3 May 1917

Private Mark SMITH died 25 April 1918

Private William Humphrey GRADY died 4 October 1917

Private William Joseph BYRNE

Driver James Joshua PERRY

Staff Nurse Eleanor Anne PERRY

Private John Patrick PERRY

Private Percy Victor Bristow VINCENT

 

Private Louis Adrian VINCENT

 

Bombardier Leslie Moore VINCENT

 

Private Victor Valentine VINCENT

Private William Dale VINCENT died 22 July 1916

 

Private Arthur James VINCENT died 8 June 1917

 

Private Hubert Claude VINCENT

Private George White VINCENT

 

Lance Corporal Roy Curtis KENNEDY died 4 October 1917

 

Driver Ernest Vincent WHITE

 

Private William Henry DOBBIE

 

Private George Ernest Vincent WOODBERRY

 

and all Australians who served. 

LEST WE FORGET.