As I'd never been out west before, I allowed myself a couple of days after the Perth conference for sightseeing. First I travelled down to Fremantle, not far south of Perth.

Fremantle is a port city on the Indian Ocean, which is why it has not one but two branches of the Western Australian Museum devoted to maritime history. The biggest and flashest is the Western Australian Museum — Maritime (let's just call it the Maritime Museum). Among its treasures is perhaps the most iconic ship in Australian history -- certainly for someone of my generation.

That ship is the racing yacht Australia II, which won the America's Cup in 1983. It's probably not too surprising that a sports-mad country like Australia would care more about such a vessel than, say, HMS Endeavour, the Royal Navy ship which 'discovered' it (that is to say, it didn't). And it was an impressive feat: the oldest trophy in international sport (it was first contested in 1851), at the time the America's Cup had never been won by anyone other than the New York Yacht Club. But I was very far from sports-mad at the time (and very young too, I hasten to add!), and I was carried along with the euphoria like every-one else. It seems hard to explain now.

For example, what are we to make of this? It's the almost-as-iconic, and very much tackier, jacket worn by our then-prime minister, Bob Hawke, as he watched the final race, after which he famously said 'Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum'. And yet more Australian icons emerged from the 1983 challenge: the 'Boxing Kangaroo' flag and Men At Work's song 'Down Under', both used by Australia II's crew, and both since adopted more widely to represent Australia to the world, in sport and elsewhere. Clearly there was something going on here to do with Australian identity and our place in the world.

But another aspect to the Australia II's campaign which I remember being emphasised was its use of high technology. Not so much the above -- a Data General microNova minicomputer used by the team's support vessel to provide 'vital statistical and navigational information' -- but this:

Ben Lexcen's famous winged keel, which was first used on Australia II. It played a big part in the victory: by lowering the yacht's centre of gravity it allowed a greater spread of sail for its size. Or maybe it minimised drag by creating a tip vortex. I doubt I (or most Australians) at the time had much idea of how it worked. The important thing was that it was invented by an Australian. Indeed, Lexcen is one of the few Australian engineers I can think of who attained something like the status of a Barnes Wallis in popular affection: he even had a car named after him. At any rate, the winged keel is here at the Maritime Museum, and it was very cool to actually see it.

There are, of course, lots of other things at the museum too! These gauges are from a restored triple-expansion steam engine, formerly of the SS Perth, a ferry which plied the Swan River from 1914. Interestingly, it was owned and operated by the state government. Okay, well, I find that interesting.

SS Lady Forrest, a steam-powered pilot boat used at Fremantle from 1903 to 1967 (!). The Lady Forrest after whom it was named was the wife of Western Australia's first premier, and the sister-in-law of the manager of Minderoo station, as previously discussed.

This is part of a reference map of Fremantle Harbour. That's the mighty Hood, the world's largest warship, tied up there at the docks (across the river mouth was HMS Repulse), which visited in 1924. As the biggest port for thousands of kilometres, Fremantle was an important link in the Empire's defences.

It became an important port for the Americans too, during the Second World War: over a hundred USN submarines were based here at one time. This is a wicked cool diving helmet they left behind, though it was probably used more in harbour clearance work than for fighting giant octopuses.

An Ikara anti-submarine missile, another Australian invention but a rather more lethal one than the winged keel. It was developed in the late 1950s to give naval vessels the ability to attack submarines at long ranges, up to 10 nautical miles. As can be seen above, rather than delivering a warhead itself, the Ikara carried an acoustic torpedo which it dropped into the water when near the target. Quite clever. It was fitted to the Royal Navy Leander-class frigates as well as Australian vessels.

Above is a folding canoe and below is a submersible boat. Both are of the types used by Z Special Unit, a mostly-Australian unit which carried out clandestine missions behind Japanese lines in the Second World War. The most famous of these is Operation Jaywick, in which 14 British and Australian men in a fishing boat sailed from Australia to Singapore, where they attached limpet mines to Japanese merchant ships at harbour, sinking fourteen of them.

Nazi insignia from the uniform of a German seaman. The significance here is that the seaman was a crewmember of Kormoran, the raider which sank HMAS Sydney off the coast of Western Australia in November 1941. Kormoran had to be abandoned too, but that was small consolation for Australia.

A slightly more cheerful end to the museum's naval display -- a postcard with a civil defence theme.

Another of the museum's prize exhibits. Not as iconic as Australia II, but far more impressive (see the photo at the top of the post) -- so big they had to put it outside. An Oberon-class submarine, formerly HMAS Ovens of the Royal Australian Navy, commissioned in 1969 and decommissioned in 1995.

Of course, I signed up for the tour! The forward torpedo compartment, which doubled as an emergency escape chamber (note the orange emergency gear) and, er, tripled as temporary accommodation for special forces personnel.

The regular crewmen had far more palatial accommodation.

And, yes, I did say crewmen.

The standard complement was more than sixty; having walked from stern to prow it's hard to see how they even managed to fit in all at once, let alone live together for weeks and months on end.

Despite being a Cold War sub, Ovens looks more Das Boot than Hunt for Red October. As a diesel-electric boat, it's closer in many respects to Germany's Type XXI U-boats than to the big nuclear-powered subs of the American and Soviet navies. On the other hand, its actual missions seem to have involved tracking Soviet subs transiting Australian waters, so it was doing the same job as its American hunter-killer counterparts, just more cost-effectively ($9 million! Even in 1969 dollars that's nothing).

The Oberons had a reputation for being incredibly quiet. I imagine that wasn't true in the engine room, however.

A depth gauge, an essential part of any submarine's instrumentation. Note that this one was made in Birmingham. In fact, the whole submarine was made in Britain (the shipyard where it was launched was at Greenock). The six Oberons must have been about the last major combat systems Australia purchased from the British. (The RAAF has BAE Hawks but they're primarily trainers.)

It's a FIN, not a conning tower!

I wanted to know more about these dock cranes alongside the Ovens. They look like they might be from the war, but they haven't been heritagised yet so there wasn't any information about them.

A reminder of one of Fremantle's former roles. Many thousands of immigrants arrived here by sea, mostly from Europe, up until the 1960s. In fact, the port invested in a huge new building to welcome the influx to our shores, and help orient them to their new life in Australia, just in time for the advent of cheap air travel made it redundant. People arriving in Australia by boat these days are not nearly so welcome.

Now, the other maritime museum in Fremantle is the Western Australian Museum -- Shipwreck Galleries. I only had about an hour to scamper through it, which was not long enough. Despite its humbler appearance, the Shipwreck Galleries hold a greater treasure than the Maritime Museum: the remains of the Batavia, a Dutch ship which was wrecked off the coast of Western Australia en route to the Dutch East Indies in 1628.

The tale of the Batavia is an amazing one, which I can scarcely do justice to here (mutiny! murder! mayhem!) But the end result, three centuries later, is that its stern has been raised from the seabed, carefully conserved, and put on display for the edification of gawpers like me.

One of the Batavia's cannons, a bronze bowchaser. Unlike the other items on display, which were recovered by maritime archaeologists in the 1970s, this one was raised in 1963 by HMAS Diamantina, probably not in a very scholarly way!

Behind is a replica of a complete portico the Batavia was carrying to be erected at its destination (the original is in Geraldton).

One of the victims of the Batavia mutiny, buried on Beacon Island. He seems to have met a violent end: his shoulder is broken and there is evidence of a knife or sword wound to his skull.

There was much more to see at the Shipwreck Galleries but I had no time for photos by this stage. From the large number of artefacts from East India Company wrecks, one might get the impression that the Dutch were just really bad sailors, but the British had their fair share too. In fact, only recently have I learned that my 5th great grandparents, John and Ann (Alford) Parsons and their childrend (including my 4th great grandmother, Harriet), were on board the Rockingham when it was driven aground by a gale, south of the Swan River colony (now Perth) on 14 May 1830. So recently it was after my visit to the Shipwreck Galleries -- d'oh!

I didn't get a chance to see much of the rest of Fremantle (which is a very pretty town from the bits I wandered through). In particular the Army Museum of Western Australia and the world-heritage listed Fremantle Prison will have to wait for another visit. But I did get to watch the sun set over the Indian Ocean.

A belated Anzac Day post.

Willunga is a small town in South Australia, not far south of Adelaide, not far from the coast. It was settled by Europeans in 1839, only a couple of years after the colony itself was established. It was a farming area, cattle mostly, and slate quarrying soon became an important industry. By 1860, it had its own militia unit: the Willunga Rifle Volunteers (or Volunteer Rifles, or Willunga Company -- the name varies from source to source). Why did a small country town need a defence force?

There are two reasons that occur to me. The first is, obviously, for defence. South Australia is a long way from anywhere, even the rest of Australia, so it's hard to imagine anyone invading it. But turn that around: it's precisely because South Australia was so far away from anywhere that South Australians felt the need to make some provision for their own defence. As a colony, South Australia was ultimately defended by Britain. But neither the British Army nor the Royal Navy had any units stationed there: the closest would have been in Western Australia or New South Wales (or, later, Victoria): a very long way indeed before interstate railways began to link up in the 1880s. (And even then each colony used its own gauge. The states still do.)

So as early as 1840 South Australia formed a militia force. As was the case in the mother country, however, enthusiasm for militias waxed and waned. Volunteer systems were disbanded when there was no plausible threat, only to be suddenly revived when a new international crisis came along, as they inevitably do. South Australia's original militia soon fell into neglect, but a new force was raised during the Crimean War. That was disbanded at war's end, but reformed in 1859. Further reformations followed in 1866, 1870 and 1877. Russia was seen as the main threat, as was the case for all the Australasian colonies. But other imagined dangers included Asian immigrants and revolutionary miners. (Aboriginal Australians, too, but by the time the Willunga Volunteers were formed, the frontier wars in South Australia were largely over.) The Willunga volunteers seem to have been disbanded some time in the 1870s, were reformed in 1885, and last heard of as a cavalry troop during the Second Boer War.

Obviously, the main target of any invasion would be Adelaide, the main settlement in the colony, not Willunga. But militia from outlying areas might have their part to play as reinforcements, as amateur strategists pointed out. The Willunga Volunteers seem to have taken their responsibilities seriously, judging from this 1861 account of one of their early battalion drills (together with volunteer companies from nearby McLaren Vale and Noarlunga.)

The battalion then broke into open column right in front, marching past in quick time. The Companies were then closed and the march past in close column was gone through and exceedingly well executed, the circle round the wheeling points being performed with much steadiness. Various battalion movements were then gone through, after which the Willunga Company was thrown out in skirmishing order, the other two Companies forming supports and reserve. The men went out with great care, steadily advancing and taking up the distance directed, the dressing and covering at the same time being well maintained. The skirmishers were then exercised in firing on the advance, and from the halt, and also in closing upon flanks and centre, both at the halt and on move. The old skirmishers were ordered to retire upon the supports; supports advanced and extended, closed and retired in succession, until each company had been exercised in every branch of this drill. The movements of forming, rallying squares, and squares to resist cavalry, were also gone through and well performed, the front face delivering a steady fire from the right. Independent and volley firing were also practised, and the latter branch of the platoon exercise was especially well done.

Of course, it's hard to say just how useful such a force would have been if the Russians really had come. But that brings me to the second reason for Willunga's defence force: building a community. This is hinted at in the rest of the article quoted above: more than half of it is given over to an account of the battalion dinner and ball held afterwards. Here's a sample:

Captain Atkinson was now to receive the prize which he had so well won. He had given him (Col. Blyth) a good beating that day at a private match, but he was not at all sorry for that, as he rejoiced to see good attainments in any man. Private John Mudge, junior, of the Noarlunga Company, was also to be presented with a handsome silver prize cup. He hoped he would never want a bottle of wine to fill it.

Three hearty cheers were given for Captain Atkinson and Private Mudge, to whom the breech-loading rifle and the silver cup were presented. The prizes were then handed round for inspection, the cup having been previously filled with rosy wine.

Private MUDGE, sen., the father of the winner of the cup, rose and expressed the pleasure and pride he felt in having a son who could beat him. He had three sons volunteers, two of whom could beat their "dad," but the third he could beat as yet. The patriarchal volunteer sat down amidst applause and sundry good-humoured jokes.

One toast proposed that

good harmony had hitherto prevailed amongst them, and he hoped it would continue, and that the good feeling which subsisted between the three companies might be promoted on every occasion when they met.

Clearly the militia force also performed a social role, as well as a military one. It enabled men to bond together, to display their prowess, to advertise their patriotism. Scores from their periodic shooting contests against other militia units were reported in the press as a cricket match might have been. Women could not directly take part in the militia movement, of course, but they too bonded over the Willunga Volunteers, as when they grouped together in 1860 to make a flag for the unit. On presenting the flag ('of rich crimson silk; in the centre a shield of blue, with gold and silver bars, between which are stars representing the "Southern Cross," with "Willunga" extending across the shield'), Mrs Henry Malpas said:

Captain Atkinson, and gentlemen of the Willunga volunteers, I am deputed by the ladies of Willunga to inform you that they -- fully appreciating your noble conduct in coming forward in defence of your country -- have taken the earliest opportunity of presenting you with a flag as a mark of their esteem and approbation. Gentlemen, although you are as yet unused to war, yet we trust that when your country requires your services in the field, you will be prepared to emulate the glorious deeds of your ancestors, who fought and conquered at Cressy, Ramilies, Salamanca, and Waterloo. We therefore deliver it into your hands, trusting that you will rally round it in the cause of liberty and in defence of your most glorious Queen and country; and may the God of battles give you the victory over all your enemies.

The Captain Thomas Atkinson (pictured above, ca. 1870) whom Mrs Malpas addressed, and who won the shooting cup in the battalion drill, was the commander of the Willunga Volunteers and also my third great-granduncle (his sister, Susanna Holman, is my third great-grandmother). He was born in Waddingham, Lincolnshire in 1822 to a farming family of some means (his older brother went to Rugby; their farmhouse at Snitterby is Grade II heritage-listed). Emigrating to South Australia at the age of 17, Thomas and his brothers were among the first settlers of Willunga in 1839. They started its first inn (initially called the Lincolnshire House, later the Bush Inn), and later on a bakery and general goods store, a slate quarry and a farm, Ashley. Thomas in particular seems to have been particularly community-minded, as his obituary notes:

He was one of the first Road Commissioners in Governor Young's time, and was a member of the district council for 28 consecutive years. In July, 1898, he retired from municipal affairs, his services being, at that time, recognised by the public presentation of an address. He was elected to Parliament as the representative of Noarlunga in 1878, but although his knowledge of the country was wide he was known in Parliament as "the Silent Member." He was a member of the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society, and was a committeeman and judge of horse stock for 14 years subsequent to 1850. Mr. Atkinson represented this State at the Melbourne and Sydney exhibitions, and was also a member of the local school board of advice. He took a keen interest in volunteer military movements, and in 1860 was appointed captain of the Willunga Rifle Volunteers, becoming in 1893 honorary captain of the Mounted Volunteer Force.

From this point of view, to take command of the local militia seems less like an expression of the fear of invasion than it does simply another one of the duties of the local gentry, much as it was back in his native Lincolnshire. There must have been many such people in early White settlements who took on such burdens, because that what was needed in order to build a community. (Of course, it added to his honour too: Thomas seems to have been almost universally referred to as Captain Atkinson.) So it seems to me that these types of social considerations should be given as much weight in explaining the Willunga Volunteers as we might give to the more familiar strategic reasons.

Image source: Onkapringa City Libraries.

The war artist is Eric Thake (1904-1982), and the family is mine, although only in the extended sense: Thake's grandparents, John and Sarah (née Prentice) Thake, were my great-great-grandparents. It was only a couple of weeks ago that my mother found this out. My paternal grandmother (who was born a Thake) did maintain that he was related, but how exactly was unclear, and his middle-class life in suburban Melbourne seemed a long way from her family on the Murray. But she was right!

Thake is a moderately important Australian artist: as one indicator of this, the Art Gallery of New South Wales holds 131 of his works in its collection. He worked in a number of different media: watercolours, photography, sketches, linocuts. In later years he even designed stamps, including a series to mark the anniversary of the first flight from Britain to Australia. He started out as a commercial artist in the 1920s, but also began to make a name for himself in less practical forms of art, including surrealism: in 1940, the director of the National Gallery of Victoria denounced Thake for being 'too modern'! Perhaps his modernity was why the Royal Australian Air Force selected him in 1944 to be an official war artist. He had already shown some interest in the technology of flight, for example in this surrealist work entitled Archaeopteryx (1941):

Thake's paintings for the RAAF certainly betray an interest in the hardware of war. My favourite is the one at the top of the post, Kamiri Searchlight (1945), which he painted at Noemfoor Island off Western New Guinea. The searchlight belonged to an American anti-aircraft battery, sited on a former Japanese airfield.

This one is called Liberator's Face (1945).

It's not clear to me if Wrecked House, Darwin (1945) shows a ruin left after one of Darwin's air raids; it might simply be a derelict house. But it was understood at the time as depicting bomb damage. I don't think the Japanese were responsible for the rude drawings, though.

Thake is perhaps best remembered today for the wry series of linocuts he produced for his Christmas cards every year from 1941, and this is probably the best-known, An Opera House in every home (1972). A few years ago, I was lucky to see a retrospective exhibition of his Christmas card images (it was literally held across the road from my workplace) and more than his war work I fancy they gave me a keen insight into his personality, or at least the humorous side of it.

Here's the man himself, working on a portrait of Lieutenant-General Yamada, the captured commander of 48th Division on Timor.

On my third day in Cornwall I avoided the usual tourist traps entirely, because I was in search of my ancestors' home: a tiny little place called Tremayne, which is towards Land's End, in the hundred of Penwith. To get there I caught a train to Camborne, then a bus to Praze-an-Beeble (no, really!), and then walked along a winding country lane with no footpath and some very high hedgerows. Luckily I didn't get run over, as that would rather have spoiled what was a beautiful day.

This is the turn-off into Tremayne. There's no actual sign saying 'Tremayne': I don't think it's big enough to warrant one! (It doesn't show up in Google Maps, but it is on the Ordinance Survey's ones, along with Tremayne Farm, North Tremayne and Carn Tremayne.)

The main street. In fact the only street.

Some of Tremayne's buildings look like they could have been there when my mob left.

And I don't know why they did leave. I know they go back to at least 1732 there, or near there, when James Holman was born, my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (I think that's the right number of greats!) His grandson, John Holman, emigrated with his wife, Millicent (nee Hodge), and their eight children to the new colony of South Australia in 1839. Six other children had died in Cornwall, which suggests a grinding poverty. Their passage was assisted, so they certainly had few means at their disposal.

John Holman's application for assisted passage listed him as a farmer (Tremayne, incidentally, means 'farm by stones' in Cornish). And farming is what he did for the rest of his life, first in Prospect Village, then in Willunga.

South Australia was itself only founded in 1836; so we were there pretty early. It attracted many Cornish emigrants, not only for the economic opportunities (later, especially due to copper strikes) but because of its freedom. Firstly, it was not a penal colony, so it was free of the convict stain. Secondly, it had no state religion, and indeed welcomed Nonconformists. Cornwall was a Methodist stronghold, but the Church of England still had legal and financial privileges which non-Anglicans would have found offensive: landowners had to pay tithes to the (Anglican) parish church, which is also where banns of marriage had to be read, and so on. I'm not actually sure whether the Holmans in Cornwall were Methodists, but at least one was a Methodist lay preacher in South Australia, and John Holman's second wife was buried in a Methodist cemetery. So they may well have been.

If they were Methodists, it looks like the nearest chapels were in Praze (though it depends on what denomination they were). But the parish church in nearby Crowan is where many Holmans from the district were baptised, married and buried. So from Tremayne I set off in search of Crowan.

There was a public footpath, which I immediately managed to lose and trespass my way through a field and a barbed wire fence. But I did find this surprisingly sturdy bridge. I wonder why a simple crossroads wouldn't do? Maybe it was for mine traffic.

This is the church at Crowan, dedicated to Saint Crewenna. It was built in the 15th century but restored extensively in 1872.

Saint Crewenna was an obscure 5th century missionary from Ireland, a companion of Saint Breaca, who herself was a disciple of Saint Brigid.

The church was locked, so I looked around the churchyard instead.

Except for it not being dark and wreathed with fog, it's just what you want from a churchyard: lots of old tombstones, some broken and tumbledown.

I didn't find any ancestors, but I did find some probable relatives.

Beneath
THIS STONE,
are deposited the mortal remains of
Jacob Holman
of
Tremayne in this parish
WHO WAS KILLED UNDERGROUND.
September 4, 1834 Aged 18 Years.
Oh! Fatal stroke that rent my heart
I little thought so soon to part,
But since tis so weep not for me
Hope in heaven to meet with thee.

MARIA HOLMAN W[HO DIE]D
[...]

So Jacob was a miner (probably copper) who died at work. Maria could have been his sister. Either way it's unclear what relation they are to John and Millicent, despite living in the same tiny place, Tremayne, at the same time: Jacob died less than five years before they emigrated. I do know the names of John and Millicent's children, and there are no Jacobs or Marias: however there a James and a Mary, both of whom died in Cornwall. These are cognate names: perhaps they were treated as interchangeable, or used as nicknames?

IN LOVING MEMORY OF
JANE,
WIFE OF FRANCIS HOLMAN
Who Died
March 6th 1891.
AGED 67 YEARS.
ALSO OF FRANCIS, THEIR SON
Died April 5th 1869.
AGED 17 YEARS.
ALSO OF
FRANCIS HOLMAN.
HUSBAND OF THE ABOVE
WHO DIED MARCH 2ND 1909.
AGED 83 YEARS.
FOR ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST, AND TO DIE IS GAIN

Francis senior was a stonemason. At the time of the 1841 census he was living at Tremayne, with several siblings and his father, Jacob. Not the same Jacob as above, obviously, but the shared names and the Tremayne connection suggests that they're all part of the same bunch as me. (And John Holman's father, also named John, had a brother named James -- Jacob?)

I'm going to stop there before my brain melts!

After that it was back to Truro, via Tremayne, Praze and Camborne. I wish I'd been a bit better prepared -- if I had been, perhaps I would have known about the former Methodist chapel in Praze, or found the address of the Holmans (if not my Holmans) in Tremayne from the 1841 census. But it was still very evocative to see where some of my forebears came from. And I can always come back when I know more!

This post relates to my trip to England and Wales in September 2009.

]]> http://airminded.org/2009/11/12/tremayne-and-crowan/feed/ 20 http://airminded.org/2007/11/11/somewhere-in-france/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=somewhere-in-france http://airminded.org/2007/11/11/somewhere-in-france/#comments Sun, 11 Nov 2007 00:00:18 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/2007/11/11/remembrance-day/

The grave of Pte John Joseph Mulqueeney, in Courcelette British Cemetery, Somme, France. He was killed on 17 August 1916 near Mouquet Farm.

I am extremely grateful to Steve John for providing me with this photograph.

This week, I was looking at the service records of some other family members who served in the world wars -- those that have been digitised anyway -- and as today is 'Straya Day, it seems appropriate to write a little about them.

The first one I looked at was Robert Francis McCormick, NX2097, a labourer from Narrabri in country NSW; my great-uncle. He enlisted in the Australian Army in November 1939, about a week shy of his 21st birthday, and joined the 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion. In May 1940, he sailed with his unit to the UK (on the Queen Mary), arriving in June. They were stationed at Tidworth in Wiltshire and would have in been the thick of things had Sealion taken place. In November the unit sailed to Egypt via the Cape, and in April 1941 was sent to defend Greece. Unfortunately I don't know which platoon or even company he was in, so I don't know which actions he might have taken part in. But I do know that he was evacuated to Crete and took part in the defence of that island in May. In fact, he was captured there (though the exact circumstances are unclear, as his handwriting degenerates at that point: 'Capitulation of ---' is all I can make out so far), and spent the rest of the war as a POW: first in the temporary (and execrable) Salonika camp, then in Stalag VIIA (Moosburg, Bavaria) from September 1941 to March 1943 (by his own account; the Army reckons he moved to Stalag XIIA (Limburg, Hessen) in November), then Stalag VIIIB (Lamsdorf, contemporary Silesia) until March 1945, when he was marched all the way back across Germany to Stalag VIIB (Memmingen, Bavaria). There he was finally liberated on 26 April 1945 and returned to Australia in August.

Next is Robert Leland Garfield Holman, 2357, my great-grand-uncle and a farmer near Cummins, South Australia. He enlisted as a private soldier in the Australian Army in February 1916 at the age of 19. He was originally in the 9th Light Horse Regiment, but upon arrival in Egypt joined the 3rd Light Horse at the start of June. But after little more than a month he was transferred to the gloriously-named Imperial Camel Corps. His record gets confusing after that -- lots of temporary promotions (he ended up a sergeant), transfers to different battalions, several hospitalisations, and the records are only partially organised chronologically. But it seems he remained with the ICC until it was disbanded in June 1918; then he was in the 15th Light Horse until the end of the war. So he could have seen a lot of fighting: Suez, Gaza, Palestine, Syria. He arrived back in Adelaide in February 1919 and was discharged as medically unfit in May.

Finally, there's Leonard Joseph Platt, 439491, a native of Tumut, NSW: another grand-uncle. He was a junior clerk in the NSW Justice Department when he enlisted in June 1943, at the tender age of 18 and 1 month, in the Royal Australian Air Force -- yes, a flyboy! In fact, he volunteered for aircrew duty and trained as a pilot. Seconded to the RAF, he arrived in Britain in August 1944, where he underwent advanced training in a number of units, such as 81 OTU (special operations and glider towing, I think) -- in fact, he seems to have spent the rest of the war training, as there's no record of his ever being assigned to an operational squadron. Apparently, because post-D-Day losses were lower than expected, there was a surplus of aircrews arriving from the Empire. It looks like he was frustrated by this, because he took the unusual (but only somewhat) step of taking the flight engineer course at St Athan in April 1945, presumably to increase his chances of being posted somewhere. It didn't work; the war in Europe ended in May and that in Asia in August. In October he set sail for Australia and demobilisation, ending up as a warrant officer.

It's always sobering to think of the enormous numbers of young men and women who put their lives on hold, and at risk -- in these cases, essentially in the service of a far-away country of which they knew nothing (they were all second- or third-generation Australians, I think). I wonder how it changed them when they when back to their farms and families. They certainly got to see and experience more of the world than other Australians of similar background (all fairly humble, and all country boys). Were they more worldly, more cosmopolitan? Did living and fighting in Europe and the Middle East make them more, or less, welcoming of the influx of migrants in the 1950s?

As with John Mulqueeney, I think there is probably a disconnect between the experiences of these men and the current Australian memories of the world wars. The First World War mostly means Gallipoli; there's also some awareness of the light horsemen (for example, of their role in the great cavalry charge at Beersheba). But camels? Camels?? I think the reaction would be puzzlement or amusement. Turning to the Second World War, it's well known that significant numbers of Australians became prisoners of war. But of the Japanese, not the Germans. Even though nearly as many Australians were captured by the Germans, it's the prisoners of the Japanese which dominate Australian memory. And as I commented recently, there's not much memory of the many thousands of Australians who served with the RAF in Europe. As one might expect, the veterans themselves didn't talk much about their experiences, nor did their families, it seems: my mother wondered why nobody had ever mentioned that her uncle had been a POW for nearly four years of his life.

The other thing I found interesting about these three men is that they all had black marks against their name. Australian troops had a reputation for being undisciplined and not particularly deferential to authority (which conforms to the generally positive Australian stereotype of the larrikin). I don't know whether that reputation was statistically justified, but on this sample (N=3) it was. In May 1940, while on the Queen Mary, Private McCormick was reprimanded for 'an act to the prejudice of good order and military discipline', namely breaking a wash basin; he was fined 5/- and a further 8/- towards the cost of repairs. It may be that sea travel didn't agree with him, because he was in trouble again during the transit to the Middle East in December -- absent without leave at Durban. (Fine: 5s and three days confined to barracks.) Sergeant Holman's misconduct was apparently serious enough to warrant a court martial, in August 1918 -- though he escaped the firing squad, losing 3 month's seniority. The offence? Neglecting to turn out his guard on reveille, and also for allowing some of his men to 'undress during their tour of duty'. (The mind boggles!) He pleaded not guilty. Also, one undated instance of what looks like drunkenness while in hospital. And I suspect alcohol was also involved in young Warrant Officer Platt's offence :) In June 1945, while at St Athan, he illicitly entered No. 3 Sergeant's Mess at 0030 hours; wilfully broke into the refrigerator by breaking the lock; 'misappropriat[ed] 12oz. Bacon the property of the public'; and then was 'insolent' to Flight Sergeant Purdham of the RAF Police; and to cap it all off, he 'Attempt[ed] to strike F/S. Purdham with his fist'! Platt was probably lucky that Purdham was inferior in rank; as it was, he received a severe reprimand and had 30/- deducted to pay for damages. Of course, these bare facts don't really give much insight into why these incidents happened, so you can put it down to good old larrikinism if you like; but given the dates I'd say boredom and frustration may have had something to do with it, particularly for McCormick and Platt -- cooped up on a ship and itching to get into the fight, respectively. But Holman's record could be read to mean that he was a troublemaker -- in the first place, many of the men assigned to the ICC were problem cases being ditched by commanders who didn't want them; and all that bouncing around between units and ranks, too. Then again, he wouldn't have made sergeant if he didn't have some redeeming qualities. At any rate, I won't be campaigning for a posthumous pardon :)

It's exactly 40 years since the Battle of Long Tan, a notable feat of Australian arms during the Vietnam War. But I have a more personal anniversary in mind -- yesterday was 90 years to the day since my great-grand uncle John Joseph Mulqueeney was killed by an artillery round during the Somme campaign, on 17 August 1916. As I wrote a brief memorial about him last year on Remembrance Day, today I thought I would look at the online sources I used for that post.

The first thing to note is that the Australian War Memorial website is absolutely superb for researching family members who served in wartime. By entering a surname on their search page, choosing a war and specifying whether they were killed in action or not, you can obtain a wealth of information, including Red Cross records, embarkation rolls, lists of decorations awarded, and so on. There are also two important external links: one to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for the location of graves (though the AWM link is actually broken at the moment), and another to the National Archives of Australia, where service records can be obtained (hopefully online, if not photocopies can be ordered).

In looking through these records, the big surprise was that Private Mulqueeney did not die at Gallipoli, as my family's oral tradition held. Upon reflection, the reason for this is obvious -- over the years, as the family members who could remember John themselves passed away, the succeeding generations assimilated fragments of his story into what little they knew of the war, and that increasingly came to mean Gallipoli. Unlike Gallipoli and in contrast to the situation in Britain, the Somme has little meaning for modern Australians. And in family history terms, having a relative who fought at Gallipoli has a cachet that is probably only second to having First Fleet convict blood running in your veins.

His service records were perhaps the most interesting, and sobering, find. Here's part of the attestation paper filled out when he enlisted. Note the bureaucratic scrawls all over it, and in particular the very final KILLED IN ACTION stamped across the top -- naturally, such a common occurrance merits a labour-saving device like a rubber stamp.

From his casualty form, we can trace his movements in the last months of his life. On 7 March 1916 he disembarked at Alexandria from the troopship Wandilla and on 29 March (presumably after further training) re-embarked, this time on the Transylvania, arriving in Marseilles to join the BEF on 4 April. He then presumably moved to the Australian depot at Etaples, where he remained for over two months: his group of reinforcements joined the 4th Battalion on 13 June. I'm not sure where the unit was then -- I'd need to check a unit history or war diary for that -- but it was another two months before he was killed, near Mouquet Farm. He was a well-behaved soldier, with nothing to mar his conduct sheet (where his character is recorded as "good").

John Mulqueeney's death added more pages to his service record than his life ever did. Six relate to the forwarding of his personal effects to his father, Timothy:

Writing Case, Tie, Key, Letters, Cards, Photo, 2 Pen Holders, Holdall, Housewife, 4 Brushes, 2 Combs, Scarf.

A receipt slip from 1921, to certify that (I think) his mother, Sarah, had received his 'Memorial Scroll and King's Message'. Stamps for his service medals: 1914/15 Star (presumably because he enlisted in 1915), British War Medal, Victory Medal.

A positive reply to a family request for a photograph of his grave at Courcelette British Cemetary. Perhaps saddest of all, a form letter evidently for the purpose of informing his family which troopship he will be coming home on, never to be filled in, never to be sent.

Finally, there are the records of the Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau's enquiries on behalf of his family. They wrote to his comrades, asking for more information than the terse Department of Defence telegram would have provided.

We should be most grateful for any details you could send us concerning 4572 MULQUEENEY 4th Batt. A.I.F. and would also be glad iff [sic] you would add a short personal description, or any points that would sa tisfy [sic] his relatives that no error had been made.

There were six replies, including one from his sergeant. Pte. Hutchinson (himself recovering in the Eastbourne Military Hospital) provided the following information in December 1916:

Informant states that on Aug.17th. 1916, at the Pozieres Sector, a friend, Pte. McBride asked him to go with him into the next bay to see if "old Mul" [?] was alright as he did not think he had moved for a little time. Informant went, they found Mulqueeney dead, shot through the head, death must have been instantaneous. This was during the big bombardment. They buried him just beyond the bay, and informed the Sergt. Informant took some letters which he is sending to the Mother with details and also has pay book which he will forward to the right quarter as soon as he can do so.

That same month, Pte. Dickman wrote from Etaples:

He was killed at Moquet [sic] Farm about the middle of August. We were in the trenches. He was observing. I saw him killed by a shell, which burst near the parapet, and a piece hit him in the head. He belonged to IV Pl. A.Co. I knew him quite well. He was buried in a shell hole near by. A rough cross was put on his grave.

I hope that knowing how John Mulqueeney died, the return of his effects, the photo of his grave and so on, somehow provided some solace to his family. I can only imagine the pain they carried with them for the rest of their lives. My own sadness in examining these remains of his life can only be the palest (and somehow unearned) reflection of their grief. And of course, this was merely one, not particularly remarkable, death from a very bloody war. Scale all of that up by a factor of 10 or 40 million or so, and that's one huge reason why the First World War is still worth studying.

Today is Remembrance Day. Today I remember Private John Joseph Mulqueeney, of Tumut, New South Wales - my great-grand uncle. A labourer in civilian life, he enlisted in the 4th Battalion of the 1st AIF (Australian Imperial Force) on 9 October 1915, embarking for Egypt on 3 February 1916. His unit was soon redeployed to France, where it fought in the Somme offensive; in the middle of August it was involved in the attempts to capture Mouquet Farm, near Pozières. On 17 August 1916, Pte. Mulqueeney was looking out over the parapet when a shell landed in front of his trench, and he was hit in the head by a piece of shrapnel. He died instantly. He was 25 and, according to his sergeant, a 'good chap'. His fellow soldiers buried him in a nearby shell-hole, marking it with a rough cross, though his remains are now in Courcelette British Cemetery.

Lest we forget.

Image source: Australian War Memorial.