Service Person Research

SERVICE PERSON RESEARCH

SERVICE PERSON DETAILS

Service Person’s Arthur Ernest Anderson Name

Rank Trooper

Service Number 596 Regiment/Unit or 2nd Australian Light Horse Regiment (C Squadron) Ship or Squadron (one of the 3 regiments of the 1st Light Horse Brigade)

Date of Birth 1893

Place of Birth Ravenswood, Queensland

Family Details Single Older brother – George Otto Anderson. Enlisted two months after Arthur. Survived WW1 and returned to Australia in 1918 – served with 5th Australian Light Horse Regiment, A Squadron (2nd Light Horse Brigade) and later in Anzac Provost Corps. Younger brother – Frank Anderson – worked in Mount Isa Mother: Martha Anderson Father: Sergeant Major Otto Andersen (3rd Queensland (Kennedy) Regiment)

Age at Enlistment 21 years 9 months

Place of Enlistment Townsville, Qld

Date of Death 14 May 1915

Place of Death Monash Gully, Gallipoli Cemetery or Quinn’s Post Cemetery Memorial Name Grave or Memorial Number D3

1 PHOTO:

ROLL OF HONOUR, 1915, The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld: 1866 - 1939), p.25. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news- article22298388 (accessed 14 February 2015)

SERVICE PERSON’S STORY/EULOGY: Prepare by Max Kirsch

Arthur Ernest Anderson was a Trooper in the 2nd Australian Light Horse Regiment and fought at Gallipoli until 14 May 1915 when he was killed in Monash Gully.

Arthur was born in 1893 in Ravenswood, Queensland, and was the middle son among three boys. His father, Sergeant Major Otto Anderson and older brother, George Otto Anderson, were both soldiers. Arthur was the first young man to enlist in Ravenswood and was also the first from his town to be killed in action.

The 2nd Light Horse Regiment trained at the Enoggera army base in Brisbane from August to September 1914. They were part of the first Australian mounted formation raised by Australia during the First World War. The Regiment, together with the rest of the 1st Light Horse Brigade, boarded HMAT Star of England on 25 September bound for Egypt. They disembarked in Egypt in December and remained there until the 2nd Light Horse Regiment landed at Gallipoli on 12 May 1915. Anderson was killed in action two days later.

The diary of Major Allan William Nash and the writing of Charles Bean both provide strong descriptions of what happened that fateful day in Monash Gully:

On May 10, word came to the soldiers at Anzac Cove that the 1 st Light Horse Brigade would come to relieve them. On 12 May 1915, the 1st Light Horse Brigade arrived without horses to relieve the infantry who were there. The Regiment was led — under strong shellfire — into Shrapnel Gully. Many of the men from these regiments came from farms and were seen as fine young men; unfortunately they were mostly inexperienced.

By 13 May, the Regiment had relieved the 15th Battalion at Quinn’s Post and took up the fighting there. On 14 May, C Squadron made a night attack on the Turkish front line at Quinn’s Post. They were to assault the enemy position, fill in the trenches between the Turkish and the Australian line, and return before daylight. The attack was intended to be a surprise.

2 A division of troops from C Squadron charged over the top but about 20 yards to the Turkish front line, they were brutally cut down by machine guns on both sides and enemy sniper fire in front of them. The few that actually made it to the front line caused the Turks to pull back but there weren’t enough men to hold the trench and the soldiers of C squadron retreated.

Trooper Arthur Ernest Anderson was one of the 25 men who were killed that night. Of the 60 men who made the sortie, 25 died and 27 were wounded.

Anderson was originally buried at Pope’s Hill Cemetery, above Monash Gully, on 15 May 1915. His body was reinterred in 1923 to Quinn’s Post Cemetery.

Anderson died before his time as a young man intent on the protection of his beloved country.

Arthur Ernest Anderson - Rest in peace.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Australian War Memorial 2015, Collection http://www.awm.gov.au/search/all/?op=Search&format=list (Accessed 10 February 2015)

Australian War Memorial 2015, First World War Embarkation Rolls – Arthur Ernest Anderson http://www.awm.gov.au/people/rolls/R1967853/ (Accessed 10 February 2015)

Australian War Memorial 2015, War diaries – 1st Light Horse Brigade http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RCDIG1013513/?image=3&fullscreen=true#display-image (Accessed 10 February 2015)

Australian War Memorial 2015, War diaries – 2nd Light Horse Regiment http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RCDIG1012138/?image=3#display-image (Accessed 13 February 2015)

Bean, Charles Edwin Woodrow (C E W), 1941, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 (Volume II – The Story of ANZAC from 4 May, 1915, to the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula) http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/first_world_war/AWMOHWW1/AIF/Vol2/ (Accessed 10 February 2015) Family Notices 1916, Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld : 1885 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved February 12, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58913334

Hamilton, John, 2008, Gallipoli Sniper, Pan Australia

National Archives of Australia 2015, Record Search: Arthur Ernest Anderson http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1974386 (Accessed 12 February 2015)

National Archives of Australia 2015, Record Search: George Otto Anderson http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1976084 (Accessed 12 February 2015)

ROLL OF HONOUR, 1915, The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), p. 25. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22298388 (Accessed 14 February 2015)

Starr, Joan and Christopher Sweeney, 1989, Forward: The history of the 2nd/14th Light Horse (Queensland Mounted Infantry), University of Queensland Press

State Library of Queensland, Picture Queensland http://hdl.handle.net/10462/deriv/127828 (Accessed 12 February 2015) 3 University of New South Wales, Canberra, The AIF Project – Arthur Ernest Anderson https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=4417 (Accessed 13 February 2015)

University of Queensland, Anzac Day - Allan Nash's Gallipoli diary, https://www.library.uq.edu.au/blog/2014/04/22/anzac-day-allan-nashs-gallipoli-diary (Accessed 10 February 2015)