Letters from Long ‘un Captain Robert James Henderson, MC and Bar 13th Battalion AIF 1915-1918 Bob Henderson in France, winter 1917 Compiled by David Garred Jones 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This compilation arose out of a wider study into the movements, actions and stories of the “Originals” of the 13th Australian Infantry Battalion in World War 1. Part of that work involved reviewing the hundreds of diaries and thousands of letters that had been donated to the various State libraries and the Australian War Memorial. Much of this first-hand material is now available on-line, and in some cases has been transcribed by the skilled and dedicated staff of those institutions. Amongst that wealth of material are the letters of Captain Robert James Henderson, MC and Bar, of the 13th Battalion. They encapsulate the thoughts and feelings of a man who started in 1915 as a private, saw action in Gallipoli, Fleurbaix, Pozieres, Mouquet Farm, Messines, Passchendaele and Villers-Bretonneux, rising through the ranks to Captain. Henderson’s family donated his letters, postcards, certificates, awards and other ephemera to the Australian War Memorial (“AWM”). They have been digitised and posted on line under the accession code AWM2016.30.1 through to AWM2016.30.9. I am deeply grateful to the AWM for making this valuable historical archive so readily accessible. As well as Henderson’s own photographs, I have included some relevant images from the AWM and other sources, all of which are acknowledged in the captions to the photos. I have also added, in italics, the locations from where each letter was written (if not already included in the original letter). These have been sourced by reviewing the relevant war diaries of the 13th Battalion, also available online at the AWM website. Bob was fairly spartan in his use of punctuation, so I have added some punctuation where necessary to help in understanding his narrative. Occasionally some mis-spellings occur, and these have also been corrected A few maps, drawn by me, have been added to clarify the locations and details of the actions described in Bob’s letters. The maps archived by the Imperial War Museums in England have been digitised by me, and registered to the World Geodetic System (“WGS84”) used by Global Positioning Satellite (“GPS”) mapping and MapInfo software. Although reasonably accurate, my maps should not be relied upon for navigation as they are designed for illustration only. Following the evacuation from Gallipoli in December 1915, the AIF was reorganised in March 1916 and half of the 13th Battalion survivors were transferred to form the core of the new 45th Battalion. On 2nd June 1916 the 13th Battalion embarked from Alexandria on HMAT TRANSYLVANIA, landing in Marseilles on 7th June. They travelled by train across France to their initial destination, the town of Bailleul on the Belgian border, and marched to billets in nearby Steentje. From then on Australian troops were part of the British Army and subject to a more stringent disciplinary regime than they had previously experienced. Amongst the edicts of the British General Staff was a complete ban on the keeping of diaries and the taking of personal photographs. All letters were censored. The responsibility for censoring letters was given to the junior officers in each battalion, as explained by Lieutenant Robert Henderson in a letter to his mother in June 1916: “You may 2 think it queer signing my full name at the bottom of each letter but censoring is very strict in this country so that one cannot say very much. Then if you do they know who to blame etc for same. Each man’s letter has to be signed by an officer at the end and also on the envelope his full name so that one is kept very busy censoring letters which takes most of one’s spare time.” And to his brother “..we are always very busy censoring the lads’ letters etc in our spare time and I always make a point of putting them through for them as soon as possible.” Most of the art, images and photographs included in the narrative are sourced from the Australian War Memorial (“AWM”) and duly acknowledged in the captions, as are the other sources. Common abbreviations used in the narrative and captions include: AAMC Australian Army Medical Corps ADBD Australian Divisional Base Depot AGH Australian General Hospital AIF Australian Infantry Force AWM Australian War Memorial CCS Casualty Clearing Station CO Commanding Officer DSO Distinguished Service Order GOC General Officer Commanding (very senior ranks, eg Army General) HMAT His Majesty’s Australian Transport HMT His Majesty’s Transport HS Hospital Ship MC Military Cross MM Military Medal NAA National Archives of Australia NLA National Library of Australia NLNZ National Library of New Zealand OC Officer Commanding (used for senior ranks, eg Lieut-Colonel) SLNSW State Library of New South Wales SLQ State Library of Queensland SLSA State Library of South Australia SLV State Library of Victoria VC Victoria Cross 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................... 4 ART...................................................................................................................................... 6 IMAGES ............................................................................................................................... 6 MAPS ................................................................................................................................... 6 PHOTOS .............................................................................................................................. 7 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 9 CAST OF CHARACTERS .................................................................................................. 11 Captain Browning: .......................................................................................................... 11 Captain Pulling: .............................................................................................................. 12 Countess Brassey: ......................................................................................................... 12 “Dos” Wallach: ................................................................................................................ 13 Durrant: .......................................................................................................................... 14 Father: ............................................................................................................................ 16 Gerry Fox: ...................................................................................................................... 16 Hugh: .............................................................................................................................. 17 Jack Edgley: ................................................................................................................... 19 Jack Tivey: ..................................................................................................................... 19 Jane: .............................................................................................................................. 20 Ken Pattrick: ................................................................................................................... 20 Lee Scott: ....................................................................................................................... 21 Len (“Nana”): .................................................................................................................. 22 “Les”: .............................................................................................................................. 23 Lorna: ............................................................................................................................. 23 Major Marks: .................................................................................................................. 23 Major Twynam: ............................................................................................................... 24 McKillop: ......................................................................................................................... 25 “Mick”: ............................................................................................................................ 26 Millie Henley: .................................................................................................................. 27 Mr Henley: ...................................................................................................................... 27 Mrs Henley: .................................................................................................................... 28 Mum: .............................................................................................................................. 29 Murray: ........................................................................................................................... 29 Ralph Kell: ...................................................................................................................... 32 Reg Bull: ........................................................................................................................