The TSO Chorus remembers ANZAC stories related by June Tyzack, TSO Chorus Master PART ONE The Trip of a Lifetime From Mathinna to the Somme (via the Tower of London) I spent a lot of time with my Nan. She was a great story teller and I never tired of hearing about her teen years at Mathinna. The most memorable stories involved rabbits, floods, milking the cows, delivering the milk by horse and cart and then walking umpteen miles to school, the bull that gored her brother to death, and the Tyne River murder mystery, but never any war stories. She was the ninth child in a family of ten children which included two sets of twins and I shared a birth date with Auntie Dot and Uncle Ern. My memories of Uncle Ern and his younger brother, my Uncle Eric, stem from when they were living in Victoria. Uncle Ern had a little dog, but my recollection of Uncle Eric, the baby of the family, is far more comprehensive. He was so distinctively suave looking, with a manicured moustache and taller than the rest of the family, and he was an amazing ‘play anything-by- ear’ pianist with his very own grand piano! Uncle Ern - Ernest Lionel Whittle - was the only one of the five boys to go to war. Nan was sixteen and he was just shy of 22 when he enlisted. His journey from farmer to soldier began in October 1916 - from the Tyne River at Mathinna to Perham Downs training camp in Salisbury, England. Sapper Whittle was deployed to the infamous Hill 60 in the Ypres area of Belgium as part of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company of the 92nd Infantry. The TSO Chorus remembers The ‘Second Battle of Ypres’ (1915) is historically significant as it was the first time poisonous gas was used in warfare. Three years later, on Wednesday, 20th March, just prior to the ‘Fourth Battle of Ypres’, Sapper Whittle was gassed: Mustard Gas1. It was his first eight hour shift ‘up the lines’. Although his Military Record classifies his injuries as severe, Uncle Ern makes little of it in his notebook, rather providing an itinerary of travel arrangements and ‘accommodation’. He left the dugout the morning after he was gassed and walked three miles to Ypres for dressing, was treated at “Dicky Bush”2, ambulanced to the 2nd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station and then entrained to the 54th London General Hospital at Wimereux, a coastal town in northern France. Eleven days after the attack he was on a ship bound for “Blighty”. In England he marched, trained and motored between Clandon Park Hospital 3 and the No.3 Australian Auxiliary Hospital in Dartford. From Dartford he transferred to Hurdcott Camp near Fovant in South West England, but not before relieving the ‘blues’ with a visit to the Tower of London. (I read, that included in the items for sale when Hurdcott Camp was demolished, were five pianos, six billiards tables and hundreds of cricket bats.) He was later transferred to Sutton Veny, a concentration area for troops going to or from France. It was here that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic claimed the lives of over 150 Australians but Uncle Ern survived this particular killing field. Within five months of his father in Mathinna receiving advice that his son had been wounded, Sapper Whittle was back in France, on duty in the Somme. From Le Havre he moved through Pernois, Amiens, La Neuville, Bray-en- Somme to Maricourt where he camped in ‘death trap gully’ before working on the railway line through Cartigny to Lincourt, and finishing at Roisel. Here he witnessed ‘two of Jerries planes down in flames by gun fire”. As part of the ‘Hundred Days Offensive’ which ultimately pushed the Germans out of France and led to the end of World War 1, Uncle Ern notes that on the 18th September the big offensive started with five hours of bombardment and over 3,500 prisoners being escorted to the Cartigny Depot. This ‘Battle of Epehy’4 was followed by the ‘Battle of St Quentin Canal’ 5. Now stationed in Busigny, Uncle writes that “on September 29th at The TSO Chorus remembers 5.45am the stunt commenced with four hours bombardment.6 On the 1st October the Huns planes dropped 6 bombs on the camp killing 3 men and wounding 10 severely.” A total break in the Hindenburg Line was achieved by October 10th and Uncle Ern opted for a week’s spell!! Travelling from Busigny to Felleries and then marching 12 miles north-east, Sapper Whittle crossed the Belgian border, and this is where his Notebook entries cease. The last pages are filled with riddles, such as: Why do girls like looking at the Moon? Because there is a man in it. What grows bigger the more you take from it? A hole. He returned to Australia aboard the Aeneas, disembarking on the 12th July 1919. The TSO Chorus remembers Embroidered postcards from WW1 are generally known as "WW1 Silks". They were first produced in 1914 through 1918.The cards were hand embroidered on strips of silk mesh. They were mostly produced by French and Belgian women refugees who worked in their homes and refugee camps, and then sent the finished strips to factories for cutting and mounting on postcards. Because of their beauty and uniqueness, the WW1 Silks were wildly popular with British and American servicemen on duty in France. From http://www.ww1- propaganda-cards.com/silks.html 1 Mustard Gas (Yperite); “…one of the most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used during the war. It was almost odourless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks. The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be strapped to their beds. It usually took a person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas poisoning. One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote in her autobiography, Testament of Youth (1933): "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke." From http://spartacus- educational.com/FWWmustard.htm 2 Dickie Bush A camp situated between Ouderdom and Dickebusch in the Ypres Salient behind the front lines. In the years 1915-1917 Dickebusch (now Dikkebus) had one of the largest concentrations of troops. 3 West Clandon, Guildford, Surrey Clandon Park is one of England’s most complete examples of a Palladian mansion. It was built by a Venetian architect for Lord Onslow in the 1720s. In 1914 Clandon became an Auxiliary Military Hospital remaining open until April 1919 in order to treat victims of the The TSO Chorus remembers Spanish flu epidemic. There were 5059 admissions, and 747 operations were conducted in the operating theatre which had been Lord Onslow’s dressing room. 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_%C3%89pehyhy 5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_St._Quentin_Canal 6 Wikipedia: On 29 September, the Australian Corps attacked, this time with the addition of two American divisions from the American II Corps … supported by approximately 150 tanks of the 4th and 5th Tank Brigades … The US divisions launched the initial attack, with the Australian 3rd and 5th Divisions intended to "leapfrog" through the American forces.” 1 Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum est As under a green sea, I saw him (1917) drowning. Bent double, like old beggars under In all my dreams, before my helpless sacks, sight, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we He plunges at me, guttering, choking, cursed through sludge, drowning. Till on the haunting flares we turned our If in some smothering dreams, you too backs, could pace And towards our distant rest began to Behind the wagon that we flung him in. trudge. And watch the white eyes writhing in his Men marched asleep. Many had lost their face, boots, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; But limped on, blood-shod. All went If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood lame, all blind; Come gargling from the froth-corrupted Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots lungs, Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of Of vile, incurable sores on innocent fumbling, tongues, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, My friend, you would not tell with such But someone still was yelling out and high zest stumbling To children ardent for some desperate And floundering like a man in fire or lime. glory, Dim through the misty panes and thick The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est green light, Pro patria mori. The TSO Chorus remembers PART TWO Eight Arms for the War; Seven for the Farm My Nan married my Pop in 1925. He was the eighth child of twelve from one of the Alexander families living at Table Cape near Wynyard, and his ten cousins from the other Alexander family included Frederick Matthias Alexander, founder of the Alexander Technique. My childhood memories clearly separate the Alexander great aunts and uncles from the Whittle’s: there was much laughter and celebration and warmth within Nan’s family whereas I found the Alexanders quite strange and frightening.