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Remembering Cpl R C McWhinney: Week Forty Eight

24/12/2017

My earliest memories of my mother’s eldest brother, Uncle Clive Lilja and his wife Aunt Mary (nee McWhinney), were going with my parents into a forest outside Melbourne to collect our Christmas tree, which we chopped down ourselves. When we got it home to East Bentleigh I remember that the tree was so tall it touched the ceiling. I was six years old. After that we moved to Brisbane and then to Sydney as dad was in the air force.

The next time I saw Clive and Mary I was fourteen and dad had left the air force. We were on a road trip to Melbourne to visit all our relatives on both sides of the family. My strongest memory was one of surprise when at dinner Uncle Clive suddenly asked who would say grace? A foreign concept for me.

In 2012, on a visit to Aunt Mary, she proudly showed me a small framed certificate she had in her hallway. It was given to her father Corporal Rupert Charles McWhinney to acknowledge his gallant and distinguished service in the field and he was “mentioned in a despatch” by Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig on 7 November 1917. The certificate is signed by Winston Churchill as Secretary of State for War, Whitehall dated 1 March 1919, and says “I have it in command from the King to record His Majesty’s high appreciation of the services rendered”.

Aunt Mary now lives in a nursing home at Forest Hill in Melbourne and will be 90 in May 2018. When I visited her on Friday it was a little sad to see this grand lady, who was awarded with the Order of Australia medal in 2002 for years of service fostering hundreds of babies and young children, now confined to a chair with little memory of who I was. When I asked about her father though and showed her the framed certificate that hangs in her room, her eyes brightened and she said “we couldn’t find out what he did to receive it”.

I have looked through Rupert’s service record, number 360, and I cannot see any details apart from the usual details of enlistment, 24 January 1916, departure to England 19 October 1916, and shipped to France 22 November 1916. I also found a copy of his 37th battalion diary on the internet yesterday and read through the chapter on the Battle of Messines, 7 June 1917, when he was wounded quite badly, as were many of his battalion that day, and found no mention of his name anywhere.

From his service record though I know he was also wounded in action on 28 December 1916 by a gas shell but returned to his battalion on 1 January 1917. During the night before the major battle at Messines Mary’s father would have heard and felt the famous explosion of the Hill 60 mines as it is recorded in the 37th battalion diary. Later the next day he received a compound fracture of his left tibia and was admitted to the Canadian Red Cross Hospital in London on 19 June, before being returned to Australia on 31 October 1917, and finally being invalided and discharged on 28 May 1918. During the same battle when he was injured his Commanding Officer, Captain Robert Grieve, was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Mary’s father was also awarded two oak leaves, one large and one small, the “mentioned in despatches” emblem worn on WWI medals. I searched the London Gazette for any details relating to this but could only find his name recorded, published on 28 December 1917, Supplement Number 30448, page 13567.

A few notes discovered by reading the 37th Battalion history:
The battalion was formed, as part of the 10th Brigade of the 3rd Australian Division, in February 1916 at Seymour in Victoria. Its recruits were drawn from Melbourne, north-east Victoria and Gippsland. After training in both Australia and Britain, the battalion moved to France on 23 November 1916. Within a week it had begun to occupy trenches on the Western Front, just in time for the onset of the terrible winter of 1916-17. During this time the 3rd Division was heavily involved in raiding the German trenches.

The 37th fought in its first major battle at Messines, in Belgium, from 7-9 June 1917. It also mentions the 34th battalion several times during that engagement. So my Melbourne and Adelaide Lilja cousins had both their grandfathers’ battalions fighting side by side for a time. The battalion fought in another two major attacks in this sector - the battle of Broodseinde on 4 October, and the battle of Passchendaele on 12 October, the same battle my grandfather Harold Lilja fought in.

Quoted from the battalion history: “The naming of the objectives - Red, Green, and Black - resulted from the use of those crayons on the staff maps prepared for the operation. It was an easy matter to mark such lines on a map, but it was another thing for the troops to reach them on the ground, when troubled by machine-gun and artillery fire.

And in regard to the gas shelling: “The gas had a pleasant "pineapple" smell, but it made the eyes stream with tears, and, if breathed in, caused a painful dryness and soreness in the throat, at times making men vomit violently.”

The 37th battalion motto “Indivisible” takes its rise from the occasion when the original 37th strove hard to avert oblivion, and then went valiantly forward to battle, as determined as ever to give a good account of itself. “To you from falling hands, we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high”.

Statistics published in 37th battalion history: Australia enlisted 416,809; 330,000 sent overseas; 226,073 casualties; 59, 285 killed, died, missing; a total of 68.5% casualties to numbers.

Battalion Decorations & Awards: 1 Victoria Cross Capt Grieve; 2 x Distinguished Service Orders; 18 x Military Crosses; 8 x Distinguished Conduct Medals; 68 x Military Medals; 1 x Bar to Military Medal; 16 x Mentioned in Despatches; 7 x Meritorious Service Medals; 2 x Croix de Guerre Belgium; 1 x Medaille Militaire.

Battle Honours included: Messines 1917, Ypres 1917, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcapelle, Passchendaele, Somme 1918.

Lest we forget Corporal R C McWhinney!

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The passing of the last WWI veteran

17/12/2017

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Each Anzac Day during the march a mounted police officer leads a horse on foot wearing WWI uniform. The horse bears a soldier’s boots angled backwards in the stirrups to signify the passing of the soldier.

Troop Horse Gallant has had the honour of representing the passing of the last WWI veteran for eight years until Anzac Day 2017. He has now retiring and will spend the rest of his days at pasture on a Taree property owned by Rodney O’Regan, Vice President of the Australian Light Horse Association. Each year Gallant has been led by Senior Constable James Fox and they are a favourite drawcard for many visitors to the annual march.

But who was the last WWI veteran? And when did they pass away? This is not as straightforward as it might seem. According to Andrew Holmes, a British correspondent for US-based Gerontology Research Group “It’s a common misconception that a veteran must be someone who saw action or fighting in the trenches. A veteran is someone who served in one of the Armed forces, regardless of their role – a medic, an ambulance driver or a waitress – they all count. Obviously the last surviving veterans of any war are likely to be the youngest and therefore would not have served long.”

Mr Holmes tracks people over the age of 110 and validates their ages, and keeps track of British subjects over the age of 107. Florence Green was the last surviving WWI veteran anywhere in the world. She died in February 2012 at the age of 110, just 2 weeks short of her 111th birthday. Young Florence joined the Women’s Royal Air Force in September 1918 just two months before the war ended. She was seventeen and worked as a steward in the Officer’s Mess at Narborough Airfield and RAF Marham in Norfolk.

Prior to that Claude Choules, a British-born sailor, was the last surviving WWI combat veteran when he passed away in Western Australia at 110 years of age. The last British survivor of the WWI trenches was Harry Patch, known as the “The Last Tommy”, died in July 2009 at age 111.

Here in Australia John Campbell Ross of Bendigo, our last remaining WWI veteran, died on 3 June 2009 at 110 years of age. He enlisted as a wireless operator but the war ended before he saw active service. Prior to that the last Australian to serve overseas in WWI was Evan Allan who died in October 2005 at 106 years having joined the Royal Australian Navy at just 14, and stayed on to see action in WWII. And Peter Casserly, the last Australian survivor of the Western Front battles, died in July 2005.

Alec Campbell was the “Last Anzac”, a survivor of the Gallipoli campaign and Ted Matthews, the last Australian survivor to have landed on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Roy Longmore was the second last Anzac to go before Alec Campbell. And Len Hall was one of the first Australians to enlist for WWI, with his service number 52, when he joined at just 16 years 5 months.

John Masefield said of the Anzacs “….about 85 years later, the first thing people noticed about Alec, Roy, Ted, Len and the other old men of Gallipoli was their gentleness, and the contrast between this quality and the violent streak in their past. The next thing was their accepting nature. They rarely asked for anything. They accepted their lot in life, just as they had at Gallipoli.”

In the words of General Sir Ian Hamilton, the British commander “Before the war, who had ever heard of Anzac? Hereafter, who will ever forget it?” According to Tony Stephens, author of The Last Anzacs, the old men “used their ebbing years to ram home the message that most battlefields are unsatisfactory places to resolve arguments”.

On Wikipedia you can find a list of the last WWI survivors by country. Here are just a few: Belgium Cyriel Barbary (died 16 September 2004 age 105); Canada John Babcock (died 18 February 2010 age 109); France Pierre Picault (died 20 November 2008 age 109); German Empire Erick Kästner (died 1 January 2008 age 107); New Zealand Bright Williams (died 13 February 2003 age 105); Ottoman Empire Yakup Satar (died 2 April 2008 age 110) and Russian Empire Mikhail Krichevsky (died 26 December 2008 age 111).

Lest we forget!

Senior Constable James Fox with Troop Horse Gallant on Anzac Day 2017, together with Naomi to carry the commemorative sign indicating that Gallant represented the passing of the last WWI veteran. Pictured is Rodney O'Regan, Vice President Australian Light Horse Association.

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Remembering John Hilary & Walter Hilary Lynch, father & son: Week Forty Six

10/12/2017

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Light rail construction through the city has now changed the Anzac Day March route from George Street to Elizabeth Street, finishing at the Museum Station corner of Hyde Park. After following the horse commemorating the passing of the last WWI veteran on Anzac Day I found myself outside the Anzac Memorial which is undergoing ‘The Centenary Project’ upgrade.

I went in to find out more about it and met memorial guide Michael Wilson. Somehow we ended up talking about our relatives and Michael told me about his great grandfather John Hilary Lynch who had been killed in WWI and his son Walter, Michael’s great uncle, also killed in action. Naturally I asked him if he would like to be part of my project. This is their story.

Michael’s grandfather’s eldest brother Walter Hilary Lynch, a labourer born in Nyngan, enlisted in Dubbo on 4 February 1916 just a month short of his 19th birthday. His service number was 1943 and he was assigned to third reinforcements 54th battalion initially but later transferred to 34th battalion, my grandfather Harold’s battalion.

Young Walter departed Sydney on 23 June 1916 for Plymouth, and then moved from England to France on 21 Nov 1916 heading into the worst winter on the Western Front. Sadly he was killed in action in the field in Belgium on 7 June 1917 and was buried in Old No Man’s Land near the allied wire in front of Antons Farm, just north east of Wytscahete, one mile south of Messines. His name is listed on the Menin Gate Memorial.

Shortly before being notified of his son's death, John Hilary Lynch also a labourer from Nyngan enlisted on 5 June 1917. Walter’s personal effects, of just 1 notebook and 2 photos, were later sent to his sister Mrs Isabella Farrell of Watsons Bay.

John, assigned to 20th battalion service number 6957, no doubt distraught at finding out the fate of his young son, embarked for England on 16 July. He departed for the Western Front late December arriving into Belgium on 1 January 1918. In late March and early April John is hospitalised in France suffering from fever, and after recovery rejoins his battalion.

John was wounded in action in France on 11 August 1918, and later died of his wounds, multiple gunshots that penetrated his left lung, at 8th Stationary Hospital Wimmereux France on 13 September 1918. John is buried in Terlinethun British Cemetery one mile north of Boulogne. John’s personal effects were sent to his wife Jane and contained 3 discs, a wallet, letters, YMCA wallet, testament, a religious pamphlet and a razor.

Jane had been kept up to date on her husband’s fate by telegrams, one on 31 August saying he was seriously ill and the next on 3 September saying he was dangerously ill. She sent a heartfelt telegram of her own to Base Records asking if the reports she was receiving about John Lynch were in fact about her husband and not a mistake?

With her eldest son and husband both killed Jane moved her family of seven children from Nyngan to King Street St Peters in Sydney and no doubt struggled to make ends meet. She wrote on 2 Dec 1922 to request a memorial plaque for her son Walter after receiving a plaque for her husband John. They reply saying the plaque had been received however his name had been incorrectly inscribed and it was being re-issued.

John’s records include a sad little handwritten letter from Jane in May 1923 to Base Records asking for a Widows and Mothers badge as she has seen other widows wearing the small blue enamel and silver badges. They write back saying that the issuing of these badges ceased on 31 March 1922 and that there are no more in stock. In 1926 she writes requesting certificates of their deaths which are required for probate. She has been unable to change the title deeds of their land in Nyngan into her name.

In 1929 the Public Trustee Office in Sydney was still trying to process probate for Walter and to track down the whereabouts of John’s will which had been sent to Victoria Barracks. Again in 1935 the Public Trustees Office Sydney are still following up on the whereabouts of his will. It is now 17 years since her husband’s death and no closure for Michael's great grandmother Jane.

Michael has worked at the Anzac Memorial for 13 years and has no mementoes of his great grandfather and great uncle apart from a full transcript of their service records. But as a memorial guide he is learning more and more about their service and WWI under the guidance of senior curator and historian Brad Manera, which is a fitting tribute to their memory. He hopes to visit the battlefields where they died soon. Lest we forget!

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Sydney's WWI French connection

2/12/2017

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I have lived in Sydney most of my life since I was eight years old. And I have been in Hyde Park many many times. I used to sit in the winter sunshine in the park during lunchtime at my first job, which incidentally was in what is now known as the Lindt Café building in Martin Place. My young colleagues and I would get our lunch and sit on the grass next to the Archibald Fountain. Little did I know then that it was in fact a WWI memorial.

During a meeting in 2012 with the Anzac Memorial’s senior curator and historian, Brad Manera, he told me of several WWI monuments and memorials within Hyde Park – the most surprising being my beloved Archibald Fountain.

Its full name is J F Archibald Memorial Fountain, named after J F Archibald, owner and editor of The Bulletin magazine who in 1919 bequeathed the funds to have a symbolic, open-air memorial built. Archibald specified that the fountain must be designed by a French artist, to commemorate the association of Australia and France in WWI and because of his love of French culture.

As directed in Archibald’s will, this was to commemorate the association between Australia and France during World War 1, ‘for the liberties of the world’ and was to be sculpted in bronze by a French artist. Archibald’s expressed preferences came from an acquired interest in modern French culture, which he admired for its ‘clarity of thought and resourceful originality’.

According to Wikipedia Archibald “wished Sydney to aspire to Parisian civic design and ornamentation”. The artist chosen was François-Léon Sicard, who completed it in Paris in 1926 but never actually saw the sculpture placed in Sydney. It was unveiled on 14 March 1932 by Sydney’s Lord Mayor.

According to the City of Sydney website:
The fountain “…draws its themes from Greek antiquity and is an important example in Sydney of the classical revivalist sculpture of the 1920s and 1930s, known as Art Deco.

Sicard chose a mythical theme to express his message through the medium of a fountain. Although commissioned to honour the association forged in war, the work was also to look forward to peace and Sicard allowed the peace theme to dominate. Central to his design was Apollo giving life to all nature. Apollo was surrounded by three groups of figures, the first featuring Diana bringing harmony to the world; the second, Pan watching over the fields and pastures; and the third, Theseus conquering the Minotaur, symbolic of sacrifice for the common good.”

An inscription on the St Mary’s Cathedral side reads:
“Apollo represents the Arts (Beauty and Light.) Apollo holds out his right arm as a sign of protection and spreads his benefit over all nature while he holds a lyre in his left hand. Apollo is the warmth which vivifies, giving warmth to all nature. At the touch of his ray men awake, trees and fields become green, the animals go out into the fields and men go to work at dawn.”

Francois Sicard (1862-1934) was a distinguished artist, renowned in France and best known for his work on adornments of the Louvre. Sicard won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1891, awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 and became an Officier of the Legion d’Honneur in 1910.

Jules François Archibald was born in 1856 at Geelong Victoria but baptised John Feltham. He started work in the printing and press industries from age 14. Just six years later he left journalism to work as a clerk in Victorian Education Dept where he collected information on French life and culture, while also spending long hours in the company of a Breton couple where he lived.

Later clerking in Queensland and working on goldfields, he drifted to Sydney and started clerking for the Evening News, rising to the reporting staff. Archibald then went on to found The Bulletin as a joint venture with great success and having published the writings of Australian icons such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson.

J F Archibald also left a bequest to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, namely the Archibald Prize which was first awarded in 1921 and was the first major prize for portraiture in Australian art. It is awarded for "the best portrait, preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics, painted by an artist resident in Australia…”

Sources:
http://www.cityartsydney.com.au/artwork/archibald-memorial-fountain/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Fountain

If you would like to read more about war memorials in NSW you can go to: http://www.warmemorialsnsw.asn.au/

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WWI: Mementoes of our Grandfathers

Remembering Cpl R C McWhinney: Week Forty Eight

The passing of the last WWI veteran

Remembering John Hilary & Walter Hilary Lynch, father & son: Week Forty Six

Sydney's WWI French connection

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