Around the Water Cart: 'Joe Furphy'.

Joe says: Very glad the trivial gossip peddled from around my water cart didn't have to "compete" with the excellent papers from last year's Biennial Conference in the March issue of Sabretache! Anyway, I'm back, so here we go again. As we have just celebrated the 90th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, I have devoted most of this Water Cart to items on Gallipoli, including some debunking of potent myths about the campaign. For much of this Gallipoli material, I am indebted to a special edition of the Army Newspaper, published with the regular issue on 21 April 2005. In turn, most of the items were contributed to Army by a former editor of Sabretache, Peter Stanley, now Principal Historian at the Australian War Memorial and our former Federal President, Roger Lee, Head of the Army History Unit and Army Historian. Thanks to you both and to our member Peter Burness, Senior Curator, Exhibitions at the AWM.

Gallipoli

The Australian Navy was the "first in and last out" of the Australian forces at Gallipoli. The submarine AE2 began her passage of the Dardanelles before the Anzac landings commenced, while the departure of the RAN Bridging Train from Suvla Bay took place after the evacuation from Anzac Cove. AE2 was equipped with four single torpedo tubes, at bow, stern and on either beam. Only one spare torpedo was carried for each tube, but the unusual arrangement allowed a weapon to be rapidly brought to bear on a target appearing from any direction. The crew of AE2 went into Turkish captivity--and the concern shown by Australian Naval authorities for them had definite limits. After requisitioning the British Admiralty for thick winter clothing for them, the RAN debited the prisoners' pay for the cost! The evacuation of the Bridging Train did not see the last of Australian sailors at Gallipoli. In January 1918, the British submarine E14 was sent to torpedo a Turkish battle cruiser, aground in the Dardanelles. Forced to the surface by enemy warships, E14 was subsequently destroyed by shellfire. Only 9 of the 31 crew survived. One of these was Able Seaman Mitchell of Ballarat, Victoria, and the only Australian on board. He had been stationed in the conning tower passing orders to the helmsman below. All the officers were killed and he was left alone. Although the enemy had the exact range and he was the only person visible, he remained at his post and took charge of the doomed boat until she sank. When in the water, he rescued the wireless operator, who had been wounded and was unconscious. There was no senior officer to recommend Mitchell for distinction and his only reward was the self-evident fact that he had done his duty. (ASE--supplied by Naval History Section, AWM).

Another story of the submarine AE2 is that of Mrs M Williams of Moore Street, Hamilton in Victoria who lost a son, Private John Williams at Lone Pine in 1915, another son, Frank, on the Somme in 1916 and a third, Thomas who died of wounds in France. A fourth son, Stoker Michael Williams, was taken prisoner from AE2. He was among four of the crew who died as prisoners of war of the Turks. Stoker Williams probably died in the Pozanti camp hospital in suspicious circumstances. His body was never found and his date of death never properly established. His mother was left in poverty, with four sons dead, an invalid husband and four young girls at home. Political representations and a plea from LTCDR Stoker, former commander of AE2, eventually resulted in Stoker Williams death being officially recognized and a small pension awarded (some time after 1919?) The Royal United Service Institution of Queensland publishes copies of Mrs Williams and LTCDR Stoker's handwritten letters to Prime Minister Hughes and the Naval Representative in London in their RUSI (Qld) Quarterly, December 2004.

Myth: The 25 April landing was directed at the "wrong place". Quoting the 1922 edition of Bean's history, some will insist that, as an officer called out as he came ashore "the damned fools have landed us at the wrong place". Fact: While this view has taken hold, it should have changed over the years. Bean himself revised later editions of his official history, correcting his account in the light of later evidence. More recent historians have re-examined the matter. Dennis Winter, in his 1994 book 25 April 1915: The Inevitable Tragedy made a detailed study of the surviving orders and concluded that the focus was changed verbally soon before the landing and this inclined the force more towards Anzac Cove than further south towards Gaba Tepe. Tom Frame, a naval historian and now Anglican Bishop to the Australian Forces, was almost the first to ask detailed questions about what was, after all, a naval operation. He published The Shores of Gallipoli in 2000. From a study of the navigational capabilities of the time, he concluded that warships could not have made a more precise landfall and that the "error" was the result of unavoidable navigational imprecision. (Army, Special Edition 21 April 2005--shown subsequently as "ASE").

Myth: Members of the First AIF were natural soldiers and good shots. Fact: At the end of the war, there was much made of the supposed superiority of colonial troops over those from the British Isles. Bean suggested that this was in part due to the rugged independence fostered by close contact with rural life. From this has arisen the myth that the AIF was composed primarily of tall, healthy, rugged bushmen. This was simply not true. A statistical analysis of total recruit figures for 1914-1918 reveals that only 17 per cent were identifiably from "country callings". The largest single occupational group were tradesmen with 33 per cent then labourers at 30 per cent. Nor were they innately good soldiers or natural shots. An entry in the War Diary of the 1st Battalion for 9 September 1914 notes, "Musketry was confined to grouping practice. Results were only moderate as most men were unacquainted with rifle". Like all soldiers, training was the essential component in proficiency. (ASE).

Myth: The attack on the Nek by 3rd Light Horse Brigade on 7 August was in support of the British landing at Suvla Bay. Fact: Both this attack and the landing at Suvla were in support of an offensive to seize the high ground around Sari Bair. Specifically, 3rd Light Horse Brigade was supporting an attack by New Zealanders on Chunuk Bair. The New Zealanders, and the other assault troops on the flank, had become lost on the night approach march over unfamiliar ground. (ASE).

Myth: The British commander of 3rd Light Horse Brigade at the Nek refused to cancel the attacks of the later waves of 10th Light Horse, despite the annihilation of the earlier waves (and 8th Light Horse). Fact: Another of the myths entrenched by the film Gallipoli. The brigade commander, Colonel Frederick Hughes, an Australian, was not present in his headquarters. The suggestion to call off the third wave (made personally by Lt Col Noel Brazier, Commanding Officer 10th Light Horse--not by a runner) was refused by Lt Col Jack Antill, the Brigade Major, another Australian officer, as marker flags carried by the Australians had been seen in the Turkish trenches. The attack of the fourth wave was a mixture of error and accident while the CO was discussing the situation with the brigade commander. The report of marker flags in the Turkish trenches was reliably reported by observers and has never been explained. (ASE).

Despite the popular belief that Australia's losses were more severe than those of other countries at Gallipoli, the Turkish toll was of the proportions of a national tragedy and is thought to have been consistently understated--the true figure may have been as high as 470,000. New Zealand, per capita, experienced a huge toll; of the 8556 Kiwis who served, 7453 were killed or wounded (87 per cent). Some 3000 troops of Britain's Indian Army served on Gallipoli. The 29th Infantry Brigade, comprising one Sikh and three Ghurkha battalions served at Helles and at Anzac (fighting alongside Australian troops in the failed August offensive). Indian mule-pack mountain artillery landed on 25 April and remained at Anzac throughout the campaign. India's fatal casualties were proportionally the heaviest of all the combatant forces--more than 1600 killed, about one in two. (ASE). Though various sources give different figures for some countries, they generally agree on the Australian toll. The following table gives the Australian War Memorial's figures for dead and wounded:

Country          Deaths   Wounded

Turkey           86,692   128,000 probably understated
Britain          21,255    52,230
France            9,874    17,000
Australia         8,709    19,441
New Zealand       2,701     4,852
India             1,358     3,421
Newfoundland *       49        93

* Newfoundland was not incorporated into Canada until 1948.
The Newfoundland Regiment served on Gallipoli, mainly at
Suva, until September 1915. The regiment was virtually
annihilated on the Somme the following year.

Myth: One of the earliest Gallipoli myths to reach Australia concerned "The Haymaker", a huge Queenslander who hurled Turks over his shoulder with a bayonet. Charles Bean even included this in his first despatch, relating how "the huge Queenslander swung his rifle by the muzzle, and, after braining one Turk, caught another and flung him over his shoulder". He added however, "I don't know if this story is true". The Wills Tobacco Company furthered the legend, printing cigarette cards saying, "It was a big Queenslander with corporal's stripes who landed first and then scrambled up the cliffs, followed by a brave band of Queenslanders". The Sydney Mail identified him as Corporal William Kenny. Fact: Kenny wrote to the Mail denying the story. However Kenny was a heroic figure. (His sister, Elizabeth, was a war nurse and had by the 1930s developed a controversial treatment for polio, inspiring the 1946 film Sister Kenny). A Military Policeman, he successfully helped to co-ordinate the first landing. He was selected to be General Birdwood's personal bodyguard. He survived a sniper's bullet in the skull and helped run the evacuation, earning a DCM. He saw further service in France, earning the French Medaille Militaire and later volunteered for service in WWII, aged 55. (The Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, 24 April 2005).

The presence of aircraft receives little attention in most accounts of Gallipoli. On the first day of the landings at Anzac Cove, the naval force covering the operation included two special vessels: a balloon ship, Manica and an "aircraft carrier"--or more properly, seaplane tender--Ark Royal carrying aircraft of No. 3 Wing Royal Naval Air Service. The balloons and aircraft of Ark Royal and Manica were to control from the air the supporting gunfire of the battleships Triumph and Majestic. Ark Royal was regarded as something of a "wonder ship" after being converted during 1914 from her previous identity as a tramp steamer. The seaplanes, which were lowered over the side and took off as soon as light permitted, experienced great difficulty in locating the concealed Turkish batteries that from 11 am began lashing the troops of the 2nd Australian Brigade with shrapnel. They were not helped by the large, primitive and unreliable wireless transmitters for notifying corrections to the gunnery controllers on the battleships. But allied air resources began to prove their worth later in the campaign. On May 18 a pilot noticed two valleys behind the Turkish front lines were packed with troops; a second machine confirmed the observation and reported additional enemy forces being landed on the Asiatic coast of the peninsular above Maidos (modern Eceabat). As a result, the two divisions holding the Anzac area were ready when a massive Turkish counter-attack was launched before dawn next day and the enemy were beaten off, with casualties estimated at 10,000 before noon. Later, the navy planes came to play an even more extensive role, when a second carrier, the former Isle of Man packet steamer Ben-my-Chree arrived with a further mix of machine of No 2 Wing RNAS and a French air unit (Escadrille MF 98T. Aircraft types at Gallipoli included: British--Wight Type AI seaplanes; Sopwith Tabloid; BE.2C; Henri Farman F.27; Nieuport 10 Scout; Nieuport 12 Two-seater; French--Nieuport Float Plane and Maurice-Farman; German--Albatross B1; Gotha WD-2 Seaplane and Fokker E11. (ASE).

Brother and sister team Stephen and Lindsey Davie has secured the rights to sell souvenir merchandise containing sand from the beach at Gallipoli, with 12.5 per cent of the sale price to be donated to the RSL. The company managed to raise $150,000 for the RSL last year, having brought over 270 kg of beach sand from Turkey with permission of the Turkish authorities. Market Link Solutions distribute their medallions, spoons and other items mainly through Australia Post outlets. (The Canberra Times, 7 April 2005).

Dr Elena Govor's new book Russian Anzacs in Australian History (UNSW Press, 2005) reveals that about 970 Australian soldiers in WWI were born in Russia. Broken down into the 20 different nationalities represented among the ethnically distinct people within the then-Russian Empire, they included 283 Finns, 55 Poles and others of non-Jewish origin born in Russian Poland, 105 Jews from the Polish and Baltic Provinces and 19 who were natives of the Caucasus and Tatars. More than 105 Russian Anzacs fought at Gallipoli. The Tupicoff brothers, Nicholas and Alexis somehow got to Australia after fleeing conscription in Russia but enlisted in the AIF "after pressure from the (Russian) consulate". After the war, by 1924, Nicholas was the librarian of the Russian cell of the Communist Party of Australia's Ipswich (Qld) branch, but his children remember that by the 1930s he was an active member of the RSL, with his wife busy in the RSL's soup kitchen during the depression. (The Canberra Times, "Times 2", 19 April 2005).

Mrs Daphne Salisbury-Coward, aged 77, has donated to the Australian War Memorial the tunic of her father, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Salisbury. Alfred Salisbury, as a captain, took over temporary command of the 9th Battalion soon after the landing on 25 April 1915 when other officers became casualties. Though wounded himself, he directed the battalion through a day of desperate fighting and remained in command until the end of May. He served later in France and Belgium, was appointed CMG and awarded a DSO and Bar. His daughter had originally intended to wear the "eerily new-looking tunic", which had been lovingly preserved by her mother, to Gallipoli this year but was persuaded to donate it to the AWM instead. You may have seen her in TV coverage of the Gallipoli ceremonies wearing his similarly well-preserved cap? (The Canberra Times, 13 April 2005).

Rest of the world!

Captain Joseph William Backhouse (born January 1915), late of the 2/28th Battalion, veteran of Tobruk, El Alamein and Balikpapan passed away in Queensland on 13 December 2004. Captain Backhouse served with the 8th Military District on the war crimes trials in Rabaul after WWII and was officer-in-charge of the executions by firing squad of convicted Japanese war criminals (Miles Vetus, Newsletter of the Queensland Branch, January-February 2005).

Our member Grattan Wheaton has kindly written to say that Joe's musings about the rank of WO3 in the British Army led him to remember that he had read something in The Ironside Diaries 1937-1940 (R Macleod and D Kelly, editors) on the subject. Ironside, as CIGS in 1938, had an uneasy relationship with the then-Secretary of State for War, Hore-Belisha, whom he regarded as dangerously ignorant of military matters. In 1938, Hore-Belisha, without reference to or advice from any military authorities, made a number of changes in the Army, among them the adoption of the rank of WO3. Ironside, in his diary of 8 April 1938, wrote: "(General Gort) then let out that there was going to be a reduction of 1500 officers in the establishment of the Army. Belisha's way of filling the gap was to replace them by Warrant Officers Class III. This he had done arbitrarily, without reference to the Army Council or the Commanders-in-Chief". Hore-Belisha resigned as Secretary of State for War early in January 1940 and was replaced by Oliver Stanley, who co-operated better with the military, so it was not surprising that the rank of WOIII was short-lived. Thank you, Grattan.

In 1942, the Australian prisoners in Changi organised a football competition modelled on what was then the Victorian Football League. A "Brownlow Medal" was made from parts of a downed aircraft that the prisoners found near the prison. It was duly awarded to Peter Chitty, and has been donated to the Australian War Memorial by Lillian Chitty of Melbourne on behalf of her husband. The Memorial plans to pay tribute to the tradition of Australians turning to sport in wartime to maintain morale by displaying the Changi Brownlow in the travelling exhibition planned for 2005 titled "Sport and War". (Vetaffairs, December 2004).

For those with an interest in the Indian Army: Recent material added to the collection of the library of the Society of Australian Genealogists at Rumsey Hall, 24 Kent Street, Sydney includes: The Indian Corps in France (1918 book); The Quarterly Indian Army List 1919, Volumes 1-4(books); Indian General Service Medal, 1895 Casualty Roll (book). (Descent, Journal of the Society of Australian Genealogists, March 2005).

Ralph Cusack, PO Box 462, Hamilton Qld 4007 (telephone [phone]) seeks information on WWII Beaufort Bombers for a reconstruction project (Vetaffairs, December 2004)

Never let it be said that the Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) in WWII had it easy! In 1942 or 1943, an RAAF Catalina flying boat on reconnaissance between Darwin and Thursday Island spotted a submarine in very shallow water near a beach in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The aircraft descended for a closer look. It was a Japanese submarine with some crew ashore and, its gun being already mounted, it opened fire. The Catalina was hit and became a total loss but not before its crew sent a MayDay signal giving co-ordinates of their position. There were two military units that could have gone to the scene. A Company, 26th Australian Infantry Battalion, which was conducting vehicle trials about 150 miles away and a VDC troop, horsed, and commanded by Australia's most decorated soldier, Lt Col H W Murray, VC, CMG, DSO, DCM, which was about 20 miles away. The 26th Battalion had actually intercepted radio messages meant for the enemy submarine. The VDC troop went to investigate. They were able to surprise and wipe out those crewmembers that were ashore washing clothes. Not surprisingly, news of the incident was withheld from the Australian public. (Despatches, Newsletter of the Victorian Branch, Volume 27, No 2, March 2005). Joe says: A great story, but why don't we know whether it was 1942 or 1943? And what happened to the Catalina crew and the aircraft.

The third battalion of the United States 116th Infantry from the Virginia Army National Guard deployed to Afghanistan. Fillers for this unit included personnel from A/1/116, the unit of the "Bedford Boys" of D-Day fame. The 116th Infantry Regiment goes to great lengths to ensure that its troops understand their unit heritage, including duty as the "Stonewall Brigade" of the Civil War, again as honourable participants in the final days of the First World War, and as a frontline unit at D-Day and in Northern Europe. (Thanks to Anthony Staunton for this item).

RAN lapel badge issued after WWII, blue border and white field with gold crown surmounted by blue trident. Red bar at the bottom with word "Reserves" picked out in gold. Any member with a badge of this description is invited to contact S E Bradfield, 22 Margaret Ellen Drive, Kelso, Qld, 4815. (Vetaffairs, March 2005):

Medallion struck by City of Sydney for each crewman of HMAS Sydney, commemorating the sinking of Bartolomeo Colleoni, 19 July 1940. Any member with knowledge of this medallion is asked to contact W Miles, Winns Rd, Cygnet, Tasmania 7112.