We promise to clean this up before anyone steps in a can.

The loans were unpacked last Friday under the supervision of Andy Holbrook, the loans shipment courier who is the Collections Care Manager at the IWM, and our Quarantine Inspector from AQIS. read on

The many different versions of Seven pillars of wisdom are sometime difficult to understand, but since I put a small box of text about our 1926 subscribers’ edition into an article I wrote for Wartime, I have had to field a few questions about them. When we’ve solved our image attachment problem in WordPress, I’ll attach what images we have of each of them for further identification.

I’ll now attempt to summarise the differences for you here in text form:

The 1922 “Oxford Times” text
After losing almost all of his first draft of Seven Pillars of Wisdom at Reading railway station in 1919, Lawrence was urged by his friends to rewrite the lost material. He completed a revised manuscript (which he later gave to the Bodleian Library, Oxford) in May 1922. To prevent loss of the second text, he had eight copies made by the Oxford Times printing works. Five of these were bound and circulated to his wartime colleagues and other close advisers for critical review. It was never available for sale to the public. You can read about the two copies held by the British Library, including copy #2, donated by George Bernard Shaw, here (fourth paragraph). read on

With only a week to go before we open, much progress is being made. Recently a number of us have been heavily engaged in the following list (not exhaustive) of activities:

• The final stages of the design process to do with balancing and sequencing objects, art works and images as we finalise the plans for the exhibition space.
• Re-drafting, proofing and printing all exhibition text including wall panels and captions.
• Drafting and proofing magazine articles and our four catalogue essays.
• Arranging press and other media coverage. (This includes the production of more text and the provision of more images including moving images and sound files and arranging all relevant rights and permissions. Today alone I did three interviews and so far I have two lined up for Friday 30 November.)
• Marketing the exhibition.
• Arranging public talks, tours and other public programs for the life of the exhibition.
• Arranging the exhibition launch on 6 December and all that this entails.
• And demounting the previous exhibition, To Flanders fields, 1917, and preparing the space, including the installation of our new display cases for our exhibition. read on

On 27 June 1918 two Bristol F2B Fighters from No. 1 Squadron AFC, A7236 and B1149, took off on a reconnaissance mission over Kitrine. The two aircraft were piloted by Temporary Captain A. R. Brown/ Lieutenant G Finlay and Lieutenants G. V. Oxenham/L. H. Smith respectively. By the end of the mission Lieutenant Smith had been made a Prisoner of War.

read on

Well folks, that’s it for another of the Memorial’s special exhibitions, To Flanders Fields, 1917.  Today we started dismantling the show in readiness for the next special exhibition, Lawrence of Arabia and the Light Horse, due to open in the same space on 7 December.

To Flanders Fields has been a very successful and popular exhibition over the past few months, confirming that the memories of Passchendaele are still deep within the community’s psyche.  As we said from the start, 1917 was the worst year of the war for Australian casualties, and Passchendaele was by far the most costly battle of that year.  With the entire AIF involved, these losses touched so many families, and as you have seen, many more than once.

We on the exhibition team and at the Memorial in general, hope that all visitors to the exhibition and to this blog have found them interesting, informative and thought provoking.

On a personal note, I’ve must say I’ve enjoyed immensely running the blog for this exhibition.  I’ve learned a great deal more about the campaign and battles of 1917 and about the troops of our AIF.  It’s all been a very rewarding experience.

Last but not least, I would like to sincerely thank all those that visited the exhibition and this blog, especially those that took the time to post a comment.  The quality of the comments has been exceptionally good and have added a great deal to the blog itself.

While the exhibition is now closed, this blog will remain on the Australian War Memorial’s website.  It’s no longer featured on the home page, but if you look down the left side of the home page you’ll see it listed under ‘Blogs’.  If at a later date it moves, just use the site search to find it. 

I’ll probably leave the comment function on for a little while, but I haven’t yet decided if or when this will cease.

‘Bye for now…

Craig Tibbitts.

I found this article last night in an old Reveille journal from June 1930.  Apart from the photos which I’ve added, the text remains as published.  The author was Joe Maxwell, the very same who won a DCM as a warrant officer near Westhoek, just a few days after the action described below.  The following year he would win the Military Cross twice, and just before the end of the war, the Victoria Cross at the Hindenburg Line. 

‘Anzac House’ was a large German Pillbox captured by Maxwell’s battalion (18th) during the Battle of Menin Road (on 20 Sept).  It lay on Anzac Ridge between Zonnebeke and Polygon Wood, but much nearer the latter.

The Flag: Anzac House by Joe Maxwell
The Reveille, June 1930, p 11.’A few minutes after we had captured our objective on September 20, 1917, Corps Headquarters was informed: “Objective reached.  Australian flag flying on Anzac House.”

The Australian papers featured this episode, and months later we received glowing accounts of a Digger rushing forward holding aloft an outsize in Australian flags.  Illustrated papers devoted a full page to feature the deed in colour – a deed which stirred the imagination of every patriotic Australian.  The French and English papers also elaborated on the initiative and bravery of this lone Australian soldier.

It may interest readers of “Reveille” to know the facts: Anzac House was the objective of B. Coy (18th Battalion), of which I at the time was company sergeant-major.  It was an exceptionally strong pill box, and our O.C. (Captain Jack O’Donnell) decided it would make an ideal company headquarters.  It contained a goodly supply of German schnapps, whisky and field dressings.

When a man was wounded he was promptly carried to Anzac House for attention.  I particularly remember one fellow, whose arm was blown to a pulp by a whiz-bang [shell from a German 77 mm artillery piece].  He was carried in on a stretcher, and, in addition to the wound, was suffering terribly from shock.  Between groans he prayed to be allowed to die.  We dressed his wound and poured about a pint of schnapps down his throat.  A few minutes later he jumped off the stretcher, helped himself to another “spot,” and remarked, “This’ll do me for a Blighty,” and headed it in that direction.

Everyone in “B” Coy. will remember little Teddie Bell (“Ding-Dong,” as he was affectionately called), who was 17 years of age.  His people had sent him a parcel in which was an Australian flag about 4 inches by 3 inches.

Teddie was a company runner, and during a break in his message carrying, stuck the flag in a tin of bully beef and placed it on the corner of Anzac House, from where it fluttered until blown to pieces by a shell later in the day.

In April, 1918, I stood by a stretcher, in the Fifth Field Dressing Station, on which little “Ding-Dong” lay.  My mind travelled back to the incident at Anzac House.  But “Ding-Dong’s” shattered arm did not auger Blighty for him.  As the evening shadows lengthened he died.  In the distance the rhythmic rumble of artillery seemed to sound a requiem to the spirit of one of the bravest little soldiers ever.’

With the continual heavy battles and the entire AIF involved, 1917 was the worst year of the war for Australian casualties.  It is not surprising therefore to find numerous relatives or even sets of brothers all killed in a relatively short period.  A few come quickly to mind; the Howell-Price brothers, the Hobbs brothers, the Seabrooks and the Single family boys.

As I’ve been trawling through The Reveille, a New South Wales veterans’ journal that began in 1927, I’m always drawn to the sections titled ‘Family Quotas’ where they list families that lost several members during the war.  It never ceases to amaze me how many families suffered multiple and compounding bereavements.

In the July 1930 edition I came across another case, the Bartram family of Richmond Victoria.  Four brothers served in the AIF and three were killed, all in 1917.

• Private Arnold Roy Bartram (60th Infantry Battalion)
• Sergeant Raymond Everard Bartram (46th Infantry Battalion)
• Lance Corporal Reginald Percy Bartram (37th Infantry Battlion)

The sons of George and Isabella Bartram, Arnold was just 22 when he died of wounds at Second Bullecourt on 13 May 1917.  Raymond was 23 when he was killed in action at Messines Ridge on 7 June 1917.  Reginald, by far the eldest was almost 37 years old when he was killed on the Broodseinde Ridge between Ypres and Passchendaele on 4 October 1917.

There was however a fourth brother, Cyril the second eldest, who served with 58th Battalion.  Due to chronic illness including influenza, Cyril was sent home in mid 1917 as medically unfit.

Today I was informed of another related blog, being maintained by an archaeology project team in Jordan: The Great Arab Revolt Project. I’ve also provided a link to the project’s home page on our links page. The blog contains some great images of the areas covered by the Arab Revolt in Jordan and also some interesting insights that the team has gained from their digs such as this one from a post on 6 November:

. . . Ottoman defensive tactics during the First World War were sophisticated and likely to have been effective. The stereotype of a corrupt and incompetent army seems increasingly less likely on the evidence of modern conflict archaeology.

The Battle of Polygon Wood was one of the most successful engagements Australian troops participated in during the Passchendaele campaign. On 26 September 1917, the 5th Australian Division successfully captured the German-held positions surrounding the Butte de Polygone, an earth mound that before the war had been the butt-stop of a rifle range.  By 1917 with the Germans on the defensive in the Ypres Salient, the Butte was a strategically important position dominating the immediate area, and blocking any further advance towards the Passchendaele ridge. It was the 5th Division’s first major engagement since the costly assault at Fromelles in July 1916.  The successful taking of Polygon Wood and the Butte was a proud moment in the division’s history. Success, however, came at a price.  Overall the the Australians suffered 5478 casualties in the battle, the majority being in the 5th Division (3723) and the 4th Division (1729) which was attacking immediately alongside the 5th, just north of Polygon Wood. 

One soldier in the 5th Division was Private Albert George Pegram (No. 3204) of 55th Battalion.  Polygon Wood was to be his first and only battle. A laborer from Bredbo in New South Wales, he pressured his father to sign his enlistment papers as soon as he turned 18, and joined the AIF on the 21 August 1916. Most of Albert’s cousins and friends had enlisted during the Men from Snowy River recruitment march as it passed through the Monaro region on the way to the training camp at Goulburn just months before. After training at Goulburn, Albert left Sydney on the 11 November 1916 as part of the 8th Reinforcements for the 55th Battalion.

He joined the battalion just in time for the Polygon Wood operation. The 55th Battalion was allocated the task of clearing the German pillboxes on the left flank of the wood whilst the 56th Battalion concentrated its efforts in taking the Butte. Under a barrage which raged in front of the infantry ‘like a Gippsland bushfire’, the infantry advanced and secured the wood within a matter of hours.

The 55th was frantically digging new positions in preparation for a German counter-attack when Albert was seriously wounded. A cousin was with him at the time, and wrote to the Pegram family to tell them that he had been shot in the stomach by a sniper whilst jumping across an exposed trench with the rest of his section. He was evacuated to the 17th Casualty Clearance Station near Poperinge, and succumbed to his wounds two days later.

Albert’s loss was painful for the Pegram family, who never had the means to visit his grave at Lijssenthoeck Military Cemetery, just west of Ypres. His nephew was born the day he died, and was consequently named after him.  Albert’s father would never forgive himself for signing his son’s enlistment papers, and his mother would take to her grave his war medals and his memorial plaque. Perhaps the most poignant is a small inscription dedicated to Albert in a Pegram family bible which reads:

‘In his lonely grave he lyes far from all he loved so dear’.

by Aaron Pegram

See also Albert Pegram’s personal service dossier online via the National Archives of Australia.

We are just now finalising the exhibition catalogue for printing and I have some time to do more posts about the exhibition. So, here is a brief post to let you know a little more about some of the items we are bring out from the collection of the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College in Oxford.

T.E. Lawrence was a Research Fellow of the College from 1919 to 1926. He tried living there during 1919 and 1920, but had also spent time writing in London. He gave up his rooms at Oxford in 1922.

The people at All Souls have been very helpful and generous. I met with the Bursar, Thomas Seaman in the middle of 2006 and he was very understanding as I arrived at Oxford very late in the day after catching the wrong train back to central London from The National Archives in Kew. We didn’t have much time to chat, but he was really helpful and agreed to facilitate our request for these loans: read on