When Leonard Walter Jackson of Neutral Bay joined the AIF on the 6th of August 1915, he must have been one of the youngest Australians ever to enlist in our military services. Using the assumed name Richard Walter Mayhew, and claiming to be an 18 year old orphan, young Leonard, who was born on 27th August 1901, was actually 13 years 11 months and 10 days old on the day he “signed up”.

Len’s older brother, Harry Melville Jackson, had enlisted in the AIF in January 1915 and another brother, Dudley Jackson, also joined up in August 1915. When their father Joseph, a veteran of the Sudan campaign of 1885, realised what his 13 year old son had done, he took the unusual step of enlisting himself, to follow his young tear-away to Egypt and keep a watchful eye on him. Joseph, not surprisingly, also had to lie about his age – he claimed to be 44 years and 11 months old, when he was actually 52!

When the eldest of the Jackson boys, Harry, died whilst a prisoner of the Germans in August 1916, from wounds received at Pozieres, Joseph admitted to the military authorities that he was overage for active service, and that his son Leonard was serving without his parents’ permission and was underage. (By this time, father and son had been serving side by side in the 55th Infantry Battalion since early 1916). To quote a letter written by Dudley Jackson MM in 1964, “[When my father] heard of my elder brother’s death…he decided in fairness to my mother to go back to Australia.” Both Joseph and Leonard were discharged, and returned to Australia aboard HMAT Ulysses in March 1917.

On 4th March 1918, ‘Richard Walter Mayhew’ again enlisted in the AIF, this time claiming his age was 21 years 3 months. A photograph of ‘Richard’ is held by the State Library of NSW.
Private records held in the Australian War Memorial’s collection which were used to uncover the story of Leonard Walter Jackson, include 1DRL/0379 and 3DRL/3846. Relevant service records can be found online through the National Archives of Australia.

In the last few days has come news of an important discovery for First World War historians (especially family historians), in the archives of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland.  British historian Peter Barton, commissioned by the Australian government to conduct further research into a mass grave at Fromelles in France, made the find.  The records consist of ‘card indexes and registers compiled between 1914 and 1918; during that period the Red Cross had acted as a go-between, logging, and passing on information to 30 countries drawn into the conflict.’

Details include the whereabouts and condition of men taken prisoner by the Germans and the location of field burials. Astonishingly it seems no one has ever conducted research into, or used these records until now.

Barton stated, “To a military historian, this was like finding Tutankhamen’s tomb and the terracotta warriors on the same day…”

Read the full article online (includes 3:27 min. video).

The Australian War Memorial has been assisting the Australian government with research into the Fromelles mass grave case since 2005, including more recently with Mr Barton’s research into the Red Cross records in Geneva.

While Red Cross records have not survived in some countries (such as the UK), those of the Australian Red Cross did, and are held here at the Australian War Memorial.  The unearthing of the corresponding records at this central archive in Geneva may prove a useful source for cross-checking the Australian records, or for conducting further research.

Australian Red Cross records held by the Memorial total 105 shelf metres, and are comprised of two main components:

• Records of the Australian Red Cross Prisoner of War Department.
• Records of the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau.

The Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files have been digitised and are available to view online.  read on

 

 

After the death of King George VI in February 1952, planning for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth began. Tradition demanded a procession of all the Queen’s troops be present and so plans were put in place to form an Australian contingent. There were 250 official representatives from the armed forces sent to the festivities. These official delegates, along with their New Zealand counterparts formed the Coronation Contingent.

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Florence MacDowell was born in the mid 1870s, the daughter of Swanston Hay MacDowell and Kathleen Champ. She trained as a nurse at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria and the Queens Hospital in Adelaide, South Australia. She opened her own hospital called ‘Windarra’ at Toorak in Victoria, but later moved abroad, living mostly in Italy. She was staying on the Island of Elba in Tuscany when war broke out in 1914.

She made her way to England where she joined the British Red Cross. She worked as a Sister in their hospital at Vranatzka Banya in Serbia. In late 1915 and early 1916 the Serbian forces were overrun and retreated to Albania and Montenegro. Sister MacDowell evacuated from Serbia and eventually made her way back to England.

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Although outside main combat areas during the Second World War, India became an important region for the RAAF, and for many RAAF personnel attached to RAF units. In some RAF squadrons, ten percent of the crews were Australians, many of them transferred from training or bomber units based in England.

Most RAAF and RAF activity happened in the northern half of India. The Eastern division of Bomber Command used various bases in Bengal (now Bangladesh) for raids against Japanese forces in Burma and Thailand. RAF Ferry Command units kept busy delivering new planes. For troops and supplies, Bombay was a major port between Australia, the Middle East and Europe. Intelligence work, general administration and advanced hospital facilities were centred in New Delhi. At the end of the war, Bhopal in central India became the base area for a huge transit/demobilisation camp.

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The Memorial recently acquired a mysterious letter. It is beautifully written and decorated, but we don’t know much about it. It seems it was written by a French woman to her sweetheart, and we assume he was Australian, as the letter ended up in Australia. We do not know who they were, but we do know that the letter was written on 25 August 1918 and was sent from Saint-Sulpice-les-Feuilles in France. The writer, Martha (or perhaps Marthe) Gylbert, obviously missed her soldier, and went to a great deal of trouble to decorate the letter. It seems that the two were engaged to be married, as the letter ends with the words (almost obscured with kisses) “wife to be very soon”.

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As with other special occasions such as Christmas and birthdays, having to spend Valentine’s Day apart from loved ones would have been sad and distressing for many serving men and women, and for those at home eagerly awaiting the safe return of their sweethearts and friends.

Fortunately, there is little that can stand in the way of love and many people overcame distance and time to send messages of love and admiration, not only for Valentine’s Day, but throughout the course of wartime.

Postcards were an easy method of expressing such thoughts and feelings. Popular at any time, a variety of designs have been created since their invention in order to send that special message to that special someone.

Many Australian servicemen and women were able to take advantage of this market, particularly during the First World War, and some very interesting examples are held in the Australian War Memorial’s collection.

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In a ceremony this morning, Trooper Mark Donaldson VC loaned his newly awarded medal to the Australian War Memorial for public display.  Trooper Donaldson, who on Friday became the first Australian serviceman in almost 40 years to be awarded the famous medal, is also the first to receive it under the title of ‘The Victoria Cross for Australia’, as part of the Australian system of honours and awards.   His is the first VC ever awarded to a member of the Australian Army’s elite Special Air Service Regiment.  Memorial Director Steve Gower said at the presentation that “loaning his Victoria Cross to the Australian War Memorial so soon after its presentation is an incredibly generous offer and we are delighted to place it on public exhibition.”

The award of the Victoria Cross was made following Trooper Donaldson’s heroic actions when his patrol was ambushed in Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan, on 2 September last year.  The citation for the medal reads, in part: “In the early stages of the ambush, Trooper Donaldson reacted spontaneously to regain the initiative.  He moved rapidly between alternate positions of cover engaging the enemy with 66mm and 84mm anti-armour weapons as well as his M4 rifle.  During an early stage of the enemy ambush, he deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire in order to draw attention to himself and thus away from wounded soldiers.  This selfless act alone bought enough time for those wounded to be moved to relative safety.”  As the ambushed vehicles manoeuvred to withdraw, with the unwounded members of the patrol running alongside, a severely wounded Afghani interpreter was accidentally left behind.  The citation continues: “Of his own volition and displaying complete disregard for his own safety, Trooper Donaldson moved alone, on foot, across approximately 80 metres of exposed ground to recover the wounded interpreter.  His movement, once identified by the enemy, drew intense and accurate machine gun fire from entrenched positions.  Upon reaching the wounded coalition force interpreter, Trooper Donaldson picked him up and carried him back to the relative safety of the vehicles then provided immediate first aid before returning to the fight.”  The patrol was ultimately able to disengage from the action and withdraw with its wounded, all of whom survived.  As the citiation concludes: “Trooper Donaldson’s actions on this day displayed exceptional courage in circumstances of great peril.  His actions are of the highest accord and are in keeping with the finest traditions of the Special Operations Command, the Australian Army and the Australian Defence Force.”

It is anticipated that Trooper Donaldson’s medals will be placed on public display in the Australian War Memorial’s Conflicts 1945 to today galleries by the end of February.

• Read more about the Victoria Cross
• Hall of Valour
• Victoria Crosses at the Australian War Memorial
• Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s remarks at the presentation of
  the Victoria Cross for Australia to Trooper Mark Donaldson

The Victoria Cross was instituted by Queen Victoria’s Royal warrant in 1856, and the first examples were presented by her in June 1857.  These first 62 awards were retrospective, for gallant actions by sailors and soldiers during the Crimean War of 1854-56.  Throughout its life, the Cross has been manufactured by Hancocks and Co, Jewellers of London.  Famously, they are made using bronze taken from guns captured from the Russians in the Crimea.  These guns appear to originally be of Chinese origin, and had previously been captured by Russian forces.  To date, 1,357 Victoria Crosses have been awarded, the most recent being to Private Johnson Beharry, of the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (2005).

The Victoria Cross for Australia replaces the Victoria Cross in the Australian Honours and Awards system.  It was instituted in 1991, and the first award was made on 16 February 2009, to Trooper Mark Donaldson, Special Air Service Regiment, for gallantry in Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan, on 2 September 2008.  The reason for the change to the historic medal was to allow Australians to remain eligible for what is widely considered to be the world’s most prestigious gallantry award.  Since the VC, a British imperial medal, was not compatible with the new Australian system of honours and awards, Queen Elizabeth II agreed to a new award; ‘The Victoria Cross for Australia’.  The medal itself is completely unchanged, and is in fact a Victoria Cross in everything but name.  It is still manufactured by Hancocks, and each award is individually approved by Her Majesty the Queen. Under a similar system, the Victoria Cross of Canada was created in 1993 and the Victoria Cross for New Zealand in 1999.  The only other example of these Commonwealth awards so far was made to Corporal Willie Apiata, of the New Zealand SAS, in July 2007.  This award was also for gallantry in Afghanistan, in 2004.

It should be noted that the recent awards of the Victoria Cross to Australia and the Victoria Cross to New Zealand are NOT considered by the British Government to be awards of the Victoria Cross.  They are awards unique to the countries concerned. Australians, however, will consider Trooper Donaldson’s award to be the latest in a long line which stretches back to Captain (later Sir) Neville Howse in South Africa in 1900. This means that 97 Australians have now been awarded the Victoria Cross.

The First World War unit war diaries (AWM4) of the Australian Engineers have been digitised and are now available on the Australian War Memorial’s website. The diaries provide a wonderful testimony to the ingenuity and initiative of Australian engineers during the War, and the daily difficulty of building and maintaining structures and machines to ensure the success of the war effort.

Engineers, also known as sappers, were essential to the running of the war. Without them, other branches of the Allied Forces would have found it difficult to cross the muddy and shell-ravaged ground of the Western Front. Their responsibilities included constructing the lines of defence, temporary bridges, tunnels and trenches, observation posts, roads, railways, communication lines, buildings of all kinds, showers and bathing facilities, and other material and mechanical solutions to the problems associated with fighting in all theatres.

The ‘Johnston’ Shower is one example of ingenuity and initiative that can be found in the engineers’ war diaries. The shower was constructed in the field by the 1st Field Company of Engineers, in July 1918, around Strazeele near Hazebrouck. Company Sergeant Major James Johnston had the idea to create the shower using materials salvaged from retreating German forces.  He designed a shower that weighed only 40 pounds (around 18 kilograms), and could provide hot and cold water using ‘a minimum amount of fuel and water’.  A technical drawing of this shower is shown above.

Below are other notable documents from the diaries: read on