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ANZAC voices : The Pflaum brothers

Dianne Rutherford

21 November 2014
ANZAC voices : The Pozieres and Fromelles display case, featuring the Pflaum story

The temporary exhibition, ANZAC voices is only open for one more week. It contains a number of interesting stories, including that of Ray and Theo Pflaum who served on the Western Front.

 

Collection Item C1263177

Accession Number: P09521.001

Theo Pflaum

Collection Item C1257180

Accession Number: P09291.453

Ray Pflaum

One of the reasons we featured the Pflaum brothers was because Ray Pflaum, was one of the bodies identified in the Pheasant Wood mass grave. With his remains was a deteriorated piece of a gas goggle. This is displayed, along with some other items from Pheasant Wood.

 

REL44989 Remains of Ray Pflaum's gas goggle
Collection Item C382497

Accession Number: REL27561

Example of the type of gas goggle found with Ray Pflaum's remains.

We were fortunate that we also held a number of items associated with Ray and Theo, including Theo's diaries, which recorded, among other things, the day he and Ray met for the last time in a trench during the Battle of Fromelles. In his diary for 19 July, he wrote:

“While the men were getting their wind my attention was drawn to a wounded man along side of me just along a dug out. It was Ray – I ran down to him and was told he had got a piece of shrapnel in the stomach just as he was about to get into their trench. He was quite conscious & by his appearance didn’t seem to be hit too badly. One of the 32nd [Battalion] fellows helped me to put him in the dugout. I spoke to him & told him that our fellows had taken their 3rd line so that it was certain we would be able to hold the first. I managed to get him a flask of whisky – (that [illegible] had) & a mouthful of that seemed to make his spirits go up. He was not in a great deal of pain whilst lying still but could not bare [sic] to be moved. Although this takes room to write it was all done in a minute or so. There were dozens of wounded about but I asked a 32nd fellow (slightly wounded in the foot) to do his best for Ray while he could. I then made my way down to find a position for my gun… “.

PR00503 - extract from Theo Pflaum's diary 19 July 1916

Theo had no further contact with Ray, and later had to withdraw from his position. The family struggled to find out what happened to Ray. It was hoped he was a prisoner of war and still alive but information was hard to come by. Eventually he was recorded as having died while a prisoner of war in Germany in November 1916, but in fact he had died soon after being taken prisoner in July and was buried in the mass grave at Pheasant Wood in France. His parents and siblings never learned what had happened to his body. Decades later, after his remains were found and identified through DNA he was reburied in the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) cemetery in Plot 1, Row B, grave 11.

REL22642.001 - .003 Ray Pflaum's medals
Collection Item C280262

Accession Number: REL22642.004

Ray Pflaum's Next of Kin plaque

Theo was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in February 1917 and died of wounds on 24 September 1917 aged 22, due to a compound fracture to his thigh. Theo was buried in the Lijenthoek Military Cemetery in Belgium. His diaries, including the one used in ANZAC voices, have been digitised as part of the Memorial's Anzac Connections digitisation project and are available online.

 

REL22639 Mothers and widow's badge issued to Ray and Theo's mother

ANZAC voices closes on Sunday 30 November 2014.

Author

Dianne Rutherford

Last updated: 30 March 2021

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