The revelations of family history research

Do you have a family anecdote about something that happened to a relative or ancestor during the First or Second World War?

It might be possible to find more about your relative’s service. Using information from service records in conjunction with Australian Army unit and commanders’ war diaries, Navy Reports of Proceedings or RAAF formation and unit records, it is often possible to piece together an individual’s service story. Written records can provide information that can surprise, sadden or intrigue. Sometimes the stories told by families are accurate, sometimes there are omissions, and some stories have evolved over time.

First World War service records are available to view online via the National Archives of Australia (www.naa.gov.au). I used their collection search function, RecordSearch, to find my great-grandfather’s service record. Using this and other documents available online, I pieced together the story of his service.

I grew up hearing my grandmother talk about the time her father (my great-grandfather) was fighting in the First World War and went missing in action. With six girls to look after, including a baby, she remembered how tough it was when her father’s service pay allotment stopped.

My great-grandfather, Alex Chapman, was born in Axminster, England, on 8 December 1864 and emigrated to Australia with his parents when he was two years old. Fifty years later, he was living in Wagga Wagga, NSW, with his wife, Edith, and five daughters when he enlisted to serve in the First World War in June 1915. His service records reveal that he reduced his age from 52 to 41 years in order to enlist. Searching the Memorial’s website for enlistment standards, I discovered that the age range for recruits was extended from 20-40 years to 18–45 years in June 1915.

Once accepted into the Australian Imperial Force Alex, now Private Alexander Emanuel Chapman, embarked on HMAT Runic on 9 August 1915 as a reinforcements for the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion. He joined his battalion at Gallipoli on 4 November 1915 before withdrawing at the end of December as the campaign was abandoned. The unit war diary records the arrival of the reinforcements, enemy shelling, and the patrols undertaken by the men of the battalion.

After the evacuation of Gallipoli, Alex suffered through bouts of illnesses before heading to France and the Western Front.

Checking the dates of active service in his service record with the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion page on the Memorial’s website, I was shocked and saddened to discover he had taken part in the Battle of Flers on 5 November 1916. This battle was “fought in atrocious conditions. The attacking waves of troops were sucked down by the cloying mud and thus, unable to keep up with their creeping artillery barrage, became easy targets for German machine-gunners and riflemen.”

Alexander’s service record revealed that shortly after the battle, on 21 November 1916, he faced a Field General Court Martial (FGCM) for being drunk while on active service.

He was found guilty, with the sentence reading “To suffer F P. No 2 for a period of 3 months”: three months of Field Punishment No 2, which means he would have been restrained in handcuffs or fetters but not attached to a fixed object.

His casualty form included the notation “Total forfeiture – 101 days”, indicating that his pay was stopped for 101 days. So, this was the reason Edith stopped receiving money at the time: the three-fifths of Alex’s pay that he had allotted to her.

It must have been tough for Edith. Her father came to stay to help out for a while. But if she knew that some of her financial difficulties stemmed from misdemeanour rather than enemy action, she didn’t tell her children. I’ll never know if “missing in action” was a euphemism used by family members to disguise the reason that financial support stopped, or if this was something Edith genuinely believed to be true at the time.  

Suffering from trench foot and “debility”, Alex returned to Australia in September 1917 and discharged on 25 November 1917, weeks before his 53rd birthday.

Thanks to the wealth of documents that have been digitised and made available online, I have been able to learn what really happened, better understand why, and have a deeper appreciation of the First World War experience of my ancestors.

If you have a family war story you wish to investigate, the Research Centre at the Australian War Memorial is a good place to start.