The letters of Captain Walter Gamble
“I was never made for a parade ground soldier but when there is something doing, I never grow weary.”
A keen sportsman, Walter Gamble rowed in the winning Wesley College team in the Head of the River on the Yarra in 1915. That year he enlisted and found his future career on the battlefields of the First World War.
Walter’s letters to his mother, father, younger brothers and sister are light-hearted and full of anecdotes and enthusiasm about his new experiences.
“They say we make a great sacrifice, well, I don’t see it, it is a great life, with a glorious end. I feel just as if I were about to row in the Head of the River Races, but here, there is more to fight for, there we battled for our schools, here we fight for our homes, and all we left behind and so we have a grand feeling of protection, while you ought to have a far deeper and grander feeling of sacrifice.”
Walter was one of the last 60 diehards to withdraw from Anzac Cove in December 1915. He thought highly of the honour of the Turks and the quality of the Australian soldiers.
On the Somme with the 15 Australian Light Trench Mortar Battery he “cannot describe the wonders of modern warfare consentrated [sic] at one spot”, describing how this “ten days real war” is “the most wonderful and most terrible spectical [sic] I have even seen”.
Walter was awarded the Military Cross in September 1917 for showing coolness and initiative in leading a platoon when its ammunition was exhausted at Polygon Wood. He tells his family that he shook hands with the King and spent three hours admiring the palace, but “the Military Cross pleasing the family is its real value”. He was sometimes more sombre in writing to his father, telling him that their “boon companions” were gone, with himself and a friend the only two still standing of the schoolboy soldiers who left in 1915.
While encouraging his younger brothers in their sports, studies and music, he tells them they have probably missed the chance to find their career as a professional solder. However, he is keen for promotion and thinks a little spell in hospital for mumps was a bit of unforeseen good luck as he was allowed to re-sit an exam, increasing his percentage by eight points: “the first time I sat … only scraped 90%”. In an examination of 200 officers from England, Canada and Australia, he headed the list.
“I started my career in this Battery as a corporal. I am now third from the top and have my heart and soul in its well fare … At present they are all in their bunks, singing like so many school boys. It’s grand to hear them, even when they are in the line going like blazes, they keep up their boisterous spirits. A Padre once remarked to us ‘everyone is down in the mouth, except your boys.’ It was some compliment I can tell you, for the smiling face is our aim.”
In his efforts to keep up their spirits, Walter asked his mother to arrange delivery of a parcel to each of the 50 men in the battery.
He describes his travels through Egypt, Lemnos, Gallipoli, France, England and Scotland, India and Burma, saying that he loved the vastness and loneliness of the Egyptian desert, and noting that it was “a blessing to leave the hell of plodding in full marching order across the burning sands”:
“But when I recall the great times Ivor and I have had in Cairo, with its beautiful cafes, and wonderful Tropical Gardens - just imagine us, sitting in Groppi’s in the cold shade of a towering palm, before us dainty cakes, delicious ices, and a glass of iced coffee are set, and talking through the smoke haze of two … cigarettes – I find myself doubting whether France could fill me with wonder, and pleasure as Egypt did, for although I have had some pretty hard times on the desert, when I put them in the scale with the pleasure I have had, they fade into nothingness and so, I leave Egypt with a feeling akin to regret.”
However, a “glorious voyage” to France showed him that “the people are a wonderful race, very hospitable, and jovial, in spite of all their sufferings”. He described himself as “in love with Paris”, where he and a friend spent four days sight-seeing, dining, visiting the theatre and Versailles, and racing in a chauffeured touring car. He tells his mother he is home every night in his dreams. “I have seen some weird and wonderful countries in my time mum, but they are not one patch even on Collingwood or Richmond, let alone Kew”.
He is enthusiastic about young women, too. Travelling by train through “beautiful France”, after a brief stop at a station, he is corresponding with “three pretty little French girls”.
“I had my photo taken while I was in London and sent one to every girl I could think of. One turned me down, so I decided to try the lot, including the one who turned me down. It’s the best way when a chap’s on this caper, what?”
In early 1918 Walter took up a commission in the Indian Army. Apart from soldiering, the attractions included “games, sport, and social pleasures, which cannot be beaten anywhere”, game shooting and polo, fishing, gymkhanas, hockey, football. He served with the 1/91st Punjabis and by late 1918 was excelling in Hindustani, lecturing on Indian Military Law and had been made “a bit of a Captain”. He left in 1934 as a lieutenant colonel. Recalled to serve in the Second World War, he was awarded an OBE in 1943 for his services in Burma and the Eastern Front of India.
The letters of Captain Walter Gamble are available on the Memorial’s website through recent funding provided by the Commonwealth Government