Stanley Roland Mills as a lance corporal sapper 1st Division Signal Company AIF, Gallipoli 1915 and France 1916-1918, interviewed by Ross McMullan

Pre-war employment as an invoice clerk with a wholesale grocery company; reaction to outbreak of war; expectation of what war would mean to Australians; reason for enlistment; training in Cairo and seeing troops depart for Gallipoli; self-inflicted wounds; venereal disease; sent as reinforcement to Gallipoli; duties as a telephone linesman; reading newspaper reports and the inaccuracies of these; censorship of letters home; evacuation from Gallipoli; drip-rifles; Pozieres; death of good friend at Hindenburg line; advising his brothers not to enlist; reactions to Armistice; relations between English and Australian soldiers; voting against conscription; Prime Minister Billy Hughes; Ypres; Polygon Wood; Broodseinde Ridge; Passchendaele; gassed at Passchendaele; hospital in England; blisters on legs caused by gas seeping through putties; how the war affected him; attitude of English women to Australian soldiers; "blighties" wounds bad enough to get to evacuated to an English hospital; Australia after the war; soldier settlement schemes; the Depression; arriving at Gallipoli; comparing Gallipoli to the Western Front; German planes bombing the front; General Forsyth; Western Front.

Places mentioned include: Surrey Hills, West Preston, Gallipoli, Cairo, Egypt, France, Fromelles, Pozieres, Hindenburg Line, Broodseinde Ridge, Ypres, Polygon Wood, Passchendaele, Bullecourt, Cambai, Villers Bretonneux, Dardenelles.
People mentioned include: Billy Hughes , Archbishop Mannix, Adolf Hitler, General Forsyth, General Bennett, Winston Churchill

Stanley Mills describes his pre-1914 life as an unmarried invoice clerk with a wholesale grocery company and his being an inactive Church of England member. He was shocked when war was declared in August 1914 but did not expect it to last long because the British Empire seemed so powerful. He had no preconceptions about the nature of the war other than it was unlikely to last long. He enlisted partly out of a sense of duty; partly because of the uncertainty of his current job and also because several of his colleagues had done so. He was training in Cairo when the Gallipoli landings were made. Self-inflicted wounds and widespread venereal disease are discussed as are wounded soldiers being returned from the front to Cairo. Heavy censorship ensured that details of the true state of affairs in Gallipoli did not reach home. He was glad to have been evacuated away from the terrible conditions of lice infestation etc. but his own feeling was that the Turks would have known what was going on because of the presence of the Royal Navy ships but chose not to move in. His view is that the Gallipoli campaign was a terrible mistake.
He was involved as a telephone linesman in trying to restore communications at Pozieres but the task was impossible because the German barrage was so heavy that lines were being constantly cut. The horror of the conditions under which Australian troops were suffering ¬ lice, gas attacks, fierce barrages, mud, poor food etc. would not have been known back home because of the heavy censorship of the press and of mail.
The death of a friend and colleague in 1917 on the Hindenburg Line whilst they were seeking a break in a telephone line.
Ill-relations between British and Australian soldiers caused by big difference in pay (a British private one shilling a day and an Australian private six shillings a day, where four British shillings equalled five Australian shillings). Mills voted against conscription in both referenda held in October 1916 and December 1917, partly because of the appalling conditions under which the Australians were serving and also because he considered that a voluntary soldier was more valuable than a conscript.
He thought that Billy Hughes was a good war leader but turned against him after the war. He had not thought much about Archbishop Mannix.
Just post-war he considered that The Industrial Workers of the World were a bunch of ratbags bit the depression and four years on unemployment when he thought that jobs should be available to those who wanted work changed his mind.

In 1918 he served at Broodseinde Ridge and Passchendaele and was gassed at Passchendaele with mustard gas, which he describes.
He confirms that the conditions under which Australian troops were serving in 1918 were as bad as ever, although a modicum of mobility ¬¬ tanks and aircraft had entered the scene. He talks about the effects that the war had on him generally, particularly in regard to the class of people that he respected. Australian soldiers were popular with English girls – the pay difference may be one reason.
Blighty wounds –bad enough to have a soldier repatriated but not serious enough to have permanent effects – are discussed. Serving in the war changed Mill’s political allegiance from radical right wing to Labor. Polygon Woods where his companion was hit by a machine-gun bullet and Bullecourt where his sergeant was killed were two of Mills’ most vivid memories of the war. A third incident when an officer who refused Mills permission to help a badly wounded German was killed two days later left another clear memory. There is a general discussion of Australia in the 1920s which includes returned soldiers and post-war Germany. Whether Australians thought that the war had been worth it. The stupidity of having an armistice that led to World War Two. Minor tension between men who went to war and those who did not. Spending of gratuities and deferred pay. The Returned Services League. The depression and its effect on returned soldiers. The Police strike of 1923. His landing at Gallipoli. Gallipoli compared with the Western Front. General discussion of Mills’ campaign experience.