The Other Side of the Trench. G. S. Willmott
Published in Australia by Garry Willmott
First published in Australia 2012
Copyright © Garry Willmott 2012
The right of Garry Willmott to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the photos used in this book are within the public domain The soldier’s photos are all unknown apart from Harry Daniel Junior
Willmott, Garry
The Other Side of the Trench
ISBN: 9781742982311 (ePub)
Digital distribution: Ebook Alchemy
Conversion by Winking Billy
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1– WAR
Chapter 2 – You Never Know Who You May Meet
Chapter 3 – Victoria Dock to Princess Park
Chapter 4 – Love and War
Chapter 5 – Family Reunion
Chapter 6 – Gallipoli
Chapter 7 – From Desert to the Green Hills of France
Chapter 8 – Ancestory.com
Chapter 9 – Not So Gay Paris – 1915
Chapter 10 – Gay Paris – 2012
Chapter11 – Tour de France
Chapter 12 – From Here to Eternity
Chapter 13 – Attack or Not to Attack
Chapter 14 – We Will Fight Them in the Trenches
Chapter 15 – The Aftermath
Chapter 16 – A Farmer’s Dilemma
Chapter 17– Ours is not to Question Why
Chapter 18 – The Agony and the Passion
Chapter 19 – Ghosts
Chapter 20 – They Could Hear the Blasts in London
Chapter 21 – United We Stand United We Fall
Chapter 22 – Passchendaele
Chapter 23 – Innocence of War
Chapter 24 – The Dogs of War
Chapter 25 – War Horse
Chapter 26 – Blood Sweat and Tears
Chapter 27 – French Blood Flowed Like a River
Chapter 28 – School Days
Chapter 29 – Snakes and Ladders
Chapter 30 – Monash’s Blitzing
Chapter 31 – Letters From the Front
Chapter 32 – How are You Going to Keep Them Down on the Farm
Chapter 33 – Uncle Sam Joins the Fray
Chapter 34 – Retreat! We Just Got Here
Chapter 35 – ANZAC Day 2012
Chapter 36 – Bring in the Storm Troopers
Chapter 37 – The Beginning of the End
Chapter 38 – Spanish Flu
Chapter 39 – Spirit of War
Epilogue
Introduction
When I was a young boy living in Melbourne, Victoria, my first introduction to the Great War was when my father, Sam, showed me the spurs and leather leggings that my Grand father wore as part of his uniform when he was in the 4th Australian Light Horse. I used to try to wear them around the back yard pretending I was in the Light Horse myself - a very romantic notion. The fact that they kept falling off my skinny little eight-year-old legs was irrelevant.
My next experience with the Great War was when my mother, Vida told me about her brother Harry who died in the war four years before she was born. It was she who told me her mother’s hair turned white over night when she learnt of Harry’s death. My mother knew that Harry died in France but she was unaware exactly where. She was also aware the Harry had lied about his age and was only sixteen when he got shipped off to Gallipoli and then over to France to die at the Battle of Fromelles.
The term “Missing” is not a very confronting term; it can apply to your dog or cat to your favourite piece of jewellery or even when a footballer has a bad game he is mentioned as “Missing in Action”. In war terms missing means a soldier has been buried alive from a shell explosion or ripped in half by an enemy machine gun or bayoneted to death and left to die in the most slow and agonising way. All these soldiers have never been found their photos sit in an old frame on the mantle piece in a living room of a house far away from where he now lies.
These are the men and boys that we follow through this story. All had parents, some had sweethearts none had a future.
My Mother also told me that her uncle also called Harry Daniel, died in the war in 1918 and was a hero; he received the King George Military Medal for Bravery in the Field.
So my interest in the Great War stemmed from having my Grandfather and two uncles serve in the war.
Both Harry Daniels have no known grave.
My mother gave me a framed collection of World War One medals in 1980 along with my father’s World War Two medals and they have always taken a pride of place in the rogue’s gallery in our house since. Amongst those medals is Uncle Harry’s Military Medal for Bravery in the Field Also Young Harry’s Gallipoli Medal is a prized possession.
I have never served in the military; the closest I got was joining The Church of England Boys Society the CEBS whose uniform looked very similar to an air force uniform. I have always detested the fact that Governments can make the choice to send our young men and women to fight in wars that are usually fought for greed and gain. There are exceptions such as the Pacific War against the Japanese, where Australia was under real threat.
So why write a book about the First World War, my first and only