Western Front (part 4)

Our last visit to the Western Front was to Bellenglise. The nearby towns of St Quention and Bullecourt are well-known but the 4th Australian Division memorial is at Bellenglise because that was the point reached by the division before it withdrew for rest just before peace was declared.

We couldn't find the memorial and finally asked a local who hopped into his little van and led us down a rough track to the site. We would never have driven down the track! And there was only one small sign tucked away on a side street. It's not even marked on Google maps.

4th Australian Division memorial, Bellenglise 

4th Australian Division memorial, Bellenglise 

4th Australian Division memorial, Bellenglise 

We were particularly interested in the Bellenglise battle site because Phil's grandfather, Roy Phelan, was badly injured there late in 1918 (he was hit on his head with shrapnel but recovered fully despite losing a large piece of his skull). I've read his unit's diary and as far as I can work out Roy was near the present village of Pontruet at the time.

Swede harvest in fields at Pontruet near Bellenglise. 

Sepia Saturday: Hotel holidays

Just before the second world war, in 1938, the Phelan family (grandparents Roy and Annie, and Roy's siblings Gib and Ina) went on holiday to the island state of Tasmania across Bass Strait from Victoria. This involved hauling their car on board a ship, a much more tricky process than the drive-on ferries today. But it must have been worth it because they then had a vehicle to drive around the state.

Loading the car on to the 'Taroona' at Beauty Point after the holiday.

Several of the photos taken on the holiday are of the hotels they stayed in.

The Rainbow Chalet is in a most beautiful part of Tasmania, high up on a plateau, right beside a very big lake called Great Lake. It is an area that wasn't settled by European farmers because of the harsh climate and inaccessibility but it's been a popular fishing spot, especially since trout were introduced to the lake. It is still a sparsely populated area but there are a few fishing shacks along the edge of the lake and tourists find their way there as well. I was there about ten years ago and remember it as being very beautiful and the plants were fascinating as well. Unfortunately the Rainbow Chalet, apart from a few outbuildings, no longer exists because it was destroyed by fire at some stage. The yellow star on the map below marks the position of the chalet at Breona.

Gib Phelan beside the car, Rainbow Chalet, Breona, Tasmania

Great Lake, Tasmania

Advertisement in Advocate (Burnie) 17 March 1934

Postcard exaggerating the appeal of the Rainbow Chalet.
Source: Tasmanian Philatelic Society forum.

Advertisement in The Mercury (Hobart) 15 Jan 1938.

Another hotel the family stayed in was at St Helens on the east coast of Tasmania. It was called the Bay View Hotel and, as the name suggests, is right beside the bay. The hotel was refurbished in about 1977 and renamed the Bayside Inn and it still exists.

Loading the car, Bay View Hotel, St Helens.

Advertisement in the Examiner (Launceston) 18 Oct 1938

Bayside Inn as it is today.
Source: booking.com

This post has been in response to the theme suggested by Sepia Saturday. It's of a small inn in Cornwall, England. I suggest you follow this link to see what others may blogging about in response.

Harold McGregor KIA

Grandfather Roy Phelan served with the AIF in France in WW1 and I've blogged about his military life several times. But this time I'm writing about a real photo postcard that he had in his album. It's a photo of another Australian soldier and on the reverse side are the words (in two different handwriting styles). I suspect that Roy's wife, Annie, wrote the second sentence:
Harold McGregor killed France 18 Sept 1918. Same day Roy was knocked.
There is also a note in the stamp square that says 'Give this one to Gib'. Gib was Roy's brother but may refer to a different Gib.

Harold McGregor killed France 18 Sept 1918
same day Roy was knocked.

I knew we didn't have a relative called Harold McGregor so I went searching to see what the connection was. It turns out that Harold, born in Gisborne, was from Mitiamo and Pine Grove in Victoria, the same area as Roy and his future wife Annie (Sims). And, also, Harold served in the same battalion as Roy. The reverse of the postcard gave me the date that Harold was killed in action and the fact that it was the same day that Roy was badly injured in battle ('knocked').

Harold McGregor, a farmer from Pine Grove, was 27 years old when he enlisted in the AIF. It was October 1917. Harold's father had died in 1912 and his mother, Margaret, also lived at Pine Grove. And Harold had some siblings, three brothers and two sisters, and his oldest brother had been killed in action at Gallipoli in 1915.

Death notice for William McGregor, Harold's oldest brother.
The Argus 3 Jul 1915

Harold enlisted and started his training at Broadmeadows near Melbourne in preparation for a transfer overseas. He embarked on the 'Nestor', the same ship as Roy, but I discovered in a newspaper item that he didn't get any home leave before he departed - he volunteered at short notice to board ship in place of a married man with children who hadn't had a chance to visit his family before embarkation. As the newspaper headline states it was a 'brave, soldierly act'.

Gisborne Gazette 22 Mar 1918

Roy Phelan wrote very regularly to his future wife, Annie Sims, and in his letter written from the pier in Melbourne he mentioned Harold McGregor.

On Pier

28/2/18

My Darling Annie,

We are getting a move on at last. We left Broady at 7 this morning and arrived here about 9. Now we are waiting to embark and expect to leave about 11. You love will be envying me the lovely trip that we are going to have. We don't know where we are off to but Annie dear you can guess as soon as we land you love will be one of the first to know of it. Altogether there are at least I500 of us and we had special trains. Very important aren't we….

We have drawn all our clothing and today finished up by getting water‑proof sheets. I am not sorry either for the more stuff we get the more we have to carry. Yesterday everybody had to put one bag out and it has been sent off already.

Harold Mc. was on one of the wagons so was speaking to him for a few minutes. He said he would be going very shortly now. If he does it will be very hard on his mother for she must be getting very frail now. This afternoon we were given leave from 2 o'clock and you should have seen the rush. Everything was overloaded and it was a wonder some reached their destination.  

And Harold is also mentioned in another letter written en route. The comment confirms the newspaper account of his hasty embarkation.

Nearly every day we have to get into life belts. Having to get into them makes one think that at some time or other we are going to get wet. I am not looking forward to it though. While promenading the deck the other night I ran into Harold McGregor. I did not know he was coming and don't think Harold did either. He has since told me he was only warned the night before.  He could have refused to come as they must give a man at least two clear days warning. All the Mitty boys are aboard. Lew, Eddie, Harold and myself. We generally manage to get together of a night for a yarn.  

Both Roy and Harold were in the Fourth Division of the AIF, in the 46th Battalion. After landing in England they were both sent to Codford to do more training but were living in different camps. They met up occasionally over the next month or so prior to being transferred to France, as Roy details in three more letters to Annie.

Codford

England

 9th June 18

My Darling Annie,

You can't guess who came into this camp Friday, Love. I was busy doing my best to darn a hole in my sock when in walked Harold McGregor. He had just come over from Park House camp. All the men in the A.S.C. who came over on the Nestor have been transferred into the infantry and what's more into the 46^th battalion.  Harold says he is going to get back into the A.S.C. He may but am afraid he will have a hard job unless the doctor says he is not fit for the infantry. It seems funny doesn’t it Dearest comparing Harold with me and then classing me as the fitter of the two.

Codford...

Today I went along and saw Harold and we had a long chat about good old Mitty, and then decided to go over and see Lew. We got there alright but found him away in the hospital with the measles and we could not get any word of him. I don't know how we have escaped as now there are only 30 of us out of isolation. Harold has been up before the doctor and has been classed fit so am afraid he will have a job to get out of the infantry. 

Codford

England

Sat 6‑7‑18

My Own Dearest Annie,

 At last the time for France is drawing near and Love I am looking forward to going. You may think it strange Darling for going to the front may seem terrible to you but it is really only another phase in a soldier’s life and to my way of thinking the quickest way to home again. The only thing I am sorry for is that Harold and Lew are not coming over with me and it will be just a chance if we meet again for some time…

Harold and l went over to see Lew tonight and then we all went down the village and had tea and a jolly good tea it was. It will be the last we will have together for some time and Darling the next time we do, I trust it will be at Mitiamo. We next went to the pictures, the first time I have been since we came here, and they were good. I now wish I had gone more often.  We went in to them a little after 7 and intended staying only an hour but it was 9 o'clock before we came out so we then had supper and got back home again. I have everything ready now Love although I am rather late so Sweetheart I am writing by candle light for I know you will not mind if I make a good many mistakes, blotches etc. Some of the boys are merry and are wandering about kicking up a row. One can hardly blame them though for perhaps it will be the last time we will meet under the same circumstances. Some are singing others dancing, and still others doing their best to wake all the sleepers up. It reminds me of the last night at Broadmeadows…

The next letter that mentions Harold was written from France so Roy was aware that it would be censored. Locations and strategic matters were not allowed to be mentioned but I know from other sources that the 46th Battalion was preparing to join with other Australian Battalions flanked by British and American forces in a battle now known at the Hindenberg Line. The men in the 46th did most of their fighting near a village called Bellenglise.

France

30/8/18

My Dearest Annie,

…

I only had a little over the week at the con camp and then went back to the base. The morning after reaching it one of the first ones I saw was Harold, he had landed in with a number of others sometime during the night.On the Sunday they put a number of us through gas again. I think they must like seeing us with our masks on for lately we have been going through it every few weeks. We left the base Monday after‑noon and after a days train riding and a few miles marching we got back to the battalion again. I came back to my platoon while Harold although in a different platoon he is in my company so we will always be fairly close to each other.This time we are billetted in a village and I am on the top floor of a three storey house.

On the first day of the allied push, on the 18 September 1918,  Roy was badly injured by shrapnel near Bellenglise and ended up in hospital in England. He didn't know it at the time but his friend Harold was killed the same day by a machine gun. From hospital he mentioned that he hadn't heard from Harold.

1st London Gen. Hospital

Camberwell

London

My Darling Annie,

…

It is some time now since I have heard from Harold & Lew and I have been wondering how they are getting on…. 

It was not until December that Roy heard, via Australia, that Harold had been killed.

Brondesby Park

Kilburn

London

15/12/18

My Dearest Annie,

…

Poor old Harold. Your letter Love was the first word I had of his being killed. No wonder I had never had any answers to my letters. It was only a couple of days before that we had been laughing and joking together. He was a good lad, one of the best. I never saw him that day Annie for he was in another platoon which was on our right and I suppose Harold would get a good way further on than I did. It would be a great blow to his Mother…

The Argus, 24 Oct 1918

The Argus 25 Oct 1918

Gisborne Gazette 25 Oct 1918

One of the newspaper notices mentions that Harold's brother, Gilbert, was also an enlisted soldier but I haven't found proof of that.

Several of Harold's soldier mates made statements to the Red Cross that they had seen him killed instantly by machine gun fire but several years after the war his mother was still writing to the army to see if they had any of his belongings because she hadn't received anything at all.

There is no headstone for Harold McGregor so it appears his body was never recovered. His name is on the wall of the memorial at Villers-Brettoneux, France. He and his brother are also mentioned on the war memorial at Mitiamo.

War memorial, Mitiamo, Victoria

Nearly 100 years later, in November 1914, the Gisborne Gazette published an article about the two McGregor brothers who had been killed in action and it mentions a drinking water fountain that was erected in Gisborne in 1935 by their brother John in their memory. The McGregor Memorial Fountain still exists.

Sepia Saturday: The Church Army, WW1

When my husband's grandfather, Roy Phelan, was an Aussie soldier on leave in London he purchased a handful of postcards depicting the Church Army Soldiers' Hostel and posted them home. They show various rooms within the building that were used by soldiers on leave or recuperating from illness - the dining room, the recreation room, the bedrooms - and must have been popular because there are numerous images of the same postcards on the web. Roy may have stayed there as he was a man of faith and was also injured in 1918.

The hostel was set up by the Church of England in the Buckingham Palace Hotel and run by the Church Army. The Army also set up refuge huts in France.

Postcard of the Church Army Soldier's Hostel, Buckingham Palace Hotel

Soldiers in the canteen, Church Army Soldier's Hostel

An Australian called Canon David Garland (who was the architect of Anzac Day) talked about the Church Army in a speech in Australia 1917. This is an extract from that speech:

Extract from a speech by Canon David Garland, the architect of ANZAC Day, November 1917.

And this article was published in a Queensland paper in 1917. I found several similar articles in other Australian and New Zealand papers.

Brisbane Courier, 22 May1917

Roy also sent this photo home. It shows food canteens being carried to through  the trenches to soldiers serving on the Front. The text has been hand written but there's nothing written on the back.

WW1 Postcard. Carrying food up the front line on the Western Front.

This blog has been written in response to the Sepia Saturday prompt that shows a Salvation Army magazine photo of a soldier eating. You may find some more soldiers marching on their stomachs over at Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday: Roy saw a ghost (on a postcard)

Roy Phelan was a country lad from Victoria, Australia so England (let alone the trenches of France) must have been a shock. He spent some time around Codford when he first arrived in Europe in 1918 and after the war he remained in England for about six months while he recuperated from a bad shrapnel injury. So he, like many other soldiers, was a tourist.

And, like many other soldiers, he bought postcards to send home or to keep as a record of his visit. For this post I've selected several of his postcards from a visit to Hampton Court Palace. None of these has been posted or written on the reverse. The Palace is outstanding even in the UK so I can only imagine how overwhelming it must have appeared to Roy.

Entrance to Vine and Gardener's Cottage, Hampton Court Palace. Postcard c1918.

South-East Front, Hampton Court Palace.
Is it possible that the lawn was dug up for vegetable gardens in WW!?

The third postcard is my selection for the Sepia Saturday theme of 'horror and Halloween'.

It is also Hampton Court Palace and shows the ghost of Jane Seymour. Apparently she was seen every night! I wonder if she still appears. Roy must have been intrigued because we don't have a lot of ghosts her in Australia and especially not in his home town of Mitiamo that was only about 40 years old at the time.

The Hampton Court Palace Ghost.
 Queen Jane Seymour's Ghost.
As seen nightly near the private stairway, leading to apartments formerly occupied by her.

******

Now, close your eyes if you are easily shocked. You've been warned.

This an old sepia photograph taken by a member of a photography club in Melbourne in the 1950s. It is one of a collection of photos donated to the Genealogical Society of Victoria.

Experimental photography and development techniques.

If you want to see more horrible photos sidle on over to the Sepia Saturday page.

Sepia Saturday: The best medicine

In September 1918 Roy Phelan was on the front line in France when he was badly injured, hit on the head by shrapnel. Somehow, in the middle of all the noise and mayhem, Roy was stretchered out and taken to a Field Hospital at Abbeville behind the lines, and then across the channel to England. He spent months in hospitals in England recuperating and was still very ill when he returned to Australia but recovered and lived a long and happy life.

His family back in Australia were informed that he was seriously ill and the first few letters they received from Roy after he was injured were written by a nurse. This one was written to Ann Sims who was later to become his wife.

29th Sept 18

Dear Miss Sims

3782 Pte R.J. Phelan, 46th Btn, asked me to write to you to let you know he was admitted to this Hospital, the Third Australian General, on the 18th inst.

He has a nasty wound in his head but has shown a slight improvement the last couple of days. He is quite cheerful again.

He asked me to explain to you that he will be unable to write to you for some little time yet.

He sends you his best love.

With best wishes

I remain

Yours faithfully

P. Murdock

(Aust. Red Cross)

Amazingly, I found a photo of Miss Murdock and the other nurses who served at the 3rd Australian Hospital on the Australian War Memorial's website.

Miss Murdock is second from the right in the back row.

Roy gradually recovered his health and his good humour and wrote home about some of the concert skits and social occasions he had been involved in and made light of his health problems. But some of his treatment must have been truly awful and he would have seen his fellow inmates going through some tough times as well. He sent home these two postcards. Maybe laughter is the best medicine.

Watching someone else being "done"!

Being "done" oneself!

This blog was in response to the Sepia Saturday theme image below, a cutout bookmark advertising medicine. I can't imagine what medicine Roy would have had to take but you can see what others have written on the same theme here.

Sepia Saturday: Diggers return on the Marathon

It's been a naval month with Australia celebrating the centenary of the Royal Australian Navy, so the Sepia Saturday theme this week is timely.

I've selected a couple of photos from the family's album to write about. In April 1919 Melbourne's Argus newspaper reported that a ship called Marathon had sailed from England with a large number of Australian soldiers on board. The war had been over for five months but there were a lot of diggers who still hadn't made it home, particularly those who were recovering from injuries received on the battlefields of France and Belgium. The newspaper report is quite detailed in that it lists the names of the injured soldiers, the nursing staff and some of the other passengers. The list includes my husband's grandfather, R J D (Roy) Phelan who was recovering from a bad shrapnel wound to his skull. There will be a sad story behind every single name on the 'injured' list.

The Argus, 29 April 1919. Accessed at Trove, NLA.

Roy Phelan, recuperating in England, 1919

It also includes the names of two other Australian soldiers whose photos are also in our family's album so they must have been friends of Roy.

Bill Bateman

Ted Taylor

I don't know who took these two photos because the public wasn't allowed onto the wharf as far as I know. Maybe it was Roy himself because there are several other photos in the album that he took on the voyage home. It's the Marathon tied up at Railway Pier, Port Melbourne. It must have been such an exciting time for the soldiers and their families.

Marathon, Port Melbourne, June 1919

AIF soldiers disembarking from the Marathon, Melbourne, June 1919

Arrival of the Marathon, Port Melbourne. The Argus, 9 June 1919.

The Marathon is mentioned quite a few times in the newspapers in 1919 because it twice carried soldiers to Fremantle, Adelaide and Sydney and it carried several VIPs on board (McCay in particular, listed under 'Other Reasons' on the first newspaper article). And later in the same year it was involved in a collision with a Japanese ship in the English Channel - it was refloated and steamed to London under her own power.

I'm sure the naval historians would have much more to say about the life of the Marathon, but this is the extent of her impact on the Phelan's family history.

I suggest you sail on over to see what others write about this Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday: On the wharf

OK. What photos are there in our family's albums matching this week's Sepia Saturday theme?

First of all a photo taken in the early 1980s. There's me with my family on the main wharf in Portland harbour on Victoria's south coast. That's our car in the background and I wonder if anyone can casually drive onto the wharf like that now.

Portland, Victoria c1983

And see that little blondie in the middle? Here she is a few years later, on a flooded dam on our property, with a raft she and her siblings built. I look at this photo now and wonder what we were thinking, allowing them on that without life jackets! Ship ahoy.

Gemma having fun on the farm dam, 1980s.

On a more serious note, at an earlier time. In February 1918 my husband's grandfather, Roy Phelan, enlisted in the Australian army and embarked on the ship 'Nestor' for Europe. As you can imagine, the departure of a shipload of soldiers was always a big event - a sad event but exciting. The ribbons stretched and broke as the ship left the wharf.

The 'Nestor' departs Melbourne February 1918 with troops aboard bound for Europe.

Twenty years later, in 1937, in happier times. Roy Phelan was on another ship in Melbourne's harbour, the 'Orcades', with his wife and brother Gib and sister Ina. They were about to leave for a holiday in Tasmania and again the streamers are in evidence.

Roy (in the tall hat), Annie, Gib and Ina, on board the 'Orcades', Melbourne, 1937.

Do they still have streamers when passenger ships depart?