Anzac Day: A Message from the Battlefield...

For Anzac Day this year I’m focussing on Ypres, a city in Belgium that’s on the French border. A prosperous place that in 1914 had a population of around 18,000 people. Just for reference, Ypres is the Belgian version of the name, while the Australian Diggers knew it as as “Wipers”. And nowadays it is often known by it’s Dutch version, “Ieper”, which is pronounced as “ee-per”. From November 1914 through until November 1917 Ypres was devastated by war and as you would expect, deserted by its inhabitants. Over that 4 year period, there were over 38,000 Australians who were killed or wounded in the Ypres battles, while the total number of casualties for all sides climbed into the many hundreds of thousands. Captain Frank Hurley was an Australian official military photographer who was in Ypres during 1918 and captured many unforgettable images of the destruction and the lives of the Australian soldiers during the Third Battle of Ypres (also known as the Battle of Passchendaele). The photograph at the top of this post is one of his very well-known ones. The State Library of New South Wales has a large collection of his war photographs (and diaries) online, so if you’re interested feel free to click here to view them. Anyway this year I’m remembering my great grandpa, Otto Rafael Winter. I have written about him before, including his service with the Australian military, but this time I’m highlighting a family heirloom. The postcard pictured below is one of the very few heirlooms that exist from my Winter family, and it’s a postcard that Otto sent from Ypres, Belgium (one of the places he was deployed to) to his parents-in-law, John and Margaret Daley, in South Australia. The postcard itself...

Remembering Tarakan, 1 June 1945...

Anzac Day, a day of remembrance of those who fought and died for our country. Whether they lived or died, nothing was ever the same again for those who went, as well as those at home. For today’s Anzac Day post, I looked at those from my own family who were involved in war – there have been many over the years in the various wars, but this times I’ve chosen to write about Harold Roy Winter, my grandma’s brother who was involved in World War 2. I’ll start off by saying that the military knows him as “Roy Harold Winter”, rather than “Harold Roy Winter”, simply (or so the story goes) as there was another person already signed up with that name so he switched it, so for this purpose I’ll go with the military version. Born in Victoria, he grew up in Adelaide, and signed up as a young 25 year old ready to fight for his country. He was assigned to the 2/48th Battalion Australian Infantry Battalion, and got to see to world … and war! Reading through the letters he wrote to family while he was in the army, he describes going overseas as a great adventure, as well as describing the monotony of army life. He also writes about the strength of the hospital staff … “The efficiency, determination and sacrifices to their job are a magnificent credit to them, and only we who have experienced it can give a true value to their worth. In many cases, patients were being attended by orderlies who were just as ill, or in some cases even worse. Such is to the spirit of the A.I.F. and it will keep all of us going till we die or...

“Dead” Soldier Returns...

Anzac Day. The day to remember those who fought for our country. Some survived. Many didn’t. And in reality those that returned were changed forever. It was while I was going through the military records of Arthur Vincent Elphick (Mr Lonetester’s great grandpa), that I kept seeing the name of Donovan Russell Elphick written in his records. Arthur was one of twelve children in the family, and Donovan was his youngest brother. On checking Donovan’s military records on the National Archives of Australia website, and reading through the dossier, one page in the record jumped out at me. But firstly, some background information … Born in Prospect, South Australia, but living in Western Australia, 24 year old Donovan signed up to serve his country in January 1915. After training in Western Australia, he was assigned to the 5th Reinforcements 11th AIF, and sailed to Egypt in June 1915, and was obviously in the thick of it from arrival, as within a week of arriving he was in hospital suffering from “deafness”. From here, I’ll let you read the article as that explains it all … The above article came from a Victorian newspaper, and is dated 20 October 1915. This story was repeated in numerous Victorian, South Australian and Western Australian newspapers over the weeks following. As you can imagine it was quite a story. And to say that it shocked his brother (Harold), when he walked in would be an understatement. Donovan was one of six boys in the family, with three going off to war. Sadly only two returned. And while Donovan Elphick did survive World War 1, he died in Perth on 25 December 1936, aged just...

Reminiscences of WW2 from My Grandparents – Part 2...

ANZAC Day. A day that Australians and New Zealanders remember of those who went to war. A day to remember those who never made it home. And it is also a day to remember those who were left at home during the war and afterwards. Last week I wrote “Reminiscences of WW2 from My Grandparents – Part 1” which is primarily an interview with my grandparents Evelyn and Cecil Hannaford about their experiences during World War 2. This interview, which was done as a high school project a number of years ago by a friend who interviewed them, is written as a transcript. So this is my grandparents talking about their own experiences during the war, In. THEIR. OWN. WORDS! Not as history books records it, but as they experienced it. As it was a long interview I decided to split it into two, and this is the continuation. Continuation of the interview … What type of weather was it? Mr H. It was winter time. Then when we got up to Trincomalee [Sri Lanka] it was summer time, in the tropics. We were out in the bay and the sister ship, Mary, went out into the harbour and they had all the port holes open, light shining everywhere. We had to have ours shut and it was hot. Did you have enough food? Mrs H. Well, everyone was rationed. What were the ration books like? Mrs H. We were given ration books and you had to have so many coupons for tea and sugar and butter. We weren’t troubled about the butter because we made our own. How did they actually work? Mrs H. We had to go to the shop or on the other hand thee was...

Reminiscences of WW2 from My Grandparents – Part 1...

“Don’t talk about the war to your grandparents”. That’s what I was told. So I didn’t. But fortunately for me (and the rest of my family), someone did. And for that I’m eternally grateful. When a friend was doing a school project on WW2 and needed to interview someone about the war, and didn’t have any reli’s here in Australia who were in the war, she asked my grandparents, Cecil and Evelyn Hannaford (nee Randell). So I have to thank both Cathryn and my grandparents for this, because if she hadn’t asked, I guarantee that these memories would have been lost forever. Before I begin I shall just say that the original interview is quite long, so I won’t include every question, but even so it’s still long enough that I’ll split this over two posts. The introduction … As a brief introduction, at age 25 Cecil Hannaford joined the army in 1940, and was trained at Woodside Army Camp before going aboard in 1941. During his time with the army he travelled to Libya, Palestine, Syria and Egypt. Aged 25 when he signed up, he went away as a driver, but also had to man the anti-aircraft guns at times. My grandma, Evelyn Hannaford (nee Randell) lived at Gumeracha with her family during the war. On their farm they grew vegetables which were needed for the army. The interview … How old were you when World War II was declared? Mrs H. 23 years old. Mr H. 25 years old. In what country were you living in? In what state? Both. Australia, South Australia. Living at Cudlee Creek. Were you living at Cudlee Creek all through the war? Mrs H. I was at Gumeracha during the war. Mr...

“War Memorials of the Adelaide Hills” Book...

The Adelaide Hills Council was fortunate to obtain a grant through the South Australian Government’s “Anzac Day Commemoration Fund“. For this they nominated that the funds would be used towards “research and preservation of Honour Board Memorials of Adelaide Hills”, and to “engage with schools and local groups to locate and research honour boards for inclusion in the publication War Memorials of the Adelaide Hills”. To commemorate Anzac 2015, a publication “War Memorials of the Adelaide Hills” was produced which details information about the war memorials throughout the Adelaide Hills in the towns covered by the Council, giving town name with details of the monuments. A second edition of “War Memorials of the Adelaide Hills”, that will also include additional material and corrections that have been made by the community will also be produced, and released in due course. The Council also have a separate project to research, photograph and record details on all the honour boards in the Council area.  While the majority of the honour boards can be found in local RSLs, community halls and schools, others have found their way to more obscure locations. The lack of detail of honour boards made it difficult to provide a comprehensive account of the memorials within the Council area. The aim is for this one to be released as a book as well. The Adelaide Hills Council covers a large area in the Hills region, and includes the towns: Aldgate, Aldgate Valley, Ashton, Balhannah, Basket Range, Birdwood, Bradbury, Bridgewater, Carey Gully, Castambul, Chain of Ponds, Charleston, Cherryville, Crafers, Crafers West, Cudlee Creek, Dorset Vale, Eagle on the Hill, Forest Range, Forreston, Greenhill, Gumeracha, Heathfield, Houghton, Humbug Scrub, Inglewood, Inverbrackie, Ironbank, Kenton Valley, Kersbrook, Lenswood, Lobethal, Longwood, Lower Hermitage, Marble Hill, Millbrook, Montacute,...

World War One: “Out With the German Names”...

There’s no doubt that almost every Australian family was affected by World War One in some way or another. One sad fact that came out of World War One, was the intense hatred of Germans that emerged, together with all things German. The German families who emigrated to Australia and were happily living their lives, being a part of so many local communities. However when war broke out they were suddenly classed as an “enemy alien” purely because of their heritage, with many sent to concentration camps. Yes, even in South Australia. South Australia had a substantial German population, so much so that many towns and other geographical localities had German names. However, come the start of World War One … and all things German was “the enemy”, so to have German place names was no longer acceptable. To rectify this a Bill was passed to change the name of numerous German named towns and localities towns in South Australia. To make life easier for all I have compiled a listing of the places that were affected, together with their new name. German Place Names in South Australia Original name Substitute name Bartsch’s Creek Yedlakoo Creek Hundred of Basedow Hundred of French Cape Bauer Cape Wondoma Berlin Rock Panpandie Hock Bethanien Bethany Bismarck Weeroopa Blumberg Birdwood Blumenthal Lakkari Buchfelde Loos Carlsruhe (or Karlsruhe) Kunden Ehrenbreistein Mount Yerila Ferdinand Creek Ernaballa Creek Mount Ferdinand Mount Warrabillinna Friedrichstadt Tangari Friedrichswalde Tarnma Gebhardt’s Hills Polygon Ridge German Creek Benara Creek German Pass Tappa Pass Germantown Hill Vimy Ridge Gnadenfrei Marananga Gottlieb’s Well Parnggi Well Grunberg (or Gruenberg) Karalta Grunthal Verdun Hahndorf Ambleside Hasse’s Mound Larelar Mound Heidelberg Kobandilla Hergott Springs Marree Hermann’s Landing Moramora (& later Nildotti) Hildesheim Punthari Hoffnungsthal Karawirra Hundred of Homburg...

Anzac Day at Gumeracha

The town of Gumeracha in South Australia is a small town. It’s the kind of country town, where everyone knows everyone, and everything. The kind of town you walk down the street and say hello to everyone on the way. Putting it simply, it’s a quiet, friendly town. With a population of only a few hundred in the early 1900s, you can imagine that when the call came in 1914 for men to ‘serve their country’, and the locals joined up, it wasn’t just families affected, but rather the whole town would have felt it … in numerous ways. For my Anzac Day post this year, I decided to head to Trove, to see what the newspapers had to say about Anzac Day at Gumeracha. I fully expected to read about commemoration services, and town gatherings and so on, kind along the lines of what the town does nowadays. But what I didn’t expect to find was that they held Fairs or Fetes on Anzac Day. Yes, true. Trove surprises me yet again! But it makes sense when you realise that the town wanted to build a hospital as a permanent memorial to the locals who fought and paid the ultimate price in the First World War, so fundraising was needed. In 1921 the Gumeracha Fair had stallholders, competitions and a concert … In 1922 the Fair was a “Japanese” theme, complete with a decorated umbrella parade … as this is a long article, I’ve only included a portion of it below. But you can view the full entry on Trove here. In 1923 I found two references to Anzac Day in the newspapers. On the 16th of April 1923, The Advertiser has a brief report of the more formal and solemn...

ANZAC Day Blog Challenge: Restyn Walter ‘Pete’ Randell...

April is here, which apart from Easter, is the month to commemorate Anzac Day (at least for us here in Australia and New Zealand) and Auckland Libraries have issued the Anzac Day Blog Challenge again. You know it was this time last year when they held the same Blog Challenge that it made me realise  just how little I knew about my military ancestors. Who of them actually went to war? Where did they go? What was their rank? … and so on. So I made it my mission over the past year to rectify that. And while I’m no expert on any of them yet, I did kept the folk at the National  Archives of Australia busy by ordering copies of a heap of my reli’s which I’ve been going through slowly. So for this year’s blog challenge I’ve chosen my great uncle Restyn Walter Randell (aka Pete Randell), one of my grandma’s brothers, because I’d seen a photo of him in his airforce uniform (as below), and it always had me intrigued. So after obtaining his military records (of which there was a heap – 72 pages in fact), it told me that he initially signed up for the army, and then transferred to the airforce a few months afterwards and from what I can tell (I’m still learning how to interpret military records jargon), he worked as a airforce mechanic for the RAAF at Laverton and Ascot Vale, both in Victoria. And as usual with military records, they contain a wealth of information – not just the military part – but also personal details as well. From Uncle Pete’s military records I found out all sorts of snippets that were news to me … – he...

21 ANZAC Day Facts

ANZAC Day is upon us again, so I thought I’d share some interesting and often unknown facts about ANZACS and ANZAC Day, so others will understand why we honour this national day. The ANZACs were all volunteers. April 25, Anzac Day, was the day the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. 25 April, was officially named ANZAC Day in 1916. The first dawn service on an ANZAC Day was in 1923. AIF is an abbreviation for Australian Imperial Force. There is no town called “Gallipoli”. It is the name of an area. Visitors to Gallipoli usually stay at nearby towns – like Ecubeat. ANZAC Day was not a public holiday in New Zealand until 1921. ANZAC Day was not a public holiday in Australia until 1921. However it was not observed uniformly in all the states. The Gallipoli Peninsula is very near the famous ancient city of Troy. The term ANZAC is protected under Australian law. More than 11,000 ANZACs died at Gallipoli and more than 23,500 were wounded. Services are held at dawn because in battle, dawn was the best time to attack the enemy. Soldiers would wake in the dark so at the first signs of light they were alert and awake. The original Anzac biscuit was known as an Anzac wafer or tile and was part of the rations given to the ANZAC soldiers during World War I. They were included instead of bread because they had a much longer shelf life. Anzac biscuits were created by wives of soldier’s who wanted to bake healthy goodies for their men. They lacked egg and milk, so kept for a long time and didn’t spoil during transport. The Poppy as a...