BOLDLY AND
FAITHFULLY, THE JOURNAL: The Official History of the 19th Australian Infantry
Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, March 1915-October 1918
Lieutenant Colonel Peter McGuinness, MBE, RFD, ED,
(Retd)
1/19 RNSWR Association, Inc,
incorporating 2/19 Australian Infantry Battalion AIF Association, 2011, 748pp,
$100.00 (incl p&p) from the Association
Lieutenant Colonel
McGuinness has compiled an impressive record of the service of the 19th
Battalion during the First World War, and of the men who served in the unit.
His book is a fine fulfilment of the words with which C.E.W. Bean completed the
sixth volume of his Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918:
What these men did nothing
can alter now. The good and the bad, the greatness and smallness of their story
will stand. Whatever of glory it contains nothing now can lessen. It rises, as
it will always rise, above the mists of ages, a monument to great-hearted men;
and, for their nation, a possession forever.
The story of the 19th Battalion
contains both greatness and smallness, and also much glory; McGuinness has
provided an enduring monument to the great-hearted men of the battalion.
McGuinness recorded the
story of the 19th Battalion using the daily entries in its official War Diaries
which, where necessary and possible, he supplemented by using those of its
parent 5th Brigade. This method provides an entry for each day of the
battalion’s existence, with a chapter for each month. Supporting documents are
included as annexes to the relevant chapters. McGuinness offers comments on the
events recorded in the book only occasionally, but he has added a personal
touch to the formal records by including alongside each daily War Diary entry
extracts from the personal diaries of members of the unit for the same day.
This process provides a
soldiers’ eye view of the events recorded more dispassionately by officialdom.
It also adds valuable information about the battalion’s activities, which was
not usually recorded in detail in the War Diaries. For example, the 19th
Battalion was among the last to leave Anzac on the final night of the campaign.
An officer who was part of the rear party recorded an interesting description
of the final hours in his personal diary, which is quoted in full. Even with our
knowledge of the successful outcome, it is easy to understand the increasing
tension as the numbers were drawn down, until only ten men remained holding the
battalion’s former line.
Two things stand out in
McGuinness’ narrative: the manner in which the War Diaries improve as the war
progressed, which demonstrates the increasing professionalism of the AIF, and
the many days on which little was recorded, which demonstrates how concentrated
were the periods when the battalion was in the line. The intelligence and
patrol reports included in the War Diary from late 1917 also demonstrate the
level of routine activity that took place even in nominally quiet periods on
the Western Front
A valuable addition to each
chapter is a dedication to one or more soldiers of the battalion. Many of these
men died during the war, others had somewhat chequered careers. There is also a
short summary of events during the month. Every soldier who died in service
during the month has his fate recorded in a footnote. During periods of heavy
fighting, these footnotes reinforce the cost of the war. Recommendations for
awards are also included in the footnotes
One of the saddest
dedications is that for Chapter 41, covering the month of July 1918. The
dedication is to Private Thomas George McShane, a musician, music teacher and
conductor, who enlisted in September 1917 aged 41. For reasons not made clear
in the book, but possibly related to the growing shortage of infantry in the
AIF, he became an infantry reinforcement rather than a bandsman, as might have
been expected for a man of his age and skills. McShane joined the 19th
Battalion on 14 July 1918 after completing his training, and was killed in
action only nine days later.
The War Diary and the
individual diary entries give us examples of transport methods during the First
World War. While rail and road movements are frequent, marching was routine.
During the battalion’s approach to the Somme in July 1916, the distances
marched are impressive.
The battalion first marched
some 36 miles (around 58 kilometres) over three days to a railhead in the
Armentières area. After moving to the Amiens area by train, it marched a
further 41 miles (about 66 kilometres) from the detraining point to the
Pozières battlefield. These approach marches, some 124 kilometres in total,
occupied eight days of the period between the commencement of the movement to
the Armentières area and the battalion’s arrival near Pozières.
On four other days in this
period the battalion’s activities included route marches and ‘short practice
marches’. Two other days were occupied with training. A final approach march of
two miles (about three kilometres) brought the battalion to the former German
trenches near Pozières, where it bivouacked in the old trenches in Sausage Valley
for a day.
The extreme variations in
activity rates on the Western Front are demonstrated by the high concentration
of fatalities in the battalion in two periods, together totalling only three
days. The attack on Gird Trench, near Flers, on 14 and 15 November 1916, and
the battalion’s participation in the Second Battle of Bullecourt on 3 May 1917,
caused the deaths either in action or from wounds of around a quarter of the
battalion’s total fatalities during the war. Notably, neither of these periods
is among the better known ‘killing’ times of Pozières and Passchendaele, where
the casualties occurred over longer periods.
By August 1918, the
battalion was routinely around or below 50 percent of its establishment. With
the decline in recruitment in Australia, and after further casualties during
battles of 31 August at Mont St Quentin and in early October at Beaurevoir,
maintaining it in action became impracticable. The remaining men of the 19th
Battalion were then distributed among the other battalions of the 5th Brigade.
As it happened, the Armistice was signed before the former members of the 19th
Battalion went into action with their new units.
This major section of the
book provides what is essentially the contemporary record of the activities of the
19th Battalion during the First World War. To this McGuinness has added
commentary to give some context, and to explain some diary entries that
reflected the limited information available to the soldiers during the war.
While the daily entries
provide the skeleton of the story of the 19th Battalion, for me the most
impressive and interesting part of the book was the Nominal Roll. Such rolls
can be fairly dry, providing little more than a list of names and ranks. This
one is not! Having spent some years as a volunteer at the Australian War
Memorial, assisting visitors with searches of war records, I can appreciate the
magnitude of the task McGuinness undertook to prepare the Nominal Roll. Each
personal file had to be opened, read through (often with poor hand writing or
faded pages to challenge the researcher), and the events had to be transcribed.
Using this process,
McGuinness has compiled (to the extent practicable) a short record of every
individual whom he could identify as having served in the 19th Battalion. This
record includes not just the name and rank of each man, but also his regimental
number, age and occupation on enlistment, whether he was an ‘original’, or in
which reinforcement group or from which other unit the soldier joined the 19th Battalion.
McGuinness has also included promotions or demotions.
McGuinness then went further
in what must have been an exhausting task. Each soldier also has a short
outline of his service included in the Nominal Roll. This covers his date of
enlistment, which theatres he served in, whether (and how many times) he was
wounded, and his final fate. One soldier, 993 Sergeant William Tisdall, an
original member of the battalion, was wounded four times. The last occasion
proved fatal, and he died from that wound on 30 March 1918. Another, 763
Corporal Peter Fisher, one of two brothers who were also original members of
the 19th Battalion (and who had a foster brother serving in the 20th
Battalion), was luckier, surviving five wounds to return to Australia in 1919.
Having covered all that,
McGuinness then added what I found to be the most interesting parts of the
Nominal Roll, its footnotes. These complement those in the main text that
record deaths and award recommendations. From these footnotes we learn, for
example, that 1017 Private Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith went on to become
better known as the pioneer aviator Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith. Another unit
member, Second Lieutenant Cecil Patrick Healey, was the only Australian Olympic
Gold Medallist who is known to have been killed in action in the AIF during the
First World War.
The footnotes to the Nominal
Roll include other data of interest to anyone researching family histories.
Brothers who served together in the battalion are identified, as are any siblings
who served elsewhere in the AIF. In one sad case, two brothers died on
successive days in July 1916, at Pozières. After receiving the news, their
father applied successfully for the discharge of a third brother, who had been
wounded at Pozières less than a month later. In a similar case, after two
brothers had died, their mother wrote directly to General Birdwood, seeking the
discharge of her third son; Birdwood granted the request. Two other brothers
were each wounded twice, in both cases on the same day; happily, they both
survived the war.
Father and son groups and at least one uncle and nephew who
served together are also identified, as are some individuals who later served
during the Second World War. A number of former members of the battalion who
were killed at Fromelles, and were among those recently identified there, are
footnoted.
Also in the footnotes, we
see the stories of soldiers who enlisted under-age. Number 7144 Private Norman
Graham Rann was only 14 years and five months when he enlisted under an assumed
name, while 4287 Private George Clarkson was discharged under-age after having
served for almost two years! For others, advanced age proved too much for the
rigours of battle. The oldest enlistee in the battalion (at 50) was 3925 Private
William Oscar Smith; his health failed, and he was discharged medically unfit
without seeing significant front line service.
In this multicultural age we
might be interested in the personal stories behind Privates Ragnvald Jakob
Jensen, Abdul Ganivahoff and Paolo de Bono, DCM, (among others), but their
presence in the battalion does not seem to have caused comment at the time. The
last recruit posted to the battalion, 7179 Private Charles Bockmelder, was born
in Riga, then in Russia, now in Latvia.
There are also records of
the battalion’s rogues. Court martials are listed for many individuals, such as
1895 Private James Byron, who spent much of his military career either AWL,
awaiting trial, or in detention. The footnote recording his service and charges
takes almost two pages of the Nominal Roll! At least two members of the
battalion were sentenced to death for desertion, but their sentences were
commuted as Australian government policy did not permit application of the
death penalty.
McGuinness has used the 19th
Battalion Honour Roll which is in the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Church of
St Luke, Clovelly, NSW on the dust jacket of the book. Even in this, his
research has been indefatigable. He has checked and provided corrections to the
Honour Roll where necessary (in 74 footnotes). He has also identified 20 men
who were inadvertently omitted from the Honour Roll, and has listed their names
to ensure that all of the men who died in the service of the 19th Australian
Infantry Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, are remembered.
The maps provided are
particularly useful, as they follow the First World War grid reference system
used in the text, rather than the modern system.
This is not a book for the
casual reader, but it rewards careful study. It provides in usable form the
contemporary record of the activities of the 19th Battalion between March 1915
and October 1918. Libraries could usefully keep copies in their reference
sections, while its carefully researched Nominal Roll would be a valuable resource
for family history and genealogy societies.
JOHN DONOVAN
