Boldly and Faithfully

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