The Other Side of the Trench. G. S. Willmott
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kitchen dresser and read it again. I am going she said to her self. She emailed Back-Roads Touring Co and requested a registration form which Mandy, the sales and marketing person, promptly sent via return email. The cost including airfares, accommodation and the tour was $3500. She would be away for two weeks unless she decided to extend and do some more travelling. That decision could wait. Lois completed the registration form that night and transferred the funds from her bank account.
‘There, I am committed’ she thought.
Lois then rang all four of her children and told them what she was doing. They were all delighted, although her youngest son, Terry, was concerned that his Mother at seventy-two would be travelling alone. He spoke to his wife, Claire, the next day and they both decided that Terry should travel to France with his mother. He had not been to Europe before so he was quite excited by the thought of seeing Paris and some of France.
He went around to Lois’s house the next day and told Lois his news. She was absolutely delighted. The only downside of the trip had been the prospect of travelling alone and now her son, who she loved dearly, was going to accompany her. ‘I’m excited too, Mum. I have always had a strong interest in what happened to my ancestors in the First World War. The fact that I get to see Paris and some of the French country- side is an added bonus.
On the other side of the globe in Edinburgh, Scotland, Stewart McDonald read the same advertisement in the Edinburgh Herald and Post. He too was keen to see where both his Great Grand Father and Great Uncle had fought and died. Stewart was a barrister practising in Edinburgh.
His Great Grand Father, Archie Shearer, was with the 15th Scottish Division. He was sent to the Western Front in June 1915. He fought in the Battle of Loos. He died on the 26th of September 1915.
His other Great Grand Uncle was Albert Shearer, who was with the 9th Infantry Division. He was sent to the Western Front in May 1916. He partook in the Battle of the Somme. He died on the 1st of July 1916.
Archie and Albert had a younger sister, Jane, who was only fourteen when the war broke out; Jane was Stewart’s Great Grandmother. The children grew up in Leith, a suburb of Edinburgh. Both Archie and Albert were shipwrights like their father and his father before him. In fact the Shearers had been shipwrights since the 1700’s.
When the war broke out, the need for shipwrights was great, with the need for Britain to build more and more ships for battle and troop carrying. Both the brothers wanted to join their mates and go to war, not stay home and build ships, so they both enlisted with their occupations stated as labourers. Archie enlisted at the age of twenty, Albert was eighteen.
They both undertook six weeks of intensive training at Redford Barracks. Archie shipped out to France in June 1915 with the 15th Scottish division. Albert followed two weeks later with the 9th.
Archie’s first taste of battle was in The Battle of Loos; it was also to be his last. During the battle the British suffered 50,000 casualties. German casualties were estimated much lower, at approximately half the British total. The British failure at Loos contributed to General Haig’s replacement of General French as Commander-in-Chief at the close of 1915.
Edinburgh Scotland 2012
Stewart decided to go on the military tour. The timing was not perfect for his law practice, being the middle of April and his busiest period, but he knew it would be worth it. His father, also named Archie, often spoke about the sacrifices his grandfather made, along with the other 700,000 British who died for their King and country.
He requested the registration form, which Mandy duly emailed to him. He transferred the funds and emailed the form and started to plan his weeklong absence from his practice. At least he didn’t have to travel all the way from Australia like Lois and Terry.
Grove, Huon Valley, Tasmania, Australia 2012
Ian Wooley lived in a beautiful part of Tasmania, although it would seem Tasmania was pretty much beautiful throughout. He lived in the little town of Grove, the gateway to the Huon Valley, in the southern most part of Australia. His family had been apple orchardists for generations. Ian had also continued the family tradition but was finding it more and more difficult to make a suitable living. Competition from overseas had reduced margins down to the point when Ian had to make the decision to continue growing apples or bulldoze the trees and burn the lot. Fortunately he had seen this coming and had gradually converted to growing cherries. Cherries were much more profitable and the only reason he had hesitated in getting out of growing apples altogether was the family history. He considered family history and tradition as an important part of his life.
That belief system led him to register for “Back-Roads Touring” battlefield tour ,which he found through a Google search on the Internet. It was something he had wanted to do for a long time and he felt the time was right.
Ranelagh, Huon Valley, Tasmania, Australia 1916
His Great Uncle was Charles Wooley, an apple orchardist from the Huon Valley in a little community called Ranalagh. Charles was twenty-four when he enlisted having heard a rousing call to arms at a meeting in the Ranalagh Community Hall. He went home full of patriotic fervour and announced his enlistment to his wife and little boy John. His wife Sophie was devastated.
‘What happens to John and me if you get yourself killed over there?’ she cried, ‘Why didn’t you discuss it with me before you signed up?’
Charlie started to feel guilty about leaving his family but this was war and the King and his country must be defended from the German menace, at all costs. After a very restless night, Sophie got out of bed and prepared John’s breakfast before waking him; he was only four but he had a voracious appetite. She knew plenty of other wives in the valley were losing their husbands to this war and in retrospect felt that Charlie was doing the right thing.
Charlie started basic training at Broadmeadows in Victoria two weeks later and after two months, embarked on the troop ship, SS Ceramic, and landed in Egypt two months later on the 14th of July, 1916. He was assigned to the 47th Battalion. He was able to do the tourist things as well as march in blistering heat on the sand for miles with a full pack. He was not sure how this would help in France which he was told was green and quite cold and wet in winter although mild in summer.
He shipped out to France and saw action almost immediately. He fought in a number of battles including Passchendaele and Pozieres and, apart from a leg wound, survived some of the most ferocious fighting in the war. The battle he was last involved with was at Dernancourt.
The five divisions of the AIF, now organised into the Australian Corps, had spent the winter of 1917–18 in Belgium. As this new crisis developed on the Somme, Australian units were hurried south to help hold back the German advance. On 27th March, 1918, elements of the Fourth Division took up positions around Dernancourt. This village on the River Ancre is on the southwest outskirts of Albert, which had been occupied by the Germans. On the 28th of March, the Germans attempted to resume their advance. In the morning mist, the Germans emerged from Albert along the railway line.
On that day, fighting spread along the whole front between Dernancourt and Albert. The 48th Battalion (South Australia and Western Australia) and the 12th Machine Gun Company supporting a British unit were attacked but all attacks were beaten back. British and Australian artillery interfered with German attempts to rally troops and to bring forward support troops for further assaults. One German attempt to mount an attack was ruined by what Charles Bean, the Australian official historian, called ‘a rather strange occurrence’. As the Germans were massing for the attack, a chance shell caused an old British ammunition dump to explode. The noise was deafening and the Germans scattered. By this time the Australians, who had had three days and three nights of moving, marching, digging, fighting and little sleep, were nearly exhausted. However,