KILLED IN THE THE GREAT WAR OF 1914-18

and a Gallipoli boy who survived

The boys of Blampied who believed the lies

Although the hamlet of Blampied, just outside Daylesford, was an Irish-Catholic enclave, where immigrant families such as the Clearys were implacably opposed to the war in Europe, there were still plenty of young men marching to the British Empire's tune. The loss of lie was simply tragic. Whatever his sins, the urbane, intellectual Archbishop, Daniel Mannix, was right when he called the European war a 'trade war'.

In 1997 I made my fist careful study of the Presbyterian, Mount Prospect Cemetery. ln an article for the Age newspaper - see the home page - I identified two graves - S Coutts and Albert Yelland - of Great War soldiers. Three months before Anzac Day, 2006, I found another grave, that of Howard Boustead, who died in France in 1917.

Stanley Coutts - No 5358 - 14th Battalion - Died 29 Aug '16

Pozieres - Battle of the Somme

Mt Prospect - Villers-Bretonneux, France

Who was this boy, Coutts, I thought? The records show that he was brickmaker from Daylesford, where he enlisted on 12/2/1916 and was killed on 29/8/1916, a mere six months later, at the battle of the Somme, probably at Pozieres. A major battle was begun there in August 1916. He is officially buried at Villers Bretonneux in France. Even conservative historians acknowledge that the Battle of the Somme was a military disaster, in which men were sent to their slaughter by Generals with no regard for human life.

What would young Coutts have known about this mysterious and pointless war in Europe? He enlisted two months before the Easter Rebellion in Dublin, an event which eventually galvanised most Irish Catholics in Australia against the war. Was it adventure and the opportunity to escape the excruciating heat and the boredom of the brickworks that induced him to join? Did any mates join him?

The son of William and Harriet Coutts, of Victoria Park, Daylesford, Coutts is commemorated by his sister, Harriet Hussey, in a grave that contains her husband, William Hussey - died aged 29 years on 21 Jan 1922 - and her parents, William - died 1922 aged 52 - and Harriet - died 1925 aged 59. Also there, is John Coutts, brother of Stanley and Harriet, who died in 1942, aged 45 years.

The 1901 Post Office Directory lists Isabella Coutts, farmer, as living in Mt Prospect.

Coutts family grave

 

Albert Yelland - No 1750 - 58th Battalion - Died 30 Sept '17

Polygon Wood - Battle of Ypres - Flanders

Mt Prospect - Hooge Crater, Belgium

Factory hand Albert Yelland joined the 58th Battalion, Australian Infantry and was killed in action on 30 September 1917, probably at Poygon Wood, Ypres, where a major battle had begun on 26 September. He is commemorated in the Mount Prospect cemetery, in a grave that contains his mother, who died on 9 April 1926, aged 57. The son of of Alfred and Catherine Yelland and husband of Elsie, he was a native of Rocklyn and only 23 years of age when he died..

 

Gunner Albert Yelland and his mum. What happened to his wife? I'll find out in time.

Although Albert was a factory hand, his wife gave her address as 59 Millswyn St, South Yarra, Victoria. Why was she living in South Yarra when he died, and did she re-marry? Yelland joined the 58th Battalion at Rocklyn, his home town, on 4 January 1916 and embarked on the HMAT Port Lincoln on 4/05/1916, six weeks after marrying Elsie Irene Armstrong Hill.

When he married 18-year-old Elsie, Albert Yelland gave his address as the Military Camp Ballarat. The marriage took place at St Mark's Church, Brown Hill - near Ballarat - on 20 March 1916. She too was a native of Rocky Lead, later renamed Rocklyn. There is no record of a marriage of Elsie Yelland in the years following the war, although there are a number of marriages of women -1920 onwards - by the name of Elsie Hill. This matter will take further research.

Albert Yelland's official war grave is 112 Hooge Crater Cemetery, Zillebeke Belgium. The following is taken from an article on the web:

The mine crater at Hooge was blown by the British during fierce fighting here in 1914-15. The water-filled crater can still be seen in the grounds of the chateau across the road, which also houses a small museum. For much of the early part of the war the front line ran through this area, but it moved further east soon after the first Australians arrived here in late 1916.

The cemetery was formed in October 1917 and originally contained 76 graves. It was enlarged after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from the surrounding area and today contains 5922 burials. Most of the Australians who lie here were killed in the Battle of Polygon Wood (September 26th-29th 1917). The most notable feature of this cemetery is a stylised 'crater' landscaped near the entrance. Total burials: 5922 - Australian burials: 513 (178 unidentified)

Notable Australians buried in this cemetery

Private Patrick Bugden VC, 31st Battalion, died 28/09/1917, age 20. 'Paddy' Bugden was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery during several days of fighting at Polygon Wood from September 26th-28th 1917. On several occasions he led small parties to capture pillboxes that were holding up the advance and five times he rescued wounded comrades under heavy fire. Bugden also single-handedly rescued a corporal who had been captured by three Germans, shooting one and bayoneting the other two. He was killed by shellfire on the 28th. Grave VIII. C. 5.

 

Vin Dalton - No 539 - 8th Battalion - Gallipoli - WWI Survivor

Vin Dalton in a 'borrowed' Light Horseman's hat.

Vin Dalton was snared during the army's initial rural recruiting campaign. He embarked on the Benalla on 19/10/1914 and was part of the second wave at Gallipoli. Born in 1890 he was 24 when he enlisted, only two months after war was declared. He gave his occupation as miner - Ararat. He named his 'uncle', Michael Cleary of Kingston, as his next of kin. Michael was in fact his deceased mother, Ellen Dalton's step bother. Michael and Ellen had the same mother but different fathers.

Dear Phil,

This is one (photo) taken in Egypt, I think while he was recuperating after being evacuated sick from the peninsula. He went back shortly before the attack at Helles, which the Second Brigade took part in, being transferred from Anzac for the attack with the French and British. He said that this was the worst attack of the war. They advanced across featureless terrain covered in wheat and grass toward entrenched machine guns and fixed defences looking down on them. He said they advanced with their entrenching tools futilely held either in front of their faces or their groin, depending on personal preference. He also opined that this battle proved how wasteful war was because "it took hundreds of bullets to kill a man"! He didn't get a scratch on that occasion despite being convinced that he would be killed. But I digress. The photo shows him in a Lighthorse hat, despite the fact that he was an infantryman. He stole the hat from its real owner! Thought they were fairly dashing.

Regards,

Ed

Vin Dalton in uniform - back right - probably after the war - with Mick Cleary from Kangaroo Hills and family. Vin had some strong words for the men who sent the boys into no-man's land.

 

Vin Dalton - circa 1905 -according to his family, at 15 years.

Peter Lafranchi - No 5377 - 22nd Battalion - Died 3 May 1917

Bullecort - Battle of Ypres

Villers Bretonneux

The son of Julian and Ann Bridget Lafranchi, of the Eganstown Post Office, Victoria, farmer Peter Lafranchi enlisted at Ouyen on 28/07/1916. He died less than a year later, at 29 years of age, on 3 May 1917. He is officially buried at 26 Villers Bretonneux. Lafranchi was probably killed at Bullecourt in one of the many battles - 3 May until 17 May - associated with the disaster of Ypres.

The 22nd Battalion AIF was formed on 26 March 1915 at Broadmeadows Camp in Victoria and became part of the 6th Brigade of the 2nd Division. Most of the battalion embarked for Egypt on 8 May 1915. The battalion deployed to Gallipoli in the first week of September 1915, allowing elements of the 2nd Brigade to be rested from their positions in the front line at ANZAC. The battalion served on the peninsula until the final evacuation in December 1915, and were then withdrawn to Egypt and brought back to strength with reinforcements.

Lance Corporal Richard Francis O'Neill - No 1261 - 38th BN- killed 4th Oct., 1917.

Broodseinde - Battle of Ypres

Eganstown Cemetery - The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial Belgium

Richard O'Neill's family grave in Eganstown. He is listed below his father.

William Zeis - No 8065 - Died Castlemaine 06/07/1916

Australian Infantry Base Depot

Buried - Daylesford

Two graves to members of the Zeis family can be found in the Mt Prospect cemetery. The stone laid by Friederike Zeis, in memory of her husband Henry Ernst Zeis, carries an inscripton in German.

The Zeis grave with its German inscription.

William Zies' mother's name is recorded as Mrs Alexandrina Anniss on his death certificate. One presumes she had remarried, given her husband Adolf had died 17 years earlier, in 1899. Their daughter, Alvina May, had died a month shy of her second birthday, on 3 August 1898.

William is listed as buried in Daylesford - C of E 36 8065 -and as having enlisted in Castlemaine. Zeis' battalion is not identified in the records. The facts are that William died of TB in Castlemaine, where he was a railway clerk at the time of his enlistment in the AIF. He was 22 years of age.

This Adolf, born around 1874, is the father of Private Zeis. Adolf's wife Alexandrina is surely his mother. Did she re-marry after he died in 1899? The Jacob on the stone is almost certainly William Zeis' uncle.

Howard Wellesley Boustead - No 4433 - Died 13/05/1917

58th Battallion - Bullecourt, Ypres

Howard Boustead was probably killed at the battle of Bullecourt, in which the 58th battalion was engaged in May 1917. He is buried at Villers-Bretonneux. The battle of Ypres in 1917 claimed local men Yelland, Lafranchi, Boustead and O'Neill. Boustead enlisted in his home town of Dean, and the family has many members, the most recent of whom is Francis Boustead, buried at Mount Prospect.

Two other Bousteads - brothers William Herbert and Owen Tudor - sons of William of Dean Street, Ballarat - joined the AIF.

Dean, George Herbert - No 1575 - 24th Battalion

Buried in Creswick- survived the war

John Joseph Cleary of Blampied carried a photo of a man, known as 'Dodger' Dean, among his possessions. I suspect that George Dean is that man. He departed on the HMAT Ceramic on 25/06/1915 from Melbourne and gave his occupation as labourer and residential address as Cambridge Street, Creswick.

Is this George Herbert Dean, aka Dodger?

24th Battalion

What the history books say.

George Dean's 24th Battalion was raised in a hurry. The original intent was to raise the fourth battalion of the 6th Brigade from the "outer states", but a surplus of recruits at Broadmeadows Camp in Victoria lead to a decision being made to raise it there. The battalion was formed during the first week of May 1915, and sailed from Melbourne at the end of that week.

Training shortfalls were made up in Egypt in July and August, and on 4 September 1915 the Battalion went ashore at Gallipoli. It spent the next 16 weeks sharing duty in the Lone Pine trenches with the 23rd Battalion. The fighting at Lone Pine was so dangerous and exhausting that battalions rotated every day. While the bulk of the battalion was at Gallipoli, a small party of 52, trained as packhorse handlers, served with the British force in Salonika.

The Battalion was reunited in Egypt in early 1916 and proceeded to France in March. It took part in its first major offensive around Pozières and Mouquet Farm in July and August 1917. The Battalion got little rest during the bleak winter of 1916-17 alternating between the front and labouring tasks. When patrolling no-man's land the men of the 24th adopted a unique form of snow camouflage - large white nighties bought in Amiens.

In May 1917 the battalion participated in the successful, but costly, second battle of Bullecourt. It was involved for only a single day - 3 May - but suffered almost 80 per cent casualties. The AIF's focus for the rest of the year was the Ypres sector in Belgium, and the 24th's major engagement there was the seizure of Broodseinde Ridge.

Like many AIF battalions, the 24th was very weak at the beginning of 1918, but still played its part in turning back the German offensive in April. When the Allies took to the offensive, the 24th fulfilled supporting roles during the battles of Hamel and Amiens. At Mont St Quentin, however, it played a major role by recapturing the main German strong point atop the summit on 1 September. A diorama at the Australian War Memorial depicts this attack.

The battalion's last battles of the war were at Beaurevoir on 3 October and Montbrehain on 5 October. It left the front line for the last time on 6 October 1918 and disbanded in May 1919.

And there's more

James George Bull - Daylesford Cemetery - 38th

Buried also in Daylesford is James Bull, who died in Bendigo on 29/05/16 and was listed at the Australian Infantry Base Depot. The son of Edwin Bull, of Koroocheang, James Bull enlisted in Daylesford.

The 38th Battalion was formed at Epsom Racecourse, Bendigo, in early 1916 and experienecd a cerebrospinal meningitis outbreak that resulted in the fit men being transferred to Broadmeadows. In November 1916 the battalion took off for France. Did James Bull, as was the case with William Zeis, die of TB? Did the meningitis kill him?

Frederick James Baxter - Creswick Cemetery - 38th

Gunner, Fred Baxter, joined the 38th Battalion on 25/2/1916 at age 28 years. He embarked on 20/06/16 on the HMAT Runic and arrived home on 4/12/18. The son of Mrs E Baxter, Harris was a school teacher from Leichhardt and carried the rank, Lance Corporal. He died on 19/06/21.

James Matthew Harris - Creswick Cemetery

James Harris, from Smeaton, joined the 14th Infantry and set sail on the Port Lincoln on 16/10/15. A labourer, he cited his next of kin as his grandmother, Mrs Elizabeth Kelso, of Smeaton. He died on 23/10/1919.