Symbols and survival

April 25th is a poignant time of self-reflection in Australia.  It's a day when the nation stops and takes a hard look at itself, indeed at what its become.  To the outside world Australians are happy-go-lucky and gregarious lot by nature, but on a day like ANZAC day it's a solem and subdued affair.  

As many of my readers know my Grandfather (Henry Montgomery Foxley-Conolly) was a soldier in the Great War (WWI). This week was ANZAC day and it really crept up on me more so that at any other time in my life and got me thinking about why a 35-year-old man would enlist in the army at the height of the war when he has a wife and four children at home.  

There are likely a number of scenarios that could have been playing out at the time. Firstly, we know from my past stories he was a bit of a “jack-the-lad” with a keen sense of adventure so that definitely could have been obvious reason.  Another may have been that he was bored to death and feeling a little left out of the action (as you do when you’re reaching what was often considered in those days as “middle aged”), or the most likely for that period would be the passing of a “white feather”.

Unfortunately for many men, the passing of a white feather to a man of enlistment age irrespective of background, circumstance or fitness was a very common occurrence.   This was especially true for those within a community who had already lost a loved one at Gallipoli or the Western Front.   No one - and I mean no one was left unquestioned by the local women who’d lost someone dear – a “why them and not you” mindset prevailed quite strongly.

The infamous "white feather"

It struck at the very heart of a man’s psyche and soul – what was wrong with him if he didn’t volunteer….well, the answer was clear.   He was a coward!   In those days the unremitting reality was that he would be shunned by his local community, and be viewed as “less of a man” for not volunteering.  It must have been excruciating be stuck in that no-mans land of self-doubt.

How many white feathers would a man have to endure before his resolve to stay with his wife and children was overcome with shame?   

My guess is probably just one.    Shame is a powerful emotion and one not be trifled with, trust me I know…but I guess you know that from the memories of my childhood that I so often speak of and share via this blog.

Irrespective of being a devout adventurer or someone dealing with a potential mid life crisis would drag me away from my kids, not even the perceived “greater good” as was likely thought of then, but shame – well, now we’re talking a whole new ball game aren’t we.

There is no cure for that deep feeling of shame.

Private H.M Foxley-Conolly - taken
Brisbane, Australia
prior to embarkation for France
(Dec 1916)

In those days he would have been surrounded by a more than constant drumming of propaganda and “for King and country”, and I’d imagine that a white feather would have just put him over the top.

With everything to live for and little to be gained from becoming canon fodder on the Western Front he walked the mile or so into the Mount Morgan (Queensland) recruiting office and volunteered.   The date was November 11^th, 1916 – the significance of the date is not lost on me, although at the time totally coincidental (two years to the day till the end of the war). 

 Grandfather quickly underwent basic training, so basic in fact that he embarked on the SS Demosthenes from Sydney as part of the 13^th Reinforcements on December 23^rd 1916.  I suppose they had 3 months on the ship as part of a convoy headed for England to continue training in some form.  

After disembarkation at Plymouth, his first stop was the training facility on Salisbury Plain in the south of England, this was the final phase for all soldiers heading to France and where they would be placed within the ANZAC Corp.   He ended up being assigned as reinforcement to the 49^th Battalion, Australian 4^th Division and took part in a number of major battles – Messines (June 1917), Polygon Wood (September 1917) and the battle of Villers-Bretonneux (April 1918).   His battalion lost 769 men killed and a further 1419 wounded over the course of the war.   Somehow he survived the carnage…

It’s an incredibly high price to pay for your personal honor and to avoid shame but there you have it.   From a simple symbol to a life threatening situation in the blink of an eye…

Hand written field message to warn of
an immediate attack on the 49th battalion lines
(Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial)

I can’t imagine that this is an unusual story either; in fact my guess is that tens of thousands of men from both sides had been put in this very predicament.   And now that he was here he would do what needed to be done – “stiff upper lip and all that”.

How he survived when another 769 men from his battalion didn’t survive completely boggles my mind – now don’t get me wrong, he didn’t have a charmed life from what I can see.

As with all wars there are the physical injuries and the mental ones – Grandfather suffered both, with his final physical wound occurring on the 9^th July 1918 with a G.S.W (gunshot wound) to the face.  This came at the end of sixteen months of front line service and was finally enough (he was partially blinded) that saw him repatriated to England and out of the mayhem once and for all.  

Over the course of those long and unremitting months on the front line he also endured a bout of pneumonia, a case of septic nostrils (sounds painful – especially as penicillin hadn’t been invented yet) and influenza (which killed 20 million people at the end of the war).   Yet he survived it all.

We’ll never know what horrors he witnessed, what loss he suffered or the terrible mental anguish that he must have had to face as he prepared for each battle, or even worse the survivors guilt of coming through it and somehow surviving while his mates died all around him…

It’s no wonder that at wars end he just went “walkabout” for almost two years.   Was he trying to make sense of what he’d been a party to?  Or was he just tying to make the “crazy” go away?

Epilogue:  

ANZAC Day is a very special day for all Australians and I want to thank my grandfather and the tens of thousands of other diggers who sacrificed so much for us all - "lest we forget"