Alan George Marshall

Alan George Marshall was born on the 17^th June 1895 in a settlement north of Melrose, South Australia to William Walter Marshall and Catherine Louise Marshall (nee Bryant).

When World War 1 broke out Allan was living in Howetown, Port Pirie, South Australia with his parents and was employed as a Motor Driver with Goode Brothers in Port Pirie. He was also a member of the Port Pirie Lacrosse Club.

Alan had 3 years’ experience with the Senior Cadets of the 81^st Battalion before transferring to the Citizen Forces where he was still serving with the 81^st Infantry when he enlisted on the 12^th July 1915. He had just turned 19 years of age.

Private Marshall, Service Number 2809 was with the 9^th Reinforcement 16^th Infantry Battalion when he landed on Gallipoli on the 4^th November 1915.

Private Alan Marshall, Service Number 2809 

He survived Gallipoli to go overseas to France where he was wounded in action at Pozieres, France on the 27^th August 1916. Alan was deprived of his sight when a shell exploded atop of his trench and shrapnel severely damaged his eyes and upper jaw. He was evacuated to London by H.S. St. Denis entering the 2^nd London General Hospital.

Alan was transferred to the 1^st Auxiliary Hospital and onto St Dunstan’s Hostel, in London where training and educating of soldiers and sailors occurred to those whom had lost their sight in the war.

Blindness was not talked of as an affliction at St Dunstan’s, but as a handicap, and that was the way in which the men there faced their blow.

They learnt to read and write in Braille, to manipulate an ordinary typewriter, and to write the wonderful Braille system of shorthand, to do netting, carpentry work, poultry farming, the repairing of boots and shoes, the making of basket ware, telephone operating, the art of massage, and other occupations.

Sport was key part of rehabilitation and they enjoyed rowing, swimming, walking races and tandem cycling.

As the result of heavy casualties, the numbers of these blinded men increased with alarming rapidity.

Letter to Catherine Marshall, Alans mother.

Private Alan George Marshall, Service Number 2809 returned to Australia on the 16^th May 1919. He reached Port Pirie by the afternoon train on Wednesday the 28th May accompanied by his parents. He was cheerful and responded to the greetings of his friends with a cordiality which betokened even happiness under such adverse circumstances.

Port Pirie was determined to show its deep appreciation of the terrible sacrifice that Private Marshall had made in defence of his country, and to that end, arrangements were made for a drag drawn by four white horses to be in readiness to meet the returned hero on his arrival at the Solomontown Railway Station and convey him to the Town Hall, where a civic welcome was to be extended to him on behalf of the citizens by Mayor Goode.

The Solomontown station was beautifully decorated with festoons of flags and green foliage. The outstanding features were Private Marshall's battalion colours -blue and white. The children and adults were inside ropes of battalion colours, the effect being a splendid guard of honour. As the train drew into the station, the hearts of 2,000 spectators went out to the brave lad on the train. The Solomontown School Band struck up " Home Sweet Home," and the children broke into chorus with "They're Anzacs, everyone"… "Come on, Australians," and "It's a long way to Tipperary."

Private Marshall was presented with an oak tray on behalf of the Solomontown children, on which were the words " Welcome Home" in Braille characters.

The crowd in Ellen Street was equally as large as that assembled at Solomontown, and fully as demonstrative. Rousing cheers greeted the occupants of the vehicles as they were ranged up in front of the Town Hall.

Sources:

Australian War Memorial

National Archives of Australia

State Library of South Australia

Ancestry.com

Soldiers' Memorial Park

¹“There was a thoroughly representative attendance at the meeting last night held to arrange preliminary details in connection with the scheme for transforming the Central Parklands into a scene worthy of the importance of the town, and a place of pleasant resort for residents. Embodied in the scheme is provision for erecting a monument to the memory of those from our midst who have made the great sacrifice.”

And so began plans to establish a Soldier’s Memorial Park in Port Pirie on the 26^th of May 1917. A general committee was formed, with the amount of funding required estimated to be about £2000 for fencing and other improvements. It was resolved that a collection committee be formed where the various districts could be allotted. Buttons were sold on street corners and at the Smelters’ gates, for the cost of a post or rail or both, for the new fence.

²A Rotunda had already been established in the parkland and was officially opened on Arbor Day on the 9^th of August 1899. The idea of building a rotunda had been taken up three or four years earlier because “a place centrally situated where the public might repair for enjoyment was felt to be a necessity”.

Soldier's Memorial Park, Circa 1935_State Library of South Australia B70019/2

Working bees were set up on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons to erect a fence around the perimeter of the park and appeal for funds that were not forthcoming from the public. The Broken Hill Associated Smelter (B.H.A.S.) donated £1000 for the project; the United Ancient Order of Druids in Port Pirie who had around 100 names inscribed on its honour roll who had paid the supreme sacrifice in The Great War purchased a tree for every name on the roll and allocated individual members the responsibility for planting and tending them “in a distinct step to beautify Pirie.”

⁴In February 1919 during the Spanish Flu epidemic, an inhalatorium was established by the B.H.A.S. in the north-east corner of the park fronting Gertrude Street where the public were invited to submit themselves for treatment in the form of pressurised steam carrying Sulphate of Zinc solution. Once breathed in it was thought that the steam solution would disinfect the workers throats and air passages.

Garden plots were established around the rotunda with phlox, carnations and sunflower plants offsetting the beautiful lawn. Mr J. Greenless of Aldgate donated 100 rose bushes of different varieties and 400 to 500 bulbs. The Port Adelaide City Council forwarded 150 poplar trees to the Parklands Committee and Town Gardener Mr G.H. Giles in June of 1919.

The Soldiers Memorial Park Committee formally handed over the park to the town council to control on the 18^th August 1919 asking it to “keep in view” a recommendation from the friendly societies of Port Pirie to erect entrance gates to the park to perpetuate the memories of their members who had fallen at the front. The site recommended was on the corner of Alexander and Gertrude Streets.

In February 1922 two tennis courts were built opposite St Mark’s Cathedral in the south-east section of the park by members of the Catholic Church Guild. There was exception taken in certain quarters to granting of part of the Soldiers Memorial Park for tennis courts but it was argued that the ‘pleasing beauty spot’ had been transformed from a ‘knee-deep in water pug hole’ to a healthy space.

Sources:

¹Port Pirie Recorder and North Western Mail, SA, Saturday 26 May 1917 

²Recorder, Port Pirie, SA, Thursday 30 January 1919

³Recorder, Port Pirie, SA, Saturday 1 February 1919

⁴Recorder, Port Pirie, Friday 9 May 1919

Ronald Graham Howard - R.A.N.

Ronald Graham Howard was born on the 17^th November 1921 in Solomontown, Port Pirie, South Australia and was the youngest of a family of five. He was educated at Solomontown School and Port Pirie High School. A Barman before joining the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) on the 4^th July 1939, he trained as a Stoker at HMAS Cerberus before being drafted to HMAS Hobart (a Modified Leander Class Light Cruiser) where he spent 12 months on overseas service.  The ensuing months were spent escorting troop convoys in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea during which time she visited Colombo, Bombay, Aden, Trincomalee and Chakdina.

HMAS Hobart (1) in Dazzle Camouflage during WW2 

Hobart was at Aden when Italy entered the war on the 10^th June 1940 and her first shots against an enemy were fired two days later when her anti-aircraft guns opened fire on three Italian aircraft during a raid on Aden. Seven days later Hobart returned the compliment when her Walrus aircraft was flown off, carrying out a bombing attack on the Italian wireless station on Centre Peak Island in the Red Sea. There was no opposition and the target was reported as being severely damaged. On the 1^st August 1940 Hobart arrived in Berbera, British Somaliland, escorting and landing reinforcements where she remained there assisting in a general disembarkation while providing protection against any possible attack from the sea. The British however, were heavily outnumbered by three Italian columns advancing overland and on the 15^th of August a general evacuation of the territory from Berbera was ordered. Hobart assumed the role as the operational headquarters throughout the evacuation where the harbour area suffered a number of enemy air attacks. 

Hobart continued escort and patrol duties as a unit of the Red Sea Force until October 1940. Following a brief refit at Colombo, she returned to Sydney on the 3^rd of January 1941. Ron was the first member of the fighting forces to return home on leave during the war and along with another sailor, given a civic reception. Ron was the youngest member of the Port Pirie Sub-branch of Returned Sailors Soldiers and Airmen’s League.

A cruel twist of fate two months later saw the death of Ron Howard; his cap blew off as he was standing on the running board of a tram travelling on William Street to Kings Cross in Sydney where he had just moved into a flat. As he leant out and backwards to see where it had fallen he came in violent contact with a stationary tram and was killed instantly. He was buried with naval honours in Sydney on the 23^rd March 1941.

Sources:

https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-hobart-i

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140438585

The Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force

The Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) was formed in March 1941. It was instrumental for changing the role of Australian women in war. With the creation of the WAAAF, women were no longer restricted to voluntary support activities and nursing. The WAAAF opened the door for women to participate directly in military tasks, albeit in a supporting capacity.

Fig.1 Recruitment Poster 

Fig.2 WAAAF recruits Adelaide, South Australia.

Initially the main employment for the women was in the area of wireless telegraphy, but once Japan entered the war in December 1941 increasing demand for men to take on operational tasks forced the recruitment and re-muster of WAAAFs into an increasing range of categories.

Of 120 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) trades existing during World War 2, women were employed in 72; WAAAF officers and airwomen performed such diverse functions as flight mechanics, armament fitters, aerial cinematography, chemical warfare research as well as the more conventional roles of mess steward, cook, administrative officer and clerk. They performed aerodrome soil testing, carried out mustard gas decontamination trials and acted as landing control officers for parachute training. WAAAFs were aircraft fabric workers, flight riggers, stores hands, aircraft plotters, and they taught aircraft recognition to aircrew trainees.

WAAAFs served in 273 RAAF units located in all parts of Australia including Port Pirie; where in June 1943 there were just over 100 WAAAF attached to No. 2 Bombing and Gunnery School; by January 1945 there were 148 WAAAF as part of No. 3 Aerial Observer School personnel strength.

The women of the WAAAF were in fact mostly young girls, more than two thirds of them were below the age of 21 when they joined. They came from all walks of life; they were city and country girls. Although the majority came from the more populous states, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, 2,651 came from South Australia, 3,345 from Western Australia and 836 from Tasmania.

They served almost exclusively in Australia, although a very small number of them transited through New Guinea and the Solomon Islands for a limited period of time carrying out their duties.

Numbers increased from 1500 women at the end of 1941 to over 18,000 in late 1944. With the end of the war, the WAAAF was demobilised. 

Sources:

The Age, Melbourne, Vic, Wednesday 26 February 1941 

RAAF Air Power Studies Centre, The Home Front. Mainland Australia and the Southwest Pacific Area 1939- 1945

The Armour Boys

James and Martha Armour nee Maloney of Hallam Street, Ellendale, Port Pirie had three sons who all volunteered for the Great War.

Walter James Armour of the 50^th Battalion was killed in action in France at Mouquet Farm on the 16^th August 1916 and is commemorated on the Port Pirie World War 1 Gates. He has no known grave and is “Known Unto God”.

Private Walter James Armour 

George Frederick Armour of the 12^th Battalion returned to Port Pirie a Military Medallist. He served at Gallipoli, before being wounded and then gassed in France.

Roy Douglas Armour of the 10^th Battalion also served at Gallipoli, where he was wounded as he alighted from the landing boat. He was wounded a further two times in France before returning to Australia and lived to 87 years of age.

Roy writes to his parents below...

Hospital, May 1^st, 1915.

Dear Mother and Father,

This leaves me doing real well. I was in the landing party on the 25th of April and was slightly wounded in the left foot. The wound is healed up now and I expect to leave hospital soon and am anxious to have another go at the Turks. We left Lemnos on the 24th (it is about 3 or 4 hours' run from the Dardanelles). After stopping at Tenedos got into destroyers and then made our final dash for the landing place. 

We arrived there (at about 4 o'clock on the morning of the 25th) about 200 yards from the waters' edge. We then got into the small boats and rowed ashore under a heavy fire from the Turks, who were waiting for us on a hill a few yards inshore, and I can tell you they did pour the bullets down on us. They looked like a heavy shower of rain on the water all round us. But owing to the bad light, and them being bad shots, they did not manage to do a great deal of damage. 

All the same I will never forget those few moments as long as I live it was hotter than hell. At last our boat touched the shore and we all hopped out as quickly as we could. Just as I was about to take the leap I got it in the foot. I scrambled to the foot of the hill and got under a bit of cover with the other chaps who were wounded. Then our lads fixed their bayonets and made a charge which drove the Turks back as fast as they could run. When the sun rose and things were getting a little bit lighter they started to put the shrapnel into us, but they didn't get it all their own way. Our men o-war had a little bit to say in the matter, and when they started it was goodbye Turkish batteries. They broke things up like fun. 

I got on board the hospital ship about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and no sooner had I got to bed than I was sound asleep. When I woke up we were on our way to Alexandria. The way we were looked after on board was wonderful. The Sisters were as good and kind as any women in the world. They never seemed to want a rest they were going night and day. When we arrived at Alexandria we entrained for Heliopolis and went into hospital for a day and then shifted to Mena. Fred is still fighting. I hope to see him when I go back, which I hope won't be very long. I will be well there by the time this letter reaches you. I will write again before I leave. I will close now with love to all at home. 

Goodbye, Your loving son, Roy

Source: Port Pirie Recorder and North Western Mail, SA, Wednesday 9 June 1915 

Nurse Julia Mary Crosby

Julia was born to Walter Thomas & Ann Crosby nee Cameron in Armagh near Clare, South Australia on the 3^rd October 1876. She was a former resident of Port Pirie, South Australia where her mother still resided when the Great War broke out.

Fig.1 Sister Julia Mary Crosby AANS

Julia trained for 3 years in nursing at Adelaide General Hospital in South Australia; was a Sister at the Grosvenor Public Hospital in Fremantle, Western Australia and at the outbreak of war in 1914, she was serving as Matron at the Boulder City Hospital in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

She volunteered with the Australian Army Nursing Service on the 24^th May 1915 aged 38 and was attached to the 3^rd Australian General Hospital. She embarked overseas from Fremantle aboard the RMS Mooltan that had left Sydney on the 15^th May with units of the Australian Army Medical Corps.

Fig. 2 RMS Mooltan

Julia saw service in Egypt, Lemnos, England and France. She would have attended lectures, done first aid, paraded and attended field camps. 

All of this ill-prepared the nurses for the harsh conditions in a field hospital.

They were thrown into the deep end and they had to learn ‘on the job’ how to cope with shrapnel wounds, mustard gas, shell shock, frostbite, trench foot, dysentery, gangrene and all manner of surgical nursing. This was accompanied with strict military routines, nursing in tents and an extreme lack of food, supplies and equipment.

Fig.3 Australian Nursing Sisters aboard RMS Mooltan 1915
Julia ~ Back row far left

Nurses also had to escort convalescents to Egypt, England or Australia, they wrote letters home for ill soldiers and became adept at sourcing and scrounging supplies and extras for those that they cared for. Writing to Miss McEwen (Secretary of the Port Pirie Red Cross Society) from the 3rd Australian General Hospital in Abbassia, Cairo, Egypt, on February 15^th 1916, Julia writes…

“I received your letter on February 4^th, and the parcel of Red Cross goods on February 12^th. I cannot adequately express thanks for all the nice things you have sent to us. We are having cold, wet weather just now, and any useful things are most expensive. I think the people in the shops here imagine that they can charge Australians any price they like. We have been here three weeks.”

“Our home and the medical officers’ quarters formed at one time portion of a certain potentate's harem. Judging by the size of it he must have had more wives than Solomon. It has a great stone wall 30 ft. high all round, and when the huge heavy gates clang together at night and close us in we feel as if we were in gaol. When we were in tents, we were not very comfortable, especially on cold, windy days. However, we fared much better than our men. What a trying time they had at Anzac, and then what a disappointment it was to all of them to have to leave. It was so nice to be able to fit the boys out with good warm shirts, socks, scarfs, and so forth.”

Fig.4 Mention in Dispatches

In November 1918, Julia was ‘Mentioned in Dispatches’ by Sir Douglas Haig as a name deserving of special mention when she attached to No.2 General Hospital Julia returned to Australia on the 15^th May 1919 aboard the transport vessel Tras-os-Montes. She continued nursing as a Matron at Picton Lakes Settlement, New South Wales until her death on 10^th August 1941.

Source: The State Library of New South Wales

The Old Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company 
Virtual War Memorial Australia

Trove Australia: Register, Adelaide, SA Saturday 1 April 1916

Port Pirie Red Cross and World War 1

¹In response to the outbreak of World War 1, the Australian Branch of the British Red Cross Society (Australian Red Cross) was formed on the 13th August 1914 in Melbourne, Victoria. Within days, state based divisions were formed across the country. 

ʸThe Port Pirie Red Cross ‘circle’ had their first meeting on Tuesday 18^th  August 1914 when a meeting convened by the Mayor, in absence of the Mayoress, addressed 60 people in the forming of a local committee to immediately undertake the following duties.

(1) To co-operate with St. Johns Ambulance Society in the formation of units.

(2) To enrol men and women having first aid and nursing certificates to be allotted to recognised voluntary aid detachments and transferred to the A.A.M.C. for service in Australia.

(3) To organise work parties for the making or collecting of hospital comforts and clothing.

(4) To collect money to equip detachments and for other Red Cross purposes.

ʷWhat enormous work-loads and challenges it would confront in its first four years – from nursing the shattered victims of war to supporting their dependants; initiating national tracing services, searching for the missing and sending news from the front to anxious families at home.

Fig.1,2,3. Part South Australian Red Cross Information Record of Patrick John Brusnahan.

This was sustained by the volunteer work of thousands of members, mostly women, through a branch network that extended across the country. By June 1918, South Australia claimed 369 circles. Throughout the war, industrious members sewed, knitted, baked and raised significant funds for the Australian Red Cross. Patterns had been obtained from Government House for larger garments; head bandages, bed socks, flannel belts and roller bandages occupied the attention of the initial working committee. The call was put out for old linen, particularly old sheets that had been first washed, boiled and ironed. Further articles that were made and donated included; flynets, handkerchiefs, scarves, mittens, washers, pyjama coats and trousers, singlets and shirts.

²Sandbag sewing and other voluntary work was carried out by other bodies such as the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Salvation Army, the League of Loyal Women and the Fighting Forces Comfort Fund. Fifty thousand fly-nets were made for horses in the Palestine campaign by South Australian school children, whose Patriotic Fund also raised £85 000.

³In September 1915, 1,400 sandbags were sent to the Ordnance Department at Keswick Barracks in Adelaide. The majority of these were made by the men of the town working in conjunction with the Port Pirie Red Cross branch. On Tuesday 28^th  September 65 men from the Broken Hill Associated Smelter met together and sewed 103 bags in an hour; the necessary material having been purchased by the workers.

ʷPost-war Australian Red Cross was fully involved in the care of returning sick and wounded soldiers, establishing convalescent homes, hostels and sanitoria, in agreements with the Department of Defence and Repatriation. A network of Anzac Hostels provided care for the totally and permanently incapacitated, such as amputees, nerve and shell shock cases. The effects of gas were especially horrendous, and death came cruelly, ultimately from chemical pneumonia and pulmonary oedema. Valiant Red Cross Voluntary Aides nursing such patients night and day well learned the truth of Lady Munro-Ferguson’s words, ‘Peace will not close the hospitals; the sick and wounded will be the last to demobilise; therefore Red Cross workers must be the last to quit their posts.’

Sources:

¹Melanie Oppenheimer, Professor of History, Flinders University and Australian Red Cross Centenary Historian. 

² SA History Hub

³ ʸTrove Australia :The Wooroora Producer, Balaklava, SA, Thursday 20 August 1914 

Port Pirie Recorder and North Western Mail, SA,Thursday 20 August 1914  

ʷ Redcross.org.au