Battlefield tour to enlighten group
Apilgrimage to the European battlefields of the First World War is set to provide a group of people with further insight into the Wimmera-mallee’s commitment and sacrifice during the 1914-18 conflict.
Many in the group of 22 participants from Kaniva, Dimboola, Horsham, Hopetoun, Pomonal, Mildura and Bendigo districts are tracing the steps of family members who died or fought in some of the bloodiest battles in Australian history.
Some, as part of a Horsham and District First World War Commemoration Working Group, have long been planning the trip after having worked to produce a chronicle of Horsham district’s involvement, including the book Strewth!
Wimmera First World War expert Pam Cupper said group members would meet in Paris on Saturday to start a tour and would be in leper – Ypres – for a Centenary Commemoration at Polygon Wood on Tuesday.
“We will be formally commemorating the Third Battle of Ypres in which our communities suffered their heaviest losses of the First World War,” she said.
“For some on the tour, this is a very personal pilgrimage as they seek out the sites of their father’s wounding, visit the grave-memorial of a great uncle or see the locations their families always talked about – the Somme, Pozières, Messines, Ypres and Passchendaele for example.
“The war is often referred to as the ‘war of the great uncles’ because while many of the men who came back went on to have families, many of their brothers didn’t.
“As well as following their relatives’ service, we intend to include a bit of a pilgrimage to locations associated with western Victorian men.”
Ms Cupper said the Australian soldiers played an important part in ending the war and Wimmera people were ‘very much’ involved.
“In October 1917, there were 25 men from Horsham district killed in one day,” she said.
“Hopetoun district lost 14 men in the space of three weeks.
“These types of statistics would have devastated what were already small communities.
“Almost everyone who has family in the region has some sort of connection to what happened.”
Commemoration working group convener Fiona Carine of Horsham said she would be exploring personal connections during the tour.
“My grandfather Harry Carine and his brother John, or ‘Bill’, both served in the AIF on the Western Front. Bill was badly wounded when his company was bombed by an enemy aeroplane during the big Allied offices in September, 1918,” she said.
“Following the war, the brothers moved to Horsham and partnered Alexander Duncan to establish a fibrous plaster business Carine Bros and Duncan.”
Ms Carine plans to visit the grave of Private Edwin Beynon Griffiths, a former Horsham High School student.
“When I was a student at the school, the house system names were a memorial to five former students killed during the war – J. D. Wallace, R. G. Ellis, E. B. Griffiths, W. G Lane and M. M. Mackinnon,” she said.
“I was Griffiths girls house captain for a couple of years, so I plan to wear my house captain’s badge as a mark of respect.
“Private Griffiths was killed in the Battle of Fleurbaix in July, 1916, and is buried at Anzac Cemetery, Saillysur-la-lys near Armentieres, France.”
Jack and Ian Grant, who have historic connections to Kaniva district, are the sons of a First World War survivor and nephews of two uncles killed on the Western Front.
Jack and his wife Jan, who live in the Kaniva area, and Ian and his wife Margaret, from Bendigo, are joining the tour.
George Grant enlisted two months after his 18th birthday in Melbourne in 1916 and fought with the 11th Field Artillery Brigade.
He was at the Third Battle of Ypres, often referred to as ‘Passchendaele’ and his diary records him being buried when his trench was shelled in the early morning of October 1, 1917, his mate suffocating alongside him.
George Grant survived the war and later established a commission agency at Kaniva.
Jack and Ian’s two uncles, ‘Roy’ and ‘Jack’ Vennell, were from Miram.
Jack enlisted in the 21st Battalion in August 1915, and was killed a year later at the Battle of Mouquet Farm, also referred to as ‘Pozières’. His body was never found and a court of inquiry concluded almost a year later that he was killed in action. His name is on the Villers-bretonneux Memorial.
Roy enlisted in the 24th Battalion in August, 1916, and was killed at Poelcapelle near Passchendaele on October 9, 1917. He has no known grave and his name is on the Ypres – Menin Gate – Memorial.