© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

The Hunter Region in The Great War

Read more about the article Passchendaele: a name written in blood

Passchendaele: a name written in blood

If getting killed by the thousands is glorious, it was glorious in the Ypres battle. My battalion came out 200 strong out of a thousand. It breaks my heart when I think of it.Private Bob Gibson, Knorrit Flat By 1917, as fighting wore on in Europe, the British high command was practically in disrepute among sizeable portions of the Allied armies. Commander in Chief Douglas Haig didn’t go anywhere near the Ypres battlefields in late 1917 and criticised the troops for not being able to make and hold territorial gains. Men saw that they were repeatedly…

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Read more about the article How a vanished soldier’s “deserter” label harmed his family, and how he eventually “died”
Russell Atkinson was labelled a deserter on the basis of no evidence at all. How Smith's Weekly reported his eventual vindication.

How a vanished soldier’s “deserter” label harmed his family, and how he eventually “died”

Private Russell Atkinson went into the front line with his unit of the Australian Imperial Force's 54th Battalion in October 1916. When his unit was relieved on October 28, he had disappeared. On the tumultuous Western Front in The Great War many men disappeared. Sometimes they deserted to enemy lines in the hope of surviving the war as a prisoner. Sometimes they drowned in waterlogged shellholes, were buried by explosions or were blown into unrecognisable fragments. In the case of Private Atkinson, the army decided desertion would be the official explanation. He had already been treated…

Continue ReadingHow a vanished soldier’s “deserter” label harmed his family, and how he eventually “died”
Read more about the article Maud Butler, the Kurri girl who wanted to be a soldier, and her bad soldier brother
Maud Butler in uniform. Photo from The Sydney Mail

Maud Butler, the Kurri girl who wanted to be a soldier, and her bad soldier brother

The main fighting Maud Butler did in World War I was with the authorities who wouldn’t let her go to the front to “do her bit”. A feisty Kurri Kurri teenager, Maud stowed away twice on troopships – having first disguised herself as a boy – and later got in trouble for collecting donations in uniform on a wartime Anzac Day. Stowaways were not rare. Digger diaries refer to stowaways being caught after troopships had sailed and being taken on strength and posted to battalions. But only if they were male. Maud Butler claimed at the…

Continue ReadingMaud Butler, the Kurri girl who wanted to be a soldier, and her bad soldier brother
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