Wwi Digger Stories Podcast

In September 1914, English author and poet, Laurence Binyon was so appalled by the casualty lists coming out of France that he penned the 7 stanza poem, "For the fallen". Little did he know that the middle, 4th stanza, would become the most remembered and solemnly cited verses in at least 4 countries. From 1921 this stanza became known as "The ode" and an integral part of remembrance services on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.

Ion Idriess was arguably the greatest adventure novelist Australia has produced, writing 53 books in a 40 year career. As a young man in the iconic Australian Light Horse he kept a diary which he later turned into his most enduring book, "The Desert Column". This is his story.

Well, who is the future famous star of stage and film that stole a soldier's heart before he went to war? Find out in this second episode on the life of Trooper Bluegum, Oliver Hogue!

Trooper Bluegum became a household name in Australia during The Great War, a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald he wrote numerous articles widely published in the press, turning these into 2 books after his semi-fictional "Love Letters of an Anzac". These letters were fake but his real love interest would become a Broadway Star and Oscar nominee. Follow him through Gallipoli and the Battles in the Holyland. But this man's fate has a modern irony and I give you a spoiler alert part way through. Oliver Hogue was an interesting man, take the time to hear the first part a look at his life and works.

Billy Sing was arguably the greatest sniper ever produced by Australia but as a Chinese Australian he was nearly denied enlistment and after the war almost forgotten. Billy died almost a pauper and alone at the age of 57. Here is his story. The Ballad of Billy Sing is presented with the permission of Mr Jeff Brown.

The 7th and final part to the WW1 memoirs of Verdi Schwinghammer, who fought in the battles of Broodseinde and St Quentin Canal. There is no fighting in this one with Verdi sight seeing in Paris, Brussels, England and Ireland with some great observations of the immediate post era. Verdi returns home to his folks and we follow a little of his post war life. 

In this one, Verdi and 3rd Division take us through the Battle of St Quentin Canal with the Americans of the 27th & 30th Divisions, through Armistice and on to the early post war period. Of particular interest is the episode where Verdi treks through the old battlefields to find his cousin's grave and on his Aunt's request....

When some of our men went to bury the dead after the Battle of Mont St Quentin, when they were lifting up some of the dead bodies, bombs would explode and many of our men were killed this way. He laid these traps for us – placing a bomb under a dead soldier and when the body was lifted the catch from bomb would be released and the bomb exploded. That night enemy planes came over all night long dropping bombs, and several of the men at the rear of us were killed and wounded, by long-range shells..... Sometimes one was safer in the front-line trench than in the back areas!

The Australian 3rd Division Memorial sits above the town of Sailly-le-Sec for a good reason.... "We eventually arrived at Heilly. Passed a few stragglers – Tommies – the remnants of Gough’s British Fifth Army, which had been overtaken by disaster. The citizens had evacuated Heilly before we arrived. Here we dumped our packs and belongings and got into battle order."

We were each given a tin of fruit and a tin of preserved sausages for our Christmas dinner. My pal and I were hungry, so we both opened our tins and ate half the contents for breakfast, putting the remainder in the tin on a shelf in our dugout – covering them with a board with a stone on it. The rats were very bad in the trenches and dugouts. As we were off duty, we went to sleep for a couple of hours and on waking and going to get our dinner found that the rats had knocked off the coverings while we were asleep and had eaten everything. So we had dry biscuits for our Christmas dinner of 1917.

"Men do not go into battle sad and gloomy (as many civilian people wrongly imagine). They are quite the opposite, even though they know the dreadful things they have to face and that some of them are going to their death," Verdi Schwinghammer describes the Battle of Broodseinde, part of 3rd Ypres in this, the second part of his memoirs.

An ANZAC Day Special .... well kind of! The first part of a 7 part series from the memoirs of Verdi Schwinghammer. Here is a taste of it, "That night a big air raid took place and we enjoyed watching our guns shooting at the German planes – which were caught and held in the searchlights – several close hits being secured. No bombs fell on us but one fell on the horse lines close by, killing and wounding several horses and mules." The episode covers his enlistment, training, voyage to Europe, more training and his initial days in the 42nd Battalion AIF.

Simpson was the most famous 'Anzac' of all. On the second day of the Gallipoli Campaign, Jack found a small donkey, wrapped a red cross band around its forehead and started ferrying wounded men down to the beach. For three weeks he did this, slogging through the bullet and shrapnel wrapped gullies until finally... But who was John Simpson Kirkpatrick? Listen to his letters home and descriptions of his exploits from other men at Anzac Cove.

This is a very short episode on the Glosters and their part at Fromelles. Short because? Well, unfortunately I can't find any written accounts of the battle by these boys. Famous war poet Ivor Gurney was in their sister battalion over to the right and one of his poems sounds just like Fromelles.

100 years after winning the Victoria Cross in North Russia, the remains of Welsh born Aussie soldier, Samuel George Pearse are thought to have been rediscovered in a scrap yard at Archangel. At the time of his death, recently married Pearse, was already a war hero with a Military Medal won at Glencorse Wood 2 years earlier.

Leon Gellert, a 23 year old Physical Education Teacher from Leabrook, South Australia is considered to be the best Great War poet from Australia. This episode focuses on his war experience and his poems. I watched the place where they had scaled the height, The height whereon they bled so bitterly Throughout each day and through each blistered night I sat there long, and listened - all things listened too I heard the epics of a thousand trees, A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew The waves were very old, the trees were wise: The dead would be remembered evermore- The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies, And slept in great battalions by the shore.

To the right of the Australian 5th Division at Fromelles was the 61st Division of the BEF. These were second line territorial troops that had never seen action before. They had slightly different problems to the Australians but both Divisions suffered from bad generalship and primary among these bad generals was Lieutenant General Sir Richard Haking. We look at the men of the 184th British Brigade, men that were part of the nick-named "Sixty-worst Division". I think this was unfair, see what you think!

Pompey Elliott's Australian 15th Brigade attacked the unbreakable 'Sugarloaf' on 19 July 1916. This is the story of this disastrous attack. Teddy Roosevelt befriended one of the survivors. Hear T.R.'s words and hear his friends description of Fromelles. This is some of what he wrote: "I lay for half an hour with my arms around the neck of a boy within a few yards of a German "listening post," while the man who was with me went back to try and find a stretcher. He told me he had neither mother nor friend, was brought up in an orphanage, and that no one cared whether he lived or died. But our hearts rubbed as we lay there, and we vowed lifelong friendship. It does not take long to make a friend under those circumstances, but he died in my arms and I do not know his name."

13 year, 11 month old Leonard Jackson was able to fool the enlistment officers and go overseas to Egypt but his father Joe wasn't fooled. It was impossible to find the lad among all the thousands of recruits in khaki so Joe enlisted and followed the boy. Instead of bringing Len home, Joe joined him in the 55th Battalion and both fought at Fromelles. Corporal Harold Roy Williams of the 56th Battalion wrote a successful book, "The Gallant Company". You'll love the story of "Skinny" Elliott and other real men of the 14th Brigade!

'The sergeant comes up shouting, "Hey! Haven't y' gone yet? Got cold feet?" "Cold feet yourself," Ted retorts. And then seeing Bert, who has been missing for some time, Ted produces a note-book and calls, "Here you are, Bert, write your next-of-kin's name and address." There is no farewell. They grasp their rifles, and Ted slings the phone over his shoulder. "You all set? Come on!" he calls, and away they go. He shouts "Good luck lads!" as they climb over the parapet. God! what sights they see out there. Huddled and stretched out bodies, khaki heaps that were once men. '