by Will Davies
He thought it unfair that such dangerous work was put upon men who had already served so long in such dangerous conditions as the tunnellers. ‘I was astounded to learn that at this stage of the War we were to undertake the task of removing delayed action mines … It was over the odds that we should be called upon to undertake such work, but as we were still on Active Service we had to carry out our duty.’2 He believed that the French had the right idea: they made the Germans clear their own mines.
Travelling eastward, towards Germany, Woodward came to the French village of Thuillières, which had only been vacated by the Germans three days before. Here he removed mines laid in the town square. The relieved and grateful townspeople assembled and, with the band playing, cheered the Australians. The crowd was astonished to learn that the Australians had come from so far away and volunteered to fight the Germans in a war that had little to do with them.
That night, Woodward received ‘one of the few Military Orders [he] was delighted to obey’: from then on, they were not to remove delayed-action mines, but just to locate and mark them.3
As Woodward and the men headed towards Germany, marching along country roads, he passed many recently released prisoners of war slowly marching westward. These men were of many nationalities and many armies, their clothes in tatters, their boots worn out. In most cases, they were hungry and destitute. ‘The contrast between these men and ourselves was simply astounding,’ noted Woodward.
We were a body of men who had experienced our fair share of the horrors of the War, and probably showed signs of our 21/2 years’ Active Service in the battle zone. Yet compared with these prisoners of war we were a crowd of fresh young school-boys. It made one realise to a small extent what sufferings these men had experienced … It was a tragic sight, and I felt more harrowing to look upon than the dead on a battle field.4
When the Armistice came, many were simply released, much like sheep, and allowed to wander off. There was little Woodward and his men could do, apart from sharing their rations or a little money and directing them to Beaumont, where help was waiting.
In late November, Woodward received orders that the Australians were to return to the Company Headquarters, at Marbaix, near the Belgian border south of Mons. No Australians would be part of the occupying forces that were to cross into Germany. This was a great disappointment to the men.
Then in late December, Woodward was ordered to take a small group of men and investigate a possible mine in the railway tunnel that ran from the Belgian town of Stavelot near Spa, to the fortress town of Malmedy, in the east of Belgium close to the German border. With seven men, including his trusty sergeant Hutchinson, he travelled to Stavelot on 20 December. The station master was very pleased to see him.
His men were provided rough accommodation in the station buildings, but Woodward found himself a comfortable old-world hotel where he was able to enjoy a nice roast dinner, a few sherries and the conversation of an English officer beside a fine log fire burning in an open hearth. It was snowing heavily that night. ‘The comfort accentuated by the snowstorm raging outside, I felt there had never been a war,’5 he wrote.
The next morning, Woodward and his men arrived at the station early, where they met the station master and some officials anxious to have this nightmarish bomb quickly disposed of. They went into the long tunnel and there, sure enough, was a bunch of leads projecting from a block of concrete. At least, thought Woodward, it was an electrically fired mine and with care could be quickly removed. He called for Sergeant Hutchinson, who very cautiously began to chip at the concrete block to expose the wire. Suddenly the block fell away from the wall, landing with a crash at their feet, frightening the already tense Belgian railway officials.
Woodward slowly bent down and with his torch examined the block and the electrical cable protruding from it. Then he realised it was just a piece of facing concrete from the lining of the tunnel. A length of cable had somehow been caught in the concrete when the lining was applied, and had been there ever since. Woodward broke into laughter, and then so did the tunnellers, but it was some time before the traumatised station master could see the funny side.
He did not know it then, but this was to be Oliver Woodward’s last duty as a tunnelling officer. He later reflected in his diary that much of his engineering training at Casula camp had been farcical, so it seemed quite fitting that his final task should be equally ridiculous, beginning and ending his military career on a comic note.
As the return train did not leave Stavelot until early in the afternoon, Woodward decided to take his small party and fulfil their dream of crossing into Germany, which was three kilometres away. They marched along a narrow snow-covered road until they came upon two timber poles on either side of the road painted black and white, marking the German frontier. So that no member of the party of eight could claim he was the first man into Germany, Woodward lined them up and together, line abreast, the men slow marched, ‘with a modified goose step’, across the border and into Germany. They were probably the first of a small number of Australians, other than prisoners of war, to have entered Germany. ‘After all the years of War there was a feeling of satisfaction in having set foot in the land of the Hun,’ wrote Woodward.6
After spending a cold, snowbound Christmas in Belgium, Oliver Woodward was granted twelve days leave and on 19 January 1919 left Charleroi bound for London. Little did he know as he gave his officers and men a quick cheerio that he would not be back and it would be years before he saw some of these men again.
When he arrived in London, he called at the office of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company. Here he found that the Australian head office had cabled London requesting that every effort be made to have him repatriated as soon as possible, as he was required by the company for their mining operations in north Queensland. Armed with a letter from the Chairman of the Board of the company, he went to the Embarkation Branch of the AIF to secure a berth. But getting a berth and jumping on a boat to Australia was not as straightforward as it might sound. Quite simply, there were not enough ships for the task of repatriating the men of Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, India and other countries. To further complicate matters, the Australian government demanded that the men must only travel on ships of a high standard, with ample space, good amenities and decent catering.
In the end, the solution was a very Australian one: the spirit of fairness must prevail, and so the ‘first to come, first to go’ policy was introduced. The men who had served the longest were the first to receive their ticket home, but two other criteria were also taken into consideration: if a man had a family or a job to return to, he moved higher in the queue.
Woodward satisfied one of the three criteria for early repatriation: he had a job and a letter to prove it. This was reasonably rare. Most men had no job to return to, and many had no profession, trade or vocational training at all, having joined the army straight from school.
After weeks of fruitless meetings, revolving doors and waiting on answers, and after getting a further extension to his leave to allow him to stay in London, Oliver Woodward finally received a cable informing him he was booked on the transport Czaritza, which was to sail from Portsmouth on 17 March. He felt sorry that he had not declared his thanks and said his final goodbyes to the men back in Belgium before he had gone on his leave.
He boarded the Czaritza on 16 March, and the next morning the ship took on a quota of sick and wounded, 81 officers, 11 Nursing Sisters and 697 other ranks. Of these, 132 had either an arm or a leg missing. At noon on 17 March 1919, the Czaritza, a passenger steamer in peacetime, cast off and headed out into the Channel. Standing by the rail, Woodward felt the cool salt air on his face and looked back at the shore. It was not long before the coast of England disappeared into the sea mist and low cloud. He was finally on his way home. His mind went to his tunnellers – some still in camp and some in hospitals and convalescent homes, while others lay lifeless under the cold, wet French and Belgian
earth. He was leaving them all behind.
In fair weather, the Czaritza made good time across a calm Bay of Biscay, but a following storm chased them into the Mediterranean as they headed east for Port Said in Egypt. Then it turned out there was a problem with the ship’s heating system, which blew warm air throughout the ship: it was stuck on, and this would be a major problem once the ship headed south down the Suez Canal and into the tropics. After a delay of a week waiting in the Mediterranean, the Czaritza passengers were transferred to the Dunluce Castle and on 1 April they continued their journey south. The men were more than pleased with their new ship. It had been at the Gallipoli landing and was fitted out as a hospital transport vessel with a gymnasium, complete with a range of exercise equipment for wounded men. As on other returning transports, the men were well fed on good-quality food, had a range of amusements and sporting events, musical evenings and in some cases a special edition paper.
South through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, they entered the Gulf of Aden. In Colombo, the men were granted shore leave. After racing around in a rickshaw for the first time, Woodward had lunch at the famous and luxurious Galle Face Hotel on the waterfront before journeying to Mount Lavinia, a popular Colombo seaside resort, which he found to be seriously inferior to many beaches he knew so well in Sydney.
Leaving Colombo on 23 April, the Dunluce Castle crossed the Equator and steamed south to Fremantle. While at dinner on 6 May, Oliver Woodward was told that at 9.30 that night, those onboard should pick up the faint flicker of the Rottnest Island Light. It was an excited group of men that crammed every vantage point to enjoy this first sight of the Australian coast. Right on time came the shrill call of the man on the lookout with, ‘Light on port bow’ and, sure enough, a little while later, there was the flashing navigation light far off on the horizon that was Rottnest Island. ‘I shall never forget the thrill occasioned by that light,’ Woodward recalled in his diary. ‘To us it meant home after the years of war, and I think the majority of us welcomed the darkness to hide the tears of joy which that flashing light brought to our eyes.’7
All that night the returning troops and nurses lined the rails watching for the slowly approaching coastline. As dawn broke, the ship anchored in the Gage Roads off Fremantle and the Western Australian contingent was taken off on a lighter. Everyone else was forced to stay onboard due to the concern of the influenza epidemic that was sweeping the world. On 7 May the Dunluce Castle set sail, arriving in Adelaide where the South Australians were disembarked before it again set sail, this time for Melbourne.
There, the men were given a thorough medical inspection and the Victorians and the Tasmanians were disembarked. The ship moved off from the New Pier and headed into the open sea and north to Sydney. Waking early, Woodward found the ship tracking up the beautiful south coast. The seas were unpleasantly rough, but nothing could dampen the excitement of the men who were about to arrrive home to friends and loved ones. One can imagine the joy they felt when the Macquarie Lighthouse was identified and the ship slipped into the calm, welcoming waters of Sydney Harbour. Just as when they had left, the lights of the South Head Signal Station welcomed them home as they anchored off Clifton Gardens for the night.
That night, no one aboard could sleep with the anticipation of their homecoming the next morning. At 9.30 am on Sunday 18 May 1919, the Dunluce Castle tied up alongside No. 1 wharf in Woolloomooloo Bay, three years and 87 days since Oliver Woodward had departed. After a round of farewells to his shipboard friends, he stepped ashore and was taken by one of a fleet of private cars to the Anzac Buffet in the Domain. ‘We were set down at the entrance of a lane which led to the Buffet, and as I walked along I caught sight of my Mother and sister and then I knew what joy could really mean,’ he wrote.8
After completing his discharge from the AIF, he was united with his mother and sister. They returned by rail to Tenterfield for a massive family reunion. As he stepped from the train, he was greeted at the station by his father and brother, and soon they were back home, ‘in an unbroken family circle’, he wrote. ‘In all this great joy we did not forget the homes in Australia which would not experience this full reunion.’ Eighty men from the three tunnelling companies would not return. Of 49 officers, six were killed and ten were wounded. Of 166 NCOs, 14 were killed and 39 were wounded. And of the 1980 sappers, 60 were killed and 241 wounded.
In decorations the company was awarded one Distinguished Service Order, 12 Military Crosses including the three awarded to Oliver Woodward, four Distinguished Conduct Medals, 29 Military Medals, nine Mention in Dispatches, 16 Mention in Orders and 13 Special Mention of the Company as a whole in Dispatches and Orders of the Day.
In all it was an impressive tally for a group of men who comprised only about one per cent of the AIF. But for all this few knew about the tunnellers’ work and they received very little public recognition or praise, with the exception of a monument at Hill 60 to the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company.
Today, with the screening of the film Beneath Hill 60, the heroic effort of these men is again in the nation’s consciousness – and deservedly so. Their terrifying work brought a quicker end to the war and saved Allied lives. We have much to be thankful for.
Oliver Woodward spent some time with his family at Tenterfield before going to work again at the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company.
At the end of 1919, he travelled to Cairns to have Christmas with the Waddell family. ‘It was a joy to meet Marjorie again after four years,’ he wrote. ‘When we parted she was a teenager with pig-tails; now she was a young woman, a transformation which seemed to lessen the gap in ages.’ The two had been writing letters to each other regularly during the war years, and this, Woodward believed, ensured their reunion ‘was free from embarrassment’. ‘On Christmas eve,’ wrote Woodward in his diary, ‘Marjorie and I went for a long walk on [a] wonderful stretch of beach and there we became engaged.’ In early January 1920, Woodward sailed to Sydney, and Marjorie farewelled him from the town wharf. ‘I said a fond farewell to the girl I had loved for years.’1
He had secured a job at Port Pirie, in South Australia, as the General Metallurgist with Broken Hill Associated Smelters, where Sir Colin Fraser, the ex-geologist from the Laloki mine in Papua, was Joint Managing Director. In late August, he travelled from there to Brisbane and met Marjorie and her family, who had taken the ship from Cairns. On the 3rd, the couple were married in a quiet, small ceremony at St John’s Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane. They had their honeymoon in Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
They made their home in Port Pirie, where Woodward had been recently promoted to Plant Superintendent. In September 1921 the couple’s first child, Barbara, was born. She was followed in August 1924 by Oliver Gordon, who was born at home. Their third child, Colin Holmes, was born in October 1927. Marjorie dedicated her life to their children. ‘No mother could have given more and loving attention to her children than she did for our three,’ wrote Woodward.2
Woodward was appointed a member of the Council of the Port Pirie Technical College, but when Labor came to power in the state elections he was quickly removed from this position. ‘This action I took as a warning that it would be unwise for one in my position to take too permanent a part in the civil life of this industrial town,’ he wrote.3
In 1926 he was promoted to General Superintendent, a position he held for nine years. During this time he undertook extensive re-building at the facility and oversaw major improvements to the conditions of the working men.
In 1935 the family moved to Broken Hill, where Woodward became the General Manager of North Broken Hill Limited. For the following 13 years, he oversaw and managed a major rebuilding and modernisation program and also the re-opening of the British Broken Hill mine that had been closed in 1930, the early days of the Depression.
In 1940 Woodward became the President of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and in 1944 was elected to the Board of North Broken Hill, where he stayed unti
l his retirement in October 1947 aged 62 years. During this time he was also a Director of Broken Hill Smelters and Electrolytic Refining and Smelting Company and from 1952 to 1954, the President of the Australian Mining and Metals Association.
In 1956 he was appointed CMG (a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George) and died in Hobart, where he had retired, on 24 August 1966, at the age of 80. He was survived by Marjorie, who passed away on 30 July 1978, and his three children – Barbara, Oliver and Colin.
Oliver Woodward (left) at the Laloki copper mine near Port Moresby with the geologist Colin Fraser (later Sir Colin Fraser). Courtesy Woodward family
Oliver Woodward as a young man prior to the war. Courtesy Woodward family
Marjorie Waddell as a young woman, circa 1919. Courtesy Woodward family
Woodward as an officer in the AIF, 1916. Courtesy Woodward family
HMAT Ulysses, the troopship Woodward and his men travelled to France aboard. Courtesy Australian War Memorial (PS0154)
