by Graham Seal
‘The Last Post’ is a simple but evocative military bugle call signifying the end of the day. It has become an aural symbol of Anzac Day commemoration, and is usually followed by a one- or two-minute period of silence, which is then concluded with the bugle call ‘Rouse’—usually referred to, incorrectly, as ‘Reveille’, which is a different call.
Other customs derived from military tradition may feature in Anzac Day events, including the all-night ‘vigil’ over a war memorial that is to be the focus of the Dawn Service. The ‘march’ or ‘parade’ is also of military origin.
Hugo Throssell’s VC
On 19 November 1933, Hugo Throssell VC took out his old service pistol and shot himself dead. He had come to loathe the war in which he had fought so gallantly and was an outspoken pacifist. This, together with financial problems, made him an outcast among those who had previously been his friends and acquaintances. Throssell’s journey from idealistic young man and VC winner to such a bitter end was one of many tragedies in the difficult postwar decades of the 1920s and 1930s.
Born at Northam, Western Australia, in 1894, Throssell—together with his brother Frank, known as ‘Ric’—joined the 10th Light Horse at the outbreak of war. As a Second Lieutenant, Hugo Throssell arrived on Anzac in time for the disastrous attack at the Nek in early August 1915. He was one of the few survivors, and resolved to revenge the 10th Light Horse. His opportunity came a few weeks later at Hill 60.
Less than a kilometre from the beach, the low, scrubby bump had been held by the Turks against all previous attacks. It effectively divided the British forces and the Anzacs. The commanders believed that taking the hill would allow the Allies to merge into a more effective force against the Turks. Late on the night of 29 August, Throssell led his men into a long trench, most of which was held by the enemy. While his men built a barricade, Throssell acted as guard and killed five Turks. A bomb fight began in which over 3000 missiles were hurled by both sides. The Australians kept their bombs on short fuses to make sure the Turks would not throw them back before they exploded, in ‘a kind of tennis’. The deadly game went on until dawn, when the Turks launched three unsuccessful charges. Throssell was wounded twice but continued to fight, yelling encouragement to his men despite the blood covering his face, caused by shell splinter wounds. After finally seeking medical assistance, he returned to the fighting as soon as he was treated—until ordered out by a medical officer.
The battle for Hill 60 is one of the lesser-known disasters of Gallipoli, largely forgotten in comparison to chilling stories like those of the Nek and Lone Pine. By the time Throssell and his light horsemen arrived at the Hill 60 engagement, the 4th Brigade had lost almost three-quarters of its strength, the 9th and 10th Light Horse units had suffered almost total casualties, and only 365 men survived from the four regiments of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles who had already tried to take the position. The actions of Throssell and his men, while only one part of a larger attack, succeeded in holding their section of the trench against greatly superior forces. Throssell was awarded the only VC ever to be won by a light horseman, but Hill 60 remained firmly in Turkish control at the cost of 2400 casualties. The Anzacs were depleted and exhausted.
A British historian of Gallipoli, Robert Rhodes James, wrote that ‘For connoisseurs of military futility, valour, incompetence and determination, the attacks on Hill 60 are in a class of their own’. The pointless slaughter made plain to any but the most pig-headed that the Gallipoli campaign could not succeed. General Hamilton was relieved of his command of the campaign and replaced by General Charles Monro. Monro immediately understood the hopelessness of the situation, a view backed by Lord Kitchener, British supreme commander, when he came to see for himself in November. A little over a month later, the Anzacs had left Gallipoli.
Throssell recovered from his wounds in Egypt, during which time he contracted meningitis, an affliction that would trouble him physically and mentally for the rest of his life. Promoted to captain, he was again wounded in the second battle of Gaza in April 1917. His brother went missing in the same battle and Throssell crawled out into no man’s land, whistling their boyhood signal in a hopeless attempt to find him. Hugo Throssell continued fighting in Palestine and was at the head of the 10th Light Horse guard of honour when Jerusalem fell to the British and Australian forces in 1917.
After the war, Throssell married the radical Australian writer Katharine Susannah Prichard in London. They returned to Australia to farm and engage in political activism. The war hero and the Communist author had an exotic appeal in the politically troubled 1920s. But with the onset of economic Depression in the following decade, Throssell failed in a number of business ventures and the family went heavily into debt. While Prichard was pursuing her political convictions in the Soviet Union in 1933, Hugo Throssell shot himself, believing that his war service pension would benefit his wife and son. He left a note on the back of the will he had written a day earlier: ‘I have never recovered from my 1914–18 experiences, and with this in view I appeal to the State to see that my wife and child get the usual war pension. No one could have a truer mate’. Captain Throssell was buried with full military honours.
The Victoria Cross remained in the family until 1983 when Hugo and Katharine’s son, Ric, presented it to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The RSL subsequently purchased the medal and donated it to the Australian War Memorial, where it rests today, as part of an extensive collection of Australian VCs.
Hugo Throssell, VC is commemorated in a number of road names in the southwest and in a memorial outside Fitzgerald’s Hotel in Northam. In the 1950s, local Greenmount residents raised funds for a playground dedicated to Throssell in the park opposite the home he and his family had occupied. At the same time, a memorial bus shelter was erected outside the park. The shelter is in the form of a small granite rotunda with a tiled roof. The dedication reads simply:
To the Memory of
Captain Hugo Throssell V.C.
1914–1918
Why build such a memorial, particularly so many years after the Great War and Hugo’s suicide? No-one now seems to know. But it is perhaps significant that it commemorates only his war service, rather than his life. This tragic story of one Anzac and his medal connects the national and the local, highlighting the continuing complexities of war, heroism, peace and memory.
Do you remember?
An anonymous reflection on the Great War by someone who must have been there captures the mixed emotions of nostalgia, regret and sorrow that characterise the aftermath of every war. It is titled simply, ‘Do You Remember?’
. . . the day you enlisted, when you waited in a queue
(They called it a ‘line’ in those days). The first visit to the QM store,
Trying on your first digger hat and your army boots,
Your first night in camp between army blankets,
Your first leave in uniform—feeling a little self-conscious.
Our first long route-march, when you grumbled because the others grumbled.
But thought it was not so bad, really.
The soft-drink merchants on the road and the ten minute halts.
Your first resentment at being put on menial fatigue.
The bloke who kept the troops in good humour on the march.
The bloke who always had a yarn about ‘a bloke and a tart’.
The bird who’d never close the door or a tent flap
And who’d step all over you with muddy boots coming in.
The first march through town and the friends on the footpath.
Your last glimpse of the Australian shore before ‘going below’.
The flying fishes in the spray at the stern.
The crown and anchor on the hatch.
The cry of ‘mess orderlies’.
The blue of the Indian Ocean—the heat of the Canal.
Your first morning on Egyptian soil—‘Gibbit piastre, Mister?’
Your first trip to Cairo or Alexandria—‘Cle
an boots, Mr McKenzie?’
The route-marches in the sand, and all-night manoeuvres.
The cart-wheels of figs and the lovely-complexioned women of Lemnos.
Your days on Anzac—the beach and the steep climbs, with the queues for chlorinated water.
Beachy Bill—the Turkish Howitzer at tea-time—‘his’ snipers.
Your first look at France and your first feed of ‘deux oeufs’.
Your first ‘ride-up’ in cattle trucks—‘Eight chevaux, forty hommes’.
The Froggies and the cess-pit in the farmhouse yard.
The whine of the bullets and the splatter of machine guns.
The raiding parties, wiring and digging, and the saps.
The duckboards going up the line.
The first night spent within easy reach of Fritz.
The first raiding party, and the ‘hop-over’.
The minutes leading up to zero-hour at dawn.
The cry of ‘stretcher-bearer wanted on the right’.
The winter of 1916–17 and the mud of the Somme.
The trench with the hand of a Fritzy sticking out.
The trench with the floor of ‘ballooned’ dead Fritzes.
The first gas masks and the sinister ‘plop’ of the gas shells.
The rum issue and the occasional strawberry jam amongst all the apricot tins.
The swagger breeches bought from Tommies for twenty francs.
The coffee-stall halfway up, with its empty tins for cups.
The day you were hit (secretly glad to be out of it for a while).
Your first day with an army nurse taking care of you.
Blighty, the theatre and the music hall stars, to say nothing of Leicester Square.
Trips to the places you always wanted to see; the Beefeaters at the Tower.
Armistice Day, 1918, La Guerre fini.
Do you remember? Can you ever forget?
Select sources and references
Contemporary sources of significant direct quotations and excerpts are given here, together with selected secondary works relevant to the themes of each chapter.
Foundations of Anzac
Salt, 24 April 1944; 5 June 1944.
The Capricornian (Rockhampton, Qld), 28 November 1914.
A. H. Edmonds, ‘The Anzacs at Lemnos’, Reveille, 1 April 1935.
Archie Albert Barwick diaries, 1915–16.
Albert Knaggs diary, 1915–16.
Sydney Morning Herald (NSW), 8 May 1915.
Sydney Morning Herald (NSW), 15 May 1915. A re-edited version was published in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, no. 39, 17 May 1915.
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), 7 July 1915.
C. E. W. Bean (ed.), The Anzac Book, Cassell, London, 1916.
Aubrey Herbert, Ben Kendim: A Record of Eastern Travels, Hutchinson, London, 1924.
Albany Advertiser (WA), 8 March 1916.
The Register (Adelaide, SA), 23 December 1918.
Camperdown Chronicle (Vic.), 26 September 1916.
The West Australian (Perth, WA), 2 January 1918.
Queanbeyan Age and Queanbeyan Observer (NSW), 8 March 1918.
John Robertson, ANZAC and Empire, Hamlyn, Melbourne, 1990.
Heroes of Anzac
Yea Chronicle (Vic.), 25 November 1915.
The West Australian (Perth, WA), 13 July 1915.
Reveille, 31 August 1931.
Michael McKernan, ‘McKenzie, William (1869–1947)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, vol. 10, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1986.
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 10 April 1920.
Albert Horace Cooper, Character Glimpses: Australians on the Somme, Waverley Press, Sydney (192_?).
The Daily News (Perth, WA), 17 December 1918 (third edition).
The Horsham Times (Vic.), 2 May 1919.
The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), 14 January 1918.
Albany Advertiser (WA), 27 October 1941.
Alan Stephens, ‘Truscott, Keith William (Bluey) (1916–1943)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, vol. 16, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2002.
The Australian Women’s Weekly, 9 January 1943.
Courier Mail (Brisbane, Qld), 31 October 1942.
http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/farflung/cuttingcables.html http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/collections/maritime/submarine/xcraft.asp
W. Gammage, The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic. 1975.
The home front
The Bulletin, 24 May 1917.
The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), 3 May 1954.
The North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times (Tas.), 3 December 1918.
The Codford Wheeze, no. 3, 25 December 1918.
Hugh Garland, Vignettes of War: from the notebook of a journalist in arms, W. K. Thomas, Adelaide, 1918.
W. G. Millard diary (author’s collection).
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), 4 August 1915.
‘A. Tiveychoc’ (Rowland Edward Lording), There and Back, Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, Sydney, 1935.
Anonymous, Instructions for American servicemen in Australia, War and Navy Departments Washington, D.C., 1942.
Grace Luckman diary (author’s collection).
Michael McKernan, All in!: fighting the war at home, St Leonards, 1995.
Laughter
www.greatwar.nl/
C. E. W. Bean (ed.), The Anzac Book, Cassell, London, 1916.
Anon., Lest We Forget: Digger Tales 1914–1918, 1939–1941, Melbourne (1941?).
Australian Corps News Sheet, 6 November 1918.
Anzac Records Gazette, November 1915.
Australasian Post, 26 April 1956.
Anon., Digger Doings, Geo Nye, Petersham (c. 1943).
Anon., Marching On: Tales of the Diggers, Geo Nye, Petersham (c. 1942).
League Post, 1 October 1932.
‘The Twinkler’ (F. J. Mills), Square Dinkum, Melville & Mullen, Melbourne, 1917.
‘Semaphore’, Digger Yarns (and some others) to Laugh At, E H Gibbs & Son, Melbourne, 1936.
Anon., Digger Aussiosities, Sydney, 1927.
G. Cuttriss, Over the Top with the 3rd Australian Division, London (1918?).
Smith’s Weekly, Christmas 1942.
Mud and Blood, 2/23 Australian Infantry Battalion newsletter, 25 June 1941.
Author’s collection.
G. Seal, Inventing Anzac: The Digger and National Mythology, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2004.
Legends of Anzac
Truth, February 1915.
F. Loraine Petre, The History of the Norfolk Regiment 1685–1918, vol. 2, Jarrold & Sons, The Empire Press, Norwich, 1922.
Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 16 April 1916, Second Section.
C. E. W. Bean (ed.), The Anzac Book, Cassell, London, 1916.
Australasian Post, 26 October 1967.
The Times, 10 May 1915.
Archibald Baxter, We Will Not Cease, Victor Gollancz, London, 1939.
Aubrey Wade, The War of the Guns, Batsford, London, 1936.
H. S. Gullett and C. Barrett (eds), Australia in Palestine, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1919.
C. E. W. Bean, The Story of ANZAC: Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, vols I and II, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1936.
Burra Record (SA), 5 April 1916.
Peter Stanley, Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny, Murder and the Australian Imperial Force, Pier 9, Sydney, 2010.
Memories
C. E. W. Bean (ed), The Anzac Book, Cassell, London, 1916.
Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld), 10 May 1919.
The Listening Post, 24 April 1931.
www.australiansatwar.gov.au
Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 22 July 1917, First Section.
Evening News (London), 8 May 1919.
C. Longmore (ed), Carry On! The Tradi
tions of the AIF, Imperial Printing Company, Perth, 1940.
W. G. Millard papers (author’s collection).
Bruce Scates, Return to Gallipoli, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2006.
Picture credits
Foundations of Anzac
Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey. Australian troops relax inside a captured Turkish trench at Lone Pine. Photo taken by C. E. W. Bean, 12 August 1915. Australian War Memorial no. G01126
Heroes of Anzac
Photo taken by George Silk, Buna, Papua, 25 December 1942. Private George C. ‘Dick’ Whittington being helped along a track through the kunai grass towards a field hospital at Dobodura. The Papuan native helping him is Raphael Oimbari. Australian War Memorial no. 014028
The home front
Christmas, 1918. Patients and nursing staff prepared to celebrate at No. 3 Australian Army Auxiliary Hospital at Dartford, England. Australian War Memorial no. H03905
Laughter
Vaire-sur-Somme, France. 5 May 1918. Australian soldiers resting at the ferry landing on the bank of the River Somme. Note ‘Circular Quay’ painted on the wall, a reference to the famous large ferry terminal in Sydney. Australian War Memorial no. E04795
Legends of Anzac
Photo taken by C. E. W. Bean of troops landing in Anzac Cove at about 10 am on 25 April 1915. The horse boats (with the ends down) had landed mules. Troops can also be seen landing at the southern end of the beach. In the background is the light cruiser HMS Bacchante. Australian War Memorial no. G00905
Memories
Photo taken by George Wilkins of Lt Herbert Buchanan standing beside a flowering fruit tree on Silt Spur. The tree probably originated from an apricot or plum seed discarded by a soldier in 1915. One of a series of photographs taken on the Gallipoli Peninsula under the direction of Captain C. E. W. Bean of the Australian Historical Mission, during the months of February and March, 1919. Australian War Memorial no. G01951
