by Philip J Powell
A few years ago I started researching the 150 or so names on the WWI Roll of Honour at Wesley College, Melbourne. Being my secondary school of many years ago, it became a compelling quest to uncover the stories of these men. From this experience, I have also researched other WWI men and women including family members and other organisations.
This research has resulted in visits to many Commonwealth War Graves Commission (“CWGC”) graves and memorials and related battlefields in Gallipoli, France and Belgium and a few graves in England and Australia.
In 2017 I was asked to speak at Christ Church, South Yarra on the re-dedication of Sir Harry Chauvel’s sword, which has been on display at the church since shortly after his death. That reinforced an interest in the Palestine campaign and the service of the Light Horse and the Imperial Camel Corps.
In early May 2018, I was able to undertake a trip to the Middle East to complete the experience of visiting the three main theatres of the AIF in WWI. I visited a number of WWI and WWII CWGC cemeteries and two well-known battle locations, namely Beersheba[1] in Israel and El Alamein in Egypt.
What follows is a commentary and reflection on this trip, primarily on the WWI aspects.
This is a substantial cemetery with nearly 4,000 graves just outside Tel Aviv, near the Ben Gurion airport. In addition to WW1 and WW2, there are a large number of graves for deaths in between the wars and post WW2, that reflect the well-known civil conflict in this region which resulted in the departure of the British in 1948.
The cemetery is a very typical CWGC cemetery – well maintained, with plenty of flowering plants. It is located in an industrial area and I was grateful to have a local resident drive me there.
I was looking for the graves of OWs[2] Cpl John Alexander Dunlop, 4th Anzac Battalion, Imperial Camel Corps, who died of wounds on 28 November 1917 and Lt Jack Keith Curwen-Walker, an AFC 1st Squadron pilot killed in a plane crash 3 May 1918. Dunlop was killed in an action outside of modern Tel Aviv at a site called Bald Hill by the British. Subsequently, we did our best to locate this site. If our estimate was correct it is now an urban area, with a small park dedicated to a tank battle in either the 1967 or 1973 war (I cannot remember which).
North Israel
I participated in a three-day tourist group from Tel Aviv to the Galilee and Golan Heights and Dead Sea regions.
There was no WW1 context to this tour, but I reflected that some of the region we passed through was part of the famous swift action of September 1918 when the British Army broke through the Turkish coastal defences and swept up the coast plain and then over to the valley of Megiddo and onto Damascus and Homs.
Apart from passing some CWGC cemeteries at Haifa, you would not be aware of any of that. The appreciation I got from this tour was the nature of the country and the impact of the geography of valleys and mountains in the movement of armies.
Jerusalem War Cemetery
Located on French’s Hill (which is part of the Mount of Olives), the cemetery is close to the Old City, but I doubt it attracts many visitors – for our taxi driver it was the British Martyrs’ location.
Built on a hill it contains nearly 2,500 graves with a large memorial at the rear to 3,316 men with no known graves. It is an impressive place and again maintained to the high CWGC standard. The memorial with its dome and chapel (designed by Sir John Burnet) reminded me somewhat of the Canberra war memorial. Inserted in the dome is a statue of a St George figure slaying the dragon – not many CWCG cemeteries have a statue.
Outside the main gate is a long-established Australian Government memorial to the ‘part played’ by the AIF in Sinai, Palestine and Syria.
The OW grave we were looking for was for Sgt Charles Franklin Fuhrmann, 10th Light Horse Regiment, who died of pneumonia on 13 August 1918, a casualty of the conditions endured in the summer of 1918.
On the Memorial to those without graves were two men:
Boer war veteran Capt Frederick Henry Naylor, OW, 1 Australian Battalion of the Imperial Camel Corps, who was killed on 19 April 1917 at the second battle of Gaza. Aged 37, his death leading an attack on a Turkish redoubt is recorded in David Cameron’s The Charge.[3]
Trooper Stanley McGillivray Johnston, 11th Light Horse, killed on 2 May 1918 as part of the second raid on Es Salt, Jordan. His service file notes that he was not buried due to ‘hurried withdrawal of Regiment’. He is a member of my wife’s family.
Gaza
I confess that my research was a bit lacking. I was only vaguely aware of the Anzac Trail that was established some time ago by the Jewish National Fund of Australia and New Zealand.[4]
Anyhow I was up for a drive to the Gaza region with my local Israeli (ex-Australian) driver to see what was on offer. The roads are fine and rather easily travelled. Of course the idea of travelling close to the Gaza Strip area made the trip intriguing.
It was here that I had wished I had brought one of the books – say David Cameron’s The Charge, as I quickly realised my recall of the events around the early 1917 battles of Gaza 1 and Gaza 2 was limited.
The highlight of this trip was the ANZAC Memorial, which is a 50-year-old concrete structure with a small lookout in the middle of a eucalypt plantation. It has the added interest of being located only a kilometre or so from the Gaza Strip border, just south of the centre of the city of Gaza. Over the final five kilometres of the drive, the road deteriorates badly and I recall seeing only one sign to the memorial. Built by the Jewish National Fund with assistance from Australian and New Zealand Jewish interests the memorial provides a view over into Gaza in the near distance.
The three information boards are rather light on information and they advise that the lookout tower at the top of the memorial offers a view of the Gaza battlefields. On return to Australia I have reacquainted myself with David Cameron’s book.
In Gaza 1 the Australians might have moved through this area, to attack from the north of city. In Gaza 2 it is likely that Tank Redoubt feature[5] would have just been to the east of the memorial.
I have also looked at Paul Daley’s 2009 book Beersheba on my return. In Chapter 7 titled Badlands he tells of his visit to the same memorial and says that due to concerns of threats from Hamas sharpshooters they did not climb the lookout and effectively they were in ‘no man’s land’. Due to greater Israeli measures against tunnels and missile attacks, my guide says the biggest threat today is from kites sent over which are used to light fires and points out as we drive in some burnt out scrub.
The countryside is rolling and some is growing grain. You could be in Australian pastoral country. Of course, you are not with an area dominated by Israeli army cars patrolling the roads and the smoke rising from the tyres being burnt by Palestinian protestors in Gaza. A member of a French media company visited the site while we were there looking for any evidence of protests. The following day I am told that four protesters were killed on that day.
Nearby, and just a little to the rear, we had difficultly finding what was called the Badlands view point (number 1 on the ANZAC Trail)– this is probably a bit more like what the country was like 100 years ago with limited vegetation. We found a recently constructed viewing point but no information boards.
A week later, I returned to this area with an Israeli tour guide and a friend of mine[6] as we undertook a private day tour to Beersheba. It was interesting to see that around the Anzac Memorial was the evidence of a fire from what I can only assume was a fire kite from the Gaza Strip. This makes you realise that any investment in facilities in this area is rather pointless and, hopefully, what is there will not be damaged or destroyed.
Our guide then took us to Number 5 on the trail named Eshkol Park which the Wadi Besor runs through. In Anzac hands from spring 1917, a train line was built across the river in June 1917. There is a reconstructed bridge and a train carriage.
We did not do the full Anzac Trail to Khalassa and Ashuj (now Golda Park) but cut across on a road to Ofaqim where there is an old Turkish police station and according to our guide the possible location of the material dropped by a British intelligence officer to fool the Turks into thinking the October 1917 attack would be at Gaza.
Beersheba is a big city. The CWGC cemetery has high-rise apartments facing its entrance. The cemetery itself is a very simple layout and while not as ‘beautiful’ as I would describe some other CWGC cemeteries, still with 1,239 graves it is impressive.
We found our OW, Lt Norman Stuart Edmonstone, who died fighting in a British unit, the Queen’s Westminster’s on 7 November 1917, a few days after the Beersheba attack as the British Army moved on Gaza itself.
In addition, there are three VCs[7] buried here including the well-known Lt Colonel LC Maygar, 8th Light Horse of Boer war and Gallipoli fame, who died the day after the battle.[8] Also Major AM Lafone, Middlesex Yeomanry, who Cameron writes of his bravery in defending a key hill from a major Turkish attack on 27 October 1917[9] and Captain JF Russell, a doctor killed on 6 November 1917 attending to the wounded.
The surprise here was the adjacent museum opened last October. I understand it is privately owned.[10] It has excellent displays (better than the new Fromelles facility) and a well put together 20-minute film clip splicing in footage from the movie The Light Horsemen with one of the men buried in the cemetery.
It also provides an elevated viewing area over the cemetery, which is quite rare and moving.
The downside was we probably spent too much time there and then rushed out to Tel el Saba. Now – I wasn’t ready for this – it is an excavation site of an ancient city, and to my mind much smaller than I had expected. Anyhow, being there at around 4pm meant we could experience the light conditions that the Light Horsemen experienced (albeit we were in May rather than October).
Unfortunately, the weather was not clear but despite the modern incursions into this area, you can get a feeling for the lie of the land, as it would have been 100 years ago.
I now regret that we did not stay longer in Beersheba – perhaps overnight. While there is not a lot more to do, we did not have time to visit older parts of the city. Our guide did take us to the relatively new Park of the Australian Soldier, but while a noble gesture with some information boards and a fine statue by Peter Corlett, it has limited historical value.
The images below show the view from Tel el Saba . The open ground to the south (left) and looking to the city (right).
Some observations from the visit to Israel.
Virtually all the names of 100 years ago have changed. Then the towns, rivers and hills were Arab/Turkish names; now they have been replaced with Israeli names. Trying to line up the maps in the Australian Official History (and other books) and modern Israel is challenging and rather frustrating. I provided a 1917 map of the Tel Aviv area from the Official History to my driver (an ex-Aussie now a local) and he just laughed. In some cases the change is not all that radical, such as the town of Ramleh is now called Ramla;[11] but in many cases, it is impossible to line up the past with the present.
The growth of Israel and its cities means that much of the geography has changed. Urban developments and massive agricultural developments fill much of the landscape.
While fighting at Gaza and Beersheba, the occupation of Jerusalem in late 1917 and the 1918 push to Damascus is well known, there is a lot of other actions that are hardly known. For example, the fighting that Dunlop died in November 1917 was just outside modern Tel Aviv and the river that flows just north of the main city, which is now a rather pleasant lateral park, was the scene of fighting between the British forces and the Turks. The reality is that Israel is a country of conflict during the ages, and not surprisingly minor battles of WW1 are overwhelmed by later events such as 1967 and 1973, which are far more important to the locals.
The main impression from this trip was that there is a lack of readily available information that enables one to interpret the current landscape with that of the past. It needs the equivalent of a Peter Pedersen’s Anzacs on the Western Front book. I have contacted a historian at the AWM and he advises he is not aware of any such work by any person.
Of course, undertaking such a work would face significant issues as many of the battlefields have very restricted, if no, access – e.g. Sinai, Gaza, Syria. In addition, while a self-driving tour is possible, I feel that compared to the freedom of movement enjoyed in France and Belgium it would be a task only for the bold and hardy.
But regardless, a publication covering what you can see in Israel (and perhaps into Jordan regarding Es Salt), would be of great assistance – even if readers were undertaking a fully guided tour.
One interesting webite our Beersheba guide provided was https://amudanan.co.il.
It is a mapping guide that enables an old Palestine map (called PEF-1880) to replace the locations shown on current maps. It would be easier if I could read Hebrew; but using the modern satellite map I have been able to establish some landmarks, and resolve a number of queries from my visit.
Egypt
What a challenging place! The chaotic traffic of Cairo and Alexandria; the crowds; the constant presence of military and police and the sight of recently built apartments and developments moving into what was desert.
El Alamein
On arrival at Cairo airport, we were driven on the Cairo ring road around the south of the city and onto the ‘Desert’ highway to Alexandria. A multi-lane road with trucks having their own road to the side. Traffic into Alexandria late in the afternoon as bad as you would want to experience and sights of recently slaughtered animals at the roadside butcher shops will stay in my mind.
It was a 90-minute drive from our hotel (which was at the eastern end of Alexandria) to El Alamein. The road is of highway standard, but what you have to take in is the almost ceaseless holiday apartments along the road – with special areas for the air force and army personnel.
The CWGC El Alamein cemetery is located off the main road and on a slight slope. To the right is an Australian government memorial to the 9th Division and a Ross Bastiaan plaque.
The entry feature to the cemetery proper is a memorial with 11,500 names to those without graves. The names are engraved in stone and rather hard to read (and to photograph). The top of the memorial has a flat roof that enables a viewing area onto the cemetery. With over 7,000 graves it is a large cemetery. The obvious feature of the cemetery is the absence of grass. This is a desert cemetery, with a large number of shrubs and trees.
Alexandria
There are several CWGC cemeteries here and we visited the two known as Chatby and Hadra. Both cemeteries are located close to one another being not to far from the city centre. Chatby was the original WW1 cemetery and we were looking for two OWs who died after an illness at Gallipoli.
Private Norman Fielding, 24th Battalion died 29 November 1915 at Alexandra 5th General Hospital of pneumonia. He was initially reported ill with malaria on 20 November 1915 at Gallipoli. His sister was a nurse at Lemnos.
Private Henry Thomas Clive Alcock, 23rd Battalion, died of appendicitis on 14 February 1916 at No 15 General Hospital after becoming ill on Gallipoli on 7 November with influenza and gastritis.
Also at Chatby is a memorial for those who died at sea in the region. On this memorial is OW Lt Jack Lindsay Doubleday, AAMC Dental detail, who died 30 October 1918 of meningitis a fortnight into the voyage to Europe on the HMAT Malta. His death made more tragic occurring a few days before the 11 November Armistice. He had health issues that prevented him from enlisting earlier, but on finally getting to sail he never completed the voyage.
Hadra was opened in 1916 when Chatby was becoming full and has 1,700 WW1 graves. We visited it to find an OW WW2 casualty Private Jack Frederick Burge, 2/23rd Battalion who died of wounds on 13 November 1942. While I do not have details of his service, I assume he was wounded at the third battle of El Alamein.
We also visited the grave of Ernest Horlock, VC. A 1914 WW1 VC awardee in France, he was one of the 610 personnel killed in a submarine attack on his boat as it arrived in Alexandria in December 1917.
Both cemeteries are well maintained and the local gardeners were pleased to welcome us and took photos of us at the respective headstones. At Chatby the grave for Alcock did not have any flowers in front of that – no problem, the gardener cut some flowers from a nearby plant and placed them in front of the headstone for our photos. The gardeners obviously share photos as next day at Cairo War Cemetery, the head gardener said that he had seen us in photos at Alexandria!
Cairo
Oddly, this was an unexpected highlight of the trip. The Cairo War Cemetery, which is just five kilometres from the city centre, is behind high walls in very unattractive urban setting. However, the cemetery itself is one of the most beautiful with one of the biggest ‘wow’ moments I have had in visiting CWGC cemeteries.
Perhaps being a clear morning with blue sky helped, but the condition of the cemetery was superb. The grass was bowling green standard and the many Poinciana trees with their flowing red flowers were spectacular.
The cemetery is partly civilian at it was the British Protestant cemetery prior to WW1. There are just over 2,000 WW1 graves and 340 WW2 graves plus some memorials.
The OW we came to visit was Lt-Col Robert Garrick Wilson, who died of illness on 9 February 1916. An honorary rank, he owned the land at Broadmeadows, Melbourne which the AIF camp was built. He ran a canteen there and when the First AIF left for Egypt he and his son went as well to continue a canteen/comforts service for the troops. He was 52 years old when he died.
Another grave of interest was of Private Edward Attfield. On Anzac Day, just a few weeks prior, a new headstone had been placed on his grave to mark his resting place. Prior to that, it had been an Australian soldier “known only to God”. For over 100 years Attfield had been treated as a deserter when he failed to report to camp in February 1916. For reasons, which I do not understand, the body of an Australian soldier found in Cairo at about the same time was not linked to his disappearance. Thankfully that error has now been corrected. He is of particular interest to me as he lived with his parents at 72 Lang St, South Yarra. This would have him, as a member of the Church of England, in the parish of Christ Church South Yarra whose WW1 war dead I have been researching.
We also visited the grave of Major General John Campbell, VC who died 26 February 1942.
The last cemetery we visited was the Heliopolis War Cemetery, just ten kilometres to the north-east of central Cairo. We were looking for an Indian Army VC [12] who is one of the 4,000 men commemorated on the Port Tewfik memorial. A memorial was originally been at the south end of the Suez Canal but due to Israeli-Egyptian conflict was destroyed and replaced here in this large cemetery with 1,830 graves from both WW1 and WW2. We noted a number of Australians with late 1942 deaths, which we assumed were casualties of the El Alamein conflict and died in Cairo hospitals.
Notes:
[1] Modern Israeli spelling is Be’er Sheva.
[2] The term OW is the abbreviation to describe a former student of Wesley College – as in Old Wesley.
[3] David Cameron The Charge – page 173
[4] The map provided to me was dated March 2011. See website: http://www.kkl-jnf.org/people-and-environment/kkl-jnf-projects-partners/dfu-2012/anzac-trail/
[5] See map on Cameron p 169.
[6] Rodney Thorpe joined me for the later part of my Israel visit and then on to Jordan and Egypt.
[7] I had been requested to photograph the headstone of any VCs in the cemeteries visited on this trip.
[8] Cameron p298
[9] Cameron pp235-6
[10] Established in cooperation with the Jewish National Fund of Australia, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, the Australian Government and the Beersheba Municipality.
[11] There is the similar situation in Belgium with the WW1 period names such as Messines is now Mesen
[12] Badlu Singh VC, died 23 September 1918 14th Murray’s Jat Lancers