by Janice Cooper Oh for the touch of a vanished hand And the sound of a voice that is still. On the 18th September 2018, 100 years after the death of Toowoomba born Private Stanley Joseph Townson on the Western Front, Paul Shepperd will fulfil a wish the soldier’s father, William Townson had for his son’s grave by placing two lines of poetry at his memorial in Bellicourt British Cemetery, Picardie, France. Paul, an … Continue reading
One hundred years ago World War I was in its third year. Thousands of Australian soldiers were fighting for Britain against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire. Newspapers published reports from the frontline and lists of casualties that told of the horrors of war. Recruiting posters encouraged men to enlist, to keep hope alive in the trenches and at home. A soldier blinded by a shell burst wrote a poem calling to ‘the lads back home’ to join the fight:- … Continue reading
Annie Wheeler’s index of Central Queenslanders serving in the Australian Imperial Force (A.I.F.) has enabled Genealogical Society of Queensland (GSQ) volunteers to document the lives of more than 2,700 Australian men and women who fought and died and World War I. Their service records, housed in the National Archives of Australia (NAA), show the diseases from which they suffered – scabies and diarrhoea, trench foot, venereal disease, influenza and tuberculosis – as well as the battle injuries that either killed … Continue reading
One-sixth of Australia’s total pre-World War I population of 5 million was killed in action or wounded in the Middle East battles at Egypt or Gallipoli, in France or Belgium at Messines, Polygon Wood, Passchendaele. Survivors of these battles were discharged, repatriated to Australia, expected to take up their lives after what is today acknowledged as the most brutal war in living memory. Some managed to resume their pre-war lives, despite old wounds, amputations, painful memories of loss and sacrifice; … Continue reading
One hundred years ago the world was engulfed in conflict. Men and women from every nation were conscripted or volunteered to fight when hostilities broke out in Europe in August 1914. Some 416,809 Australian men and women enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF), the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army. By the end of the war, over 60,000 Australians had been killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed or taken prisoner. One central Queensland woman who found … Continue reading
