Lest We Forget

On Friday I will leave the house in darkness to join swarms of people commemorating the landing at Gallipoli of the Australian and New Zealand troops in World War I. Next year will commemorate the centenary of that landing, and no less significant this year makes the ninety-ninth year since that fateful day.

ANZAC Day is not just a day to commiserate the landing on the Turkish peninsula which saw thousands of allied troop’s deaths; it is also a day to commemorate all the other battles that allied troops have participated in since (and even prior) to Federation. From the Boer War in South Africa, to the more recent battles in Afghanistan and Iraq, Australia and New Zealand have a long history of involvement in warfare. However, this is not my place to recount the strategies and death tolls of the battles that we, as a nation were involved in, this is where I will try and personalise some of the participants of the wars; namely some of my ancestors.

I remember observing a minutes’ silence when I was in primary school for ANZAC Day, I would have been 6 or 7 years old. I knew that we were to be silent for one minute and think about the war, the people that fought in the war and the people that didn’t come home. All I could think about during that minute was my Pop. He was the only ‘old’ person I could think of that had died. All my other grandparents were still alive and as far as I knew they had not been involved in the war. As far as I knew my Pop had not been involved in the war either, he was just the first person that came to mind, and repeatedly entered my thoughts during these timed silences. It would take me years, actually, nearly 20 of them to discover the war histories that surround my ancestors.

The War in Europe

It turns out that Hank did participate in battle. However, he was not an ANZAC, and at that time had never stepped onto Australian soil, it would be during his time in the army, where he did get his first taste of Australia.

Hendrik (Hank) Suffridus Wilkens was born in 1920 in the Dutch East Indies; modern day Indonesia. According to his Australian naturalisation records he and his family moved back to the Netherlands for ten years in 1935. Both of Hank’s parents had been born and raised in the Dutch East Indies, sporadically returning to the Netherlands during their lives.



Hank Wilkens (fifth from right in trench coat) in the Netherlands in 1941.
Note the Swastika painted on the wall behind the group.

The Wilkens returned to the Netherlands four years prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The Netherlands hoped to stay neutral in the face of another World War, however in May 1940 Rotterdam was bombed and the Dutch were invaded by Nazi Germany. The Netherlands, including the Wilkens family were staring into the darkness of another war, and wouldn’t see the end of it for another four years. In 1945 Germany surrendered and the Second World War would end, and Hank would return to the Dutch East Indies. Hardly the tropical paradise that the Wilkens family had left in 1935, the Dutch East Indies had been invaded by the Japanese in 1942, bringing violence and unrest to the generally peaceful islands.

In 1945 on Hank’s return to the Dutch East Indies he was conscripted to the KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger), the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army. What happened next is hard to say, what I do know for sure is that he came to Australia in 1946 with the Army, for how long and where exactly I can’t say. Whilst I do hold copies of Hank’s military records they are all in Dutch, a language I am not proficient in, unless you count Google Translate as proficient. However, by glancing through a short history of the KNIL it appears that the time frame in which Hank was a part of the this faction of the Dutch Army would have been the time in which the Dutch were trying to reestablish control of Indonesia which had both been invaded by the Japanese as well as natives trying to overthrow the Dutch government and reestablish control. The efforts of the Dutch failed and the Netherlands finally conceded defeat and recognised Indonesian sovereignty in 1949. The same year Hank returned to the Netherlands, before immigrating to Australia in 1951.

From Australian Shores

On the other branch of the tree, being my maternal side and a World War before Hank’s involvement was the enlistment of four brothers from Kapunda, South Australia.

Lancelot Dudley Hughes was my great grandfather. Born in 1895 to Henry and Penelope Hughes he was the second of four sons and one daughter. Fairly quick off the mark Dudley, as he was more commonly known, enlisted in July 1915 and embarked for battle in November of that year. Corporal L. D. Hughes of the 27^th Battalion served in Egypt and France and was wounded in action in 1916 after a gunshot wound to the chest. Dudley’s two older brothers, also felt the patriotic call of warfare. In February and August of 1915 Roland Harry Hughes and Leonard Headland Hughes, respectively enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). All were enlisted in the 27^th Battalion. This particular Battalion was raised in South Australia in March 1915 and a large number of recruits came from the suburbs of Adelaide. Lieutenant Roland Hughes landed on the shores of Gallipoli in September 1915 before seeing action in Egypt and France. In August 1916 he received a gunshot wound to the leg and was hospitalised.



Private Leonard Headland Hughes. Photo courtesy of Grave Secrets

The eldest of them all was Leonard Headland Hughes. Enlisting in August 1915, Leonard set sail on the seas in January the following year. Initially part of the 8^th Reinforcements of the 27^th Infantry Battalion, he would later join the 10^th Infantry Battalion. About five months after he’d set sail Leonard arrived on solid, hot, and sandy ground in Egypt. However, by early April he had set sail again, this time for Marseille, France. The 10^th Battalions first major action was at Pozières in the Somme Valley in July 1916.[1] They were heavily involved in establishing and defending the front line of the ANZAC position[2]. The Battle of the Somme would lead to almost 23,000 Australian casualties. Sadly, Private Leonard Hughes was one of those. The eldest of the Hughes’ brother’s name adorned the pages of the ‘missing lists’ in the Australian newspapers for months, until he was finally declared ‘killed in action’ in January 1917. His Red Cross papers state that ‘on about the date named [July 23/25 1916] Hughes was killed in the front line trench, the top part of his body being blown away’[3] it is presumably because of the gruesome nature of his death that the war office was not able to locate his body. On the 24th June 1921 the Base Records Office for the AIF had still been ‘unable to obtain any trace of the last resting place of...the late No. 3520 Private L. H. Hughes, 10th Battalion’[4].

Corporal Lancelot Dudley Hughes. Photo courtesy of Grave Secrets.

In 1917 Henry and Penelope Hughes had lost one son in the fields of France and had two more fighting battles on the same soil. It was in November of that same year that Norman Charles Hughes, their youngest son asked and gained permission from his parents to enlist in the AIF. Included in Norman’s attestation papers is a letter written in Henry’s hand giving permission for his 19 year old son to enlist in active service. A presumably patriotic, yet anxious Henry states that Norman ‘is the fourth son to enlist. I have no more!’[5]

Private Norman Charles Hughes of the 3^rd Lighthorse would return home, alongside two of his brother’s Dudley and Roland. Private Leonard Headland Hughes’ remains were reinterred possibly as late as 1929 in the Serre Road Cemetery No. 2, situated near Beaumont Hamel, France. He was posthumously awarded the Victory Medal, the British War Medal and the 1914/15 Star.

So, when I am braving the cold Autumnal morning waiting for the sun to rise and listening to the bugle play the Last Post I will think of my ancestors that fought for freedom that we can call normality. I will think of Hank and his family watching his country crumbling under Nazi invasion. I will think of Henry and Penelope Hughes farewelling four sons off to war. And I will think of Private Leonard Headland Hughes gallantly leaving the comfort of the South Australian shores to stare one of the AIF’s most horrific battles square in the face and not returning home.

Lest we forget.

This is just a small snippet of my ancestors that participated did their bit for their country during the twentieth century. Others were no less important or insignificant having participated in several different factions over both World Wars.

Some of the sources I have used to research my ancestor's war histories include:

The Australian War Memorial

Grave Secrets

The AIF Project

The National Archives of Australia   

State Records of South Australia

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[1] 10^th Battalion, http://www.awm.gov.au/units/unit_11197.asp, accessed 14 March 2012

[2] Ibid.

[3] Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau, http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/records/1drl0428/2/138/10/1drl-0428-2-138-10-14.pdf, accessed 14 March 2012

[4] Hughes, L. H., ‘Attestation and Military Service Records’, Service Number 3520, National Archives of Australia, B2455, http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=7031357, accessed 14 March 2012.

[5] Hughes, N. C., ‘Attestation and Military Records’, Service Number 3715, National Archives of Australia, B2455, http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp, accessed 14 March 2012.

Skeletons and scandal

I am extremely lucky to be able to do something that I love; both in a professional work sense and also for pleasure. Recently I was asked to do some genealogical research for two separate friends. One was as a gift for another family member, as something a little different and one, which is still in the works, is purely out of interest. Whilst, my love of genealogy is spurned from my interest in my own family history, it doesn’t take much for me to get ingrained into someone else’s story. To explore and flesh out the stories within a family, and ultimately the path that has led them to be here today.



Family tree as a gift.

 

The first family tree was more ornamental, than a huge research project. Don’t get me wrong, it did involve research, some of which I would not have been able to do without the help of several resources and people. The final piece charted seven generations, any further and I would have had to commission an art work the size of a wall to be able to fit any further ancestors onto the tree. I was extremely proud of the finished product, and am happy to say that the recipient and her family were happy and intrigued with the work I had laboured over.

The second tree will be a slow and steady work in progress. This particular friend had often questioned my intrigue with history, and in particular family history. However, once this project got under way, she quickly became enamoured with her own history. Mind you, hers is quite interesting. While I am still a long way off completing the research, the several generations I have garnered information about have thrown out a few curve balls. One branch of the tree is sending up road blocks left, right and centre, the other is juicy, juicy, juicy. Thus far I have found a divorce in 1916, together with several visits to the Royal Park Hospital for the Insane. And I have only just started.

Making headlines. Trove coming up with the goods

What looked to be straightforward look into a couple in the late 1800s-early 1900s came to a few fuzzy points. The husband in question had (thankfully) left a will, and in it named a woman I was SURE wasn’t his wife. If she had of been, then I had failed dismally in my line of work. It turns out that the woman named in his will was indeed his wife, whom had predeceased him. This was odd; the woman I was looking for had died after her husband. After getting increasingly frustrated that I had made a wrong turn somewhere, I decided that maybe, just maybe there had been some scandal in the family. Could there have been a divorce? They were a rarity in the early twentieth century, however were known to happen. I quickly consulted the digitised divorce causes books from PROV (VPRS 5335/P5)

Voila! I found a case for the couple I was looking for. There it was, the cause of the question mark hanging over the confusing will and the separate living quarters listed on numerous census lists. Over 50 pages detailed that the husband divorced his wife - who was not present at the trial - under the reasoning of ‘desertion’. The husband’s case detailing his ‘desertion’ argument, included the particulars about his wife’s admittance to the Royal Park Hospital for the Insane and her unwillingness to share the marital bed. I eagerly read through the whole case, wishing that there would be an argument from the wife in her defence. Alas, there was not and one can only assume her side of the story.

The research is still underway, and with all other genealogical research, it will never be completed (currently finding ancestors in Switzerland and France). I am sure, like most families, there are plenty more skeletons in the closet.

Thanks to the invaluable records available through PROV, and in particular their digitised records (divorce causes book, wills up until 1925) and their newly digitised wills and probate index, I have been able to begin to flesh out what looks to be an intriguing record of a family.

 

Phoebe