Eustace Alfred Allan Service number 18828 was the son of Alfred Edward Allan and Lucy Elizabeth Allan born in 1892 in Melbourne Victoria. He was the last of six children and a grandson of Maxwell Rennie Allan. Prior to the war he had been working as a clerk. He enlisted as a Gunner at the age of 22 years and 9 months on 26 January 1916. His Battalion arrived in Devonport on 16/7/1916 for further training.
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| Vaccination time Sydney 1916 |
His Battalion was the 25th Battery 7 Australian Field Artillery. Prior to leaving Southampton, England for France he was promoted to Corporal and they landed in France in January 1917. On May 17 he was admitted to hospital with mumps and later with another bout of illness at the end of the month. on 8 October 1917, he was wounded and died of those wounds 11 days later on 19 October 1917-a gunshot wound to the head.
Between 1916 and 1918, on the Western Front, Australians wore the British issue steel helmet as head protection. The design of helmets was varied between each Army – The Australian army adopted the style known as the Brodie steel helmet in May 1916. Soldiers were still killed but many more survived the initial blow to the head as Eustace probably did.
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| The Australian Army chose the British model- Brodie steel helmet |
He is buried at Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension. For much of the First World War, Abbeville was headquarters of the Commonwealth lines of communication and No. 3 BRCS, No. 5 and No. 2 Stationary Hospitals were stationed there variously from October 1914 to January 1920. The Communal Cemetery was used for burials from November 1914 to September 1916, the earliest being made among the French military graves. The Extension was begun in September 1916. Eustace’s grave is in plot 3 row D grave 12.
The Inscription on his grave is “loved by all he did his duty”
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| Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension where EEusticeis buried |
On our recent trip to the Somme, France we visited a number of Commonwealth War Graves sites and memorials to Australian soldiers. You must commend the Australian government and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for the efforts to care and protect these sites for posterity. Earlier on in the First World War it was decided that there would be no repatriation of the dead - and enormous task given the casualties and the extent of fighting. Instead the war dead and missing are commemorated with a name on a permanent headstone or memorial.
The reality was that many Australian families in the 1920s were never going to be able to afford to visit their loved one’s graves. In fact, it’s the Centenary of WWI and the resurgence of interest that makes it more likely the newer more mobile generations of relatives are visiting to honour the dead. The internet makes it easy to negotiate the system, plan a trip and actually locate the whereabouts of relatives. That’s a wonderful thing.
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| Australian Graves have a Rising Sun |
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| The Australian National Memorial |
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| Thiepval Memorial |
To make the pilgrimage it should be noted that the sites are vast and very dispersed. A full tour of the Western Front could take days to cover the hundreds of kilometres. The full day tour we undertook required about 10 hours travelling and we only saw The Australian National Memorial, the John Monash Centre, Villers- Bretonneux, Lochnager Crater, Thiepval Memorial and surrounding places of interest such as The Leaning Virgin- Basilica of Albert, German cemeteries etc. Consequently, on a bus trip there was no time to stop at or look for specific graves. For specific visits to graves a car or private tour is recommended.
The Australian Government has put out an excellent free publication called “Australian Remembrance Trail Along the Western Front”. It’s a Traveller’s Guide to planning your trip and suggested itineraries. It is published by the Department of Veterans Affairs Canberra April 2018.
Due to time factors we were unable to visit used Eustace’s grave on the day of our travels or even his first cousin Myrton Allan’s (see previous blog).
The countryside where trenches were built, war was fought, and many fell is farmland today. It has mostly covered the reminders of trench warfare, bombings, death and destruction. There are preserved trenches at Beaumont Hamel. Australians fought for 2 ½ years with 80% of the casualties happening on the Western Front.
One of the things which was highlighted during our travels was that many of the local towns which had been rebuilt following the fighting in World War I again fell to the Germans or were subjected to fighting and bombing during the Second World War.
Lest We Forget these amazing heroes and the amazing resilience of the French farmers who have rebuilt their lives not once but twice.
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