Eustace Alfred Allan 1892 - 1917 Killed in Action in the Somme

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.

Vaccination time Sydney 1916

His Battalion was the 25^th 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.

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”  

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.

Australian Graves have a Rising Sun 

The Australian National Memorial

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.

Lest We Forget- Anzac Day 2016

Today in Australia 25/4 we remember ANZAC DAY commemorating those and especially the ANZACs  (Australian New Zealand Army Corps) who fought in the Wars.

While we were in England we visited the Museum of the Lancaster Fusiliers,Bury. Steve's Grandfather James Edward Cassidy was in the 1/7 Fusiliers and while he was in Egypt at the time of the terrible Gallipoli attack he arrived in Gallipoli 4th May, landed 5th May & went into action on 6th May 1915. He was wounded 4th June 1915 by an explosive bullet (head, arm & near heart). His heart was 'saved' by medal in tunic pocket. After six weeks in hospital in Malta it was back to Alexandria, and Gallipoli until Christmas 1915. Of the 1,500 British soldiers who landed at Gallipoli, only 98 survived. Steve's  Great Uncle Harry Duckworth was also in the 1/7th.

Not to detract from Australia's day of rememberance of this Great War I wanted to share this with my readers.

Placque at the Fusiliers Museum explaining their own tragedy at Gallipoli

As we watch the marches here in Australia we are obviously not alone - British communities especially Bury are holding memorials in their own churches today.

Outside the Museum hung copies of the War posters. Stirring stuff. Is it any wonder men lined up in Britain, Australia and New Zealand to sign up with the support of their women folk? Would such patriotism and honour  happen today??
Hopefully it will never come to that  again- ever.

 LEST WE FORGET. WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Steve in the Memorial Garden at the Bury Fusiliers Museum August 2014

Frederick Clayton Bateman Strelley 1883-1955 Whose spoon is it?

Relative Greg Strelley insists his grandfather Frederick Clayton Bateman Strelley (1883-1855) joined the Grenadier Guards at the age of 14 and fought in the Boer War in South Africa. Greg claims his army number was 12367 and he was in the 1st. Grenadier Guards according to the information  stamped into the back of his grandfather’s spoon which Greg still uses on a daily basis. The only Boer War Medal Roll for a F Strelley is for someone who served 1899-1902 with a short service of 200 odd days with the service number 26452 in the 8th Squadron 4^th Regiment of Imperial Yeomanry. I’ve joked with Greg that his granddad found the spoon marked IGG and everyone has continued to use a dead man’s spoon! 

The spoon is still used on a daily basis

However we know during the Second Boer War,  the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Grenadier Guards were deployed to South Africa where they took part in a number of battles including the Battle of Modder River  and the Battle of Belmont, as well as a number of smaller actions. In 1900, 75 men from the regiment were used to raise a fourth Guards regiment, known as the  Irish Guards in honour of the role that Irish regiments had played in the fighting in South Africa.So this may fit with the regimental information of the mysterious  F Strelley above. 

We do know that young Fred lied about his age in order to be accepted in the army. He was a career soldier and became batman (or Aide de Camp) to Lord Loch until Loch was severely wounded in South Africa. 

Fred lied about his age

Here is a faded picture supplied by Greg with Fred on horseback wearing bandoleers and sporting a rifle. You used to be able to see Table Mountain in the background so it was taken in Cape Town S.A. 

Look carefully and the very faded picture comes spookily to life

Greg has many treasured letters written by Loch to his granddad while he was convalescing between the wars. You can read all about Major-General Edward Douglas Loch, 2nd Baron Loch CB, CMG, DSO, MVO (4 April 1873 – 14 August) a senior British Army officer and peer on Wikipedia. Perhaps Greg is using Lord Loch’s spoon because we do know he served in the Boer War in the first regiment of the Grenadiers. Just  teasing Greg.

Apparently Loch took a shine to the young boy who loved horses so much once he got to know about his rather illustrious family history, and regarded the lad as "one of his own class"......but called for him to be made his Aide de Camp to protect him from the battle as much as possible as he reminded him of his own son of a similar age.

Once Loch got badly injured in S.A. he was shipped home and Fred went with him as escort. Fred then became his personal assistant and looked after Loch's children in his house in Dublin, Ireland. There is a tale of how he used to drive the kids to school in a horse-drawn carriage, usually taking a short cut through Phoenix Park, a regular haunt of members of the I.R.A. As a serving British soldier (who still wore uniform whilst on duty) he was a natural target for these people, but got around the problem by carrying bottles of Irish Whiskey under the driving seat. His quote was "the Irish have a greater love of whiskey than they do of any cause" and this was to stand him in good stead once the locals got to know him.

 

Let’s assume the record referred to above isn’t Fred’s. Probably another thing that reinforces the Grenadier Guards theory is Fred’s marriage certificate lists his address as Wellington Barracks Westminster, the Headquarters of the Grenadier Guards. Fred married Georgina Torr on 26/12/1906.

The Boer War medals  housed in Fred’s brass tin received from Queen Mary are held by Greg’s cousin.

So this career soldier also survived the Great War. He entered the French theatre of war on 15/1/15 as Private and was quickly promoted to Corporal. The ASC on Frederick Strelley’s medal roll card for WWI refers to Army Services Corp. The T on his service number of T4/085073 probably refers to a transport role. 

Fred's medal card from the Great War.

Fred's time in the Great War was short lived as he was gassed at Ypres and lost a lung as a consequence. His letters and postcards sent back to his family from France would suggest he served from the early days of hostilities in 1914 until 1917 when he was sent home after the gassing. Sadly his wife Georgina’s brother Frederick Albert Torr was killed on the Somme in 1917.

Greg tells another anecdote about his grandfather's war experiences:

"The other story concerns the bloke he served with in WW1, ....my guess is Ypres. Anyway the story goes like this.....Fred and his mate were sheltering the horses from the constant gunfire in a small copse when they came under heavy shelling.......the Germans had spotted them. As shells burst all around them Fred would simply not leave the horses to their fate alone, while his mate shouted "bugger this for a lark Strelley, I'm off!", whereupon he made a break for it across open ground back toward their lines. Unfortunately for him he took a direct hit from a Howitzer shell and was blown to smithereens.......and no trace of him could be found once the shelling stopped. A lucky escape for Fred!"

Princess Mary's Christmas gift  to the troops in 1914

Fred had a brass tin with Princess Mary's head on it, in which he used to keep all of his medals. These tins were a personal gift from the future Queen to each and every soldier who was serving in the British Army at Christmas 1914.

Georgina used to polish this tin religiously and take his medals out to show the grandkids on  visits to see her.

What a great archive and even a Boer War spoon!!

How wonderful that Greg still has his spoon, medals and these postcards from the Western Front.

Fred and Georgina live through another War

Lest we forget