Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington, 1914-1918

 

The Melbourne Herald 15 June 1915

Courtesy of Kim Phillips of the Spirits of Gallipoli website

 

Danaher E B    Pte    477    Edmund Butterworth              7 Inf Bn    20    Tinsmith    Single    Pres

Address:    Flemington, Shields St, 30   

Next of Kin:    Danaher, Daniel, father 30 Shields St, Flemington   

Enlisted:    17 Aug 1914       

Embarked:     A20 Hororata 19 Oct 1914 

Prior service:  2 years senior cadets; 18 months 58 Inf Regt.

 

Date of death:  25/4/1915

CWGC:  "Native of Melbourne. Son of Daniel and Selina Danaher, of 30, Shields St.,

Flemington, Victoria, Australia".

No.2 OUTPOST CEMETERY

 

Relatives on Active Service:

2163 Pte Maurice Danaher, enlisted in Townsville, brother

 

 

Private Edmond Butterworth Danaher

 

Rod Martin

 

(All Australian Memorial)

 

30 Shields Street, Flemington   (Google Earth)

 

Edmond Danaher (as he spelled his Christian name on his enlistment form) was just under twenty years old when he joined the army on 17 August 1914.  He was one of thousands of keen young (and not so young) men who besieged recruiting offices across Australia in the weeks following the declaration of war on 4 August. Their motives included a desire to protect king and empire, a chance to see the world and a sense of adventure.  Edmond was probably better prepared for combat than most of them.  After completing two years in the senior cadets while at school, he joined 58 Infantry Brigade, the Essendon-based militia unit led by Lieutenant-Colonel Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott, and served fifteen months in that unit.  Once he enlisted, Edmond followed Elliott into the newly created 7 Infantry Battalion, becoming the comrade of such men as Ellis ‘Rocky’ Stones, Lieutenant Ken Walker and Captain Cedric Permezel.

 

Edmond was a tinsmith by trade and lived with his parents at 30 Shields Street, Flemington. He was slightly built, with a dark complexion, blue eyes and black hair.  When he enlisted, he was sent to Broadmeadows training camp before embarking on A20 HMAT Hororata on 19 October, headed ostensibly for France.

 

Troops boarding Hororata at Port Melbourne in 1915  (AWM PB0438)

 

Ships from all Australian states and New Zealand gathered at Albany in Western Australia and sailed in convoy across the Indian Ocean, leaving on 1 November.  On the ninth day of the month, one of their escorts, HMAS Sydney, sailed ahead on orders from the Australian Navy.  The German commerce raider Emden had been sighted near the Cocos Islands, to the west. Using its superior speed, Sydney cornered the enemy vessel and battered it with its six-inch guns, forcing the German commander to run it aground on North Keeling Island.  This was Australia’s first naval victory in World War One.  The successful occupation of German New Guinea between September and November 1914 had marked its first victories on land.

 

 

 HMAS Sydney (1)  (Royal Australian Navy Heritage Collection)

 

The wreck of the Emden, with an Australian boarding party.  11 November 1914  (AWM G01442A)

 

When the convoy neared the Red Sea, orders came through to its commanders indicating that the troops would now disembark in Egypt, rather than going on the western Europe.  The British war cabinet had adopted the idea of attacking and capturing Constantinople (now Istanbul) and putting Turkey, which had lately joined the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, out of the war.  This would give the British and French unlimited access to the Black Sea and Crimea, through which they could supply their eastern ally, Tsarist Russia.

 

Edmond and his comrades duly disembarked at Port Said and headed for a camp at Mena, on the outskirts of Cairo and next to the Pyramids.  There they trained in the desert and took their turn at defending the Suez Canal from attack by the Turks.  

 

‘Pompey’ Elliott with fellow 7 Battalion soldiers from Charlton, Victoria, photographed at Mena, 1915.  (AWM  H15592)

 

Edmond missed some of this, however, because he was hospitalised on 8 December, suffering from an abscess on his knee.  He was there until the seventeenth of the month.

 

While at Mena, many of the troops also sowed some wild oats in the seamier streets of Cairo, and quite a few engaged in the so-called ‘Battle of the Wozzer’ on 2 April 1915.  It was actually a riot started in the Wass’ah district of the city by Anzac troops angry at a particular brothel where an Australian was allegedly stabbed, and believed to be the premises responsible for the spread of syphilis.  The date was auspicious: Good Friday.

 

We do not know if Edmond was involved in this riot.  Suffice it to say that he was not sent home with venereal disease before the men sailed for the island of Lemnos, preparatory to the planned attack at Gallipoli.  Quite large numbers of men were.

 

Troops of 3 Australian Infantry Brigade practising landings on Lemnos, 1915   (AWM PS1447)

 

By 25 April, the men had arrived off the western coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula. On that date, beginning at 4.00 am, steamboats cast off their tows and naval ratings in ships’ boats full of soldiers rowed for the planned landing spot near a headland called Gaba Tepe.   However, probably due to the fact that the ratings lost their way in the dark and veered to the left, the first boats landed about a mile to the north of the designated spot, at a place now known as Anzac Cove. The men had been told that they would be landing on a 3 000-metre front and would face terrain that could be crossed relatively easily.  In reality, the boats of the various units bunched together and the men went ashore on a narrow front, troops from different battalions becoming discombobulated from the start.  The land in front of them would have presented a worrying spectacle: steeply rising hills dissected by eroded gullies and spurs, covered in coarse bushes that would make progress very difficult. Seven Battalion was in the second wave, being towed in at 5.30 am and following the other boats to the north.

Reconstruction of a ‘Gallipoli boat’, Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance   (Rod Martin)

 

The scene on the beach has been described a chaotic.  Soldiers from various units were mixed together, in many cases with no officers to lead them, not knowing where to go, and being picked off by the relatively small number of Turkish soldiers who were strategically placed on the heights. Some men were shot while still in their boats. From somewhere came an order to drop their packs and head for the heights, up the foreboding gullies that, of necessity, required them to run in small packs, having no communication with other groups in the area and being regularly targeted by the enemy.

 

The miracle was that some of these troops actually reached the heights and displaced Turks from their posts.  However, as Peter Dennis et al have written, these men were isolated and scattered and could not provide a nucleus for any follow-up force to use to advantage. Moreover, the Turkish commander, Mustapha Kemal, quickly reinforced his surviving defenders by calling in fresh troops, thus establishing a stalemate. There the Australian troops remained, facing the enemy on ridges that were later given such names as Russell’s Top, Walker’s Ridge and Quinn’s and Steele’s Posts. The British commander-in-chief, Sir Ian Hamilton, refused to accept an Anzac recommendation to withdraw from the peninsula.  Instead, he ordered them to ‘dig, dig, dig!’

 

 In one day, as a result of desperate moves, the Anzacs had advanced further than they would for the next eight months, capturing around three and a half square kilometres of Turkish territory.

Anzac Cove today   (Robert Cathie)

 

The human cost had been great, however.  Around 2 000 men had been killed or wounded.  7 Battalion’s war diary for the day reported that two officers had died and sixteen were wounded – including Pompey, who was shot in the ankle as he landed on the beach.  Next to the list of other ranks killed, the acting commander wrote

 

? - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

In the chaos and confusion, there would have been no way of determining who in the battalion had been killed or injured, or where such injuries happened.  If a man was killed on the beach, the details may have been obtained quite quickly.  If he was killed up on the slopes or on one of the ridges, however, it could have taken days to find and identify him – if they found him at all.  That is why the report of Edmond’s death noted that he died somewhere between 25 April and 2 May.  Tallies simply could not be finalised until that latter date, such was the disorganisation and deadly situation at Anzac Cove.

 

However, it is definite that Edmond’s body had been found and identified relatively quickly, as his parents were informed of his death and burial on 6 June. 

 

He was laid to rest in Number 2 Outpost Cemetery.  His mother was granted a pension of thirteen pounds per annum (around twenty-six dollars) from 3 August 1915.

 

(Commonwealth War Graves Commission)

 

Sources

 

All Australian Memorial

Australian War Memorial

National Archives of Australia

Carlyon, Les: Gallipoli, Sydney, Macmillan, 2001

Cathie, Robert

Cochrane, Peter: Australians at war, Sydney,  ABC Books, 2001

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Dennis, Peter et al: The Oxford companion to Australian military history, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1995

en.wikipedia.org

Google Earth

http://anzacportal.dva.gov.au

http://100yearsoftrenches.blogspot.com.au

McMullin, Ross: Pompey Elliott, Melbourne, Scribe, 2008

Moorehead, Alan: Gallipoli, London, NEL Mentor, 1974

Pedersen, Peter: The Anzacs: Gallipoli to the Western Front,  Melbourne, Penguin, 2007

Royal Australian Navy

 

 

 

 

Friend of Clowe R J J A-g Sgt 5799

 

Mentioned in this correspondence

McArthur-A-J-Pte-475  article 21 June 1915

 

War Service Commemorated

Essendon Town Hall A-F

Essendon Gazette Roll of Honour killed           

Patriotic Concert 1914   

All Australian Memorial - Victoria

“Send off to the Essendon Boys”

Flemington Branch Australian Natives Association (ANA) *

Flemington-Presbyterian-Church

 

The Melbourne Herald 14 June 1915

Courtesy of Kim Phillips, Spirits of Gallipoli website

 

 

The Argus 14 June 1915   PRIVATE DANAHER. Private E. B. Danaher (killed in action) was a son of Mr. D. Danaher, of 30 Shields street, Flemington. He belonged to the 58th Essendon Rifles, under Lieut.Colonel Elliott, and was one of the first to enlist. He was educated at the Boundary road State school, and was a member of the A.N.A., Flemington branch.    He was in the employ of Messrs. Armstrong and Allen, tinsmiths, Rankin road, Kensington.  He was a nephew of Mr. Rod Danaher, of the Western Family Hotel, Swanston street, city.   http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1524230

 

 

Essendon Gazette, 17 June 1915   Private E. B. Danaher (killed), who was 20 years of age, formerly belonged to the 58th Essendon Rifles, under Lieutenant-Colonel Elliott, and was one of the first to enlist.  He was educated at Boundary road State school, was a member of the Flemington Branch ANA and was employed by Messrs. Armstrong and Allen, tin-smiths, Rankins road, Kensington. Private Danaher resided with his father, Mr. D.  Danaher, at 30 Shields street, Flemington.

 

Mentioned in this publication:

The Argus 21 June 1915

 

 

In Memoriam

 

 

 

All Australian Memorial, p 8

 

DANAHER.-In sad and loving memory of my

dear nephew, Private Edward ("Teddy") Dana-

her, who was killed in the landing at Gallipoli

on April 25, 1915.

He gave his life for his King and country.

-(Inserted by his loving auntie, M. E. Danaher.

Western Hotel, city.)

 

DANAHER.-In loving memory of Private E. B.

Danaher, 7th Battalion, who was killed in the

landing at the Dardanelles, 25th April. 1915,

aged 20 years.    

A sudden change at God's command he fell.

He had no time to bid his friends farewell.

The summons came without a warning given,

That bade him haste to meet his God in heaven.

Oh, Teddy, dear, we miss you here

From the home you loved so well.

We pray you God hast found you rest  

With the angels of the blest,

-(Inserted by his parents, sisters and brothers,

Shields street, Flemington.)

The Argus 25 April 1916

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2103384

 

DANAHER- In loving memory of our, dearly loved  

son and brother (Teddy) 477 Private E B Danaher,

7th Battalion who was killed at the landing of the

Dardanelles, April 25, 1915, aged 20 years

 

You answered the call of your country,

But the voice of the cable tells

That a dauntless lad in a khaki suit

Was killed at the Dardanelles 

Alone in our grief the bitter tears flow,

There comes a fond vision of not long ago,

Just as in a dream he stands by our side

And whispers those sweet words death cannot 

divide

-(Inserted by his parents, sister Eily, brothers

Maurice, on active service, 30 Shields street

Flemington) 

 

DANAHER - In sad and loving remembrance of

my dear nephew, Private Edward B Danaher  

(Teddy) who was killed on April 25 1915 on

active service

-(Inserted by his auntie M E Danaher, West-

ern Hotel, Swanston street, Melbourne ) 

The Argus 25 April 1917                   

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1613078

 

Men of Anzac! Not in vain 

All the battles sweat and pain

Of the brave young lives that fell,

Gashed and torn by shot and shell.

Now the riddle's written plain:

Foes confess 'twas not in vain,

When the victor flags are furled

Through a new-born, wondering world,

They will cheer across the sea,  

Anzac and Galllpoli.

-(Inserted by his parents, sister,

and brothers, Maurice, on active service.)   

 

DANAHER.-In sad, but loving memory of my

dear nephew, Edmund Danaher (Teddy),

killed in the landing of Gallipoli.

(Inserted by his loving aunt,

M. E. Danaher, Spread Eagle Hotel.

Richmond.)    

The Argus 25 April 1918 

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1654889

 

DANAHER.— A tribute of love to the memory of  

our dear son and brother, Ted, who was killed on

April 25, 1915, at the landing of Gallipoli

Ever remembered.

Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay

down his life for his friends.

(Inserted by his parents, brothers, and sister.)

The Argus 24 April 1920                  

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1695106  

 

DANAHER.- In loving of our dear son and brother,

Pte. E. B. Danaher, 7th Battn., who was killed at the

landing of Gallipoli, April 25, 1915.

Greater love has no man than this, that he lay

down his life for his friends.

-(Inserted by his parents, sister, and brothers.)

The Argus 25 April 1921

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1750711

 

DANAHER. A tribute of love to the memory of

Private E.B. Danaher, No. 477, 7th Battalion,  

who was killed at the landing of Gallipoli on the

25th April, 1915.

Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay

down his life for his friends.

(Inserted by his parents, brothers, and sister.)

The Argus 25 April 1922

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4659853

 

DANAHER. — In loving memory of our dearly 

loved son and brother No. 477 Pte. E. B.  

Danaher, 7th Battalion, who was killed at the

landing, Gallipoli, April 25, 1915.   

Great love hath no man than this, that he  

lay down his life for his friends.

(Inserted by his parents sister and brothers )

The Argus 25 April 1923

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1892688

 

DANAHER -In loving memory of our dearly

loved son and brother, No 477 Pte E B

Danaher, 7th Battalion who was killed at the

landing, Gallipoli, April 25, 1915.

Greater love hath no man than this, that 

he lay down his life for his friends.

(Mother)

The Argus 25 April 1924

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1915169

 

No entries for 1925 or 1926.