Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington, 1914-1918

 

The Melbourne Herald 1 November 1915

Courtesy of Kim Phillips Spirits of Gallipoli website

 

Essay W    Pte    618    Wallace       8 LHR    22    Station hand    Single    R C       

Address:    Kensington, Henry St, 32   

Next of Kin:    Hughes, H, Mrs, sister, 32 Henry St, Kensington   

Enlisted:    12 Oct 1914       

Embarked:       A54 Runic 25 Feb 1915

 

Date of death:  7 Aug 1915

LONE PINE MEMORIAL 

 

Trooper Camillus Wallace Essay

 

Rod Martin

 

He was only 162.5 centimetres tall, when the official requirement in October 1914 was a minimum of 167.5 centimetres.  So why was Camillus (Wally) Essay recruited in Kensington on the twelfth of that month?  One is tempted to think that his background as a station/stock hand on Werai Station in New South Wales, and his believed prowess as a horseman and rifle shot, made him such a valuable addition to the Australian Light Horse Brigade that the recruiting officer was prepared to overlook his 'shortcomings'.  Perhaps it was for this reason, or perhaps for some other personal attribute but, whatever: twenty-two year-old Wally was signed up and allocated to the First Reinforcements of 8 Light Horse Regiment (LHR).

 

Wally did his basic training at Broadmeadows before embarking with his comrades on A54 HMAT Runic at Port Melbourne on 25 February 1915.

 

Members of the 8th Light Horse Regiment during training at Broadmeadows Camp, circa 1914.

AWM Collection  H03033.

 

HMAT Runic (AWM P00707.027)

 

Loading 8 Light Horse Regiment mounts on to the Runic  (AWM H03147)

 

Wally and his comrades probably arrived in Egypt in early April, and then were transported to Gallipoli, landing on 21 May.  Their landing had been delayed by heavy fighting (the Turks carried out their one and only major offensive on 19 May and the Anzac troops were desperately fighting them off). After returning to Lemnos Island temporarily, the men were finally landed at Anzac Cove and they dug in for the night.  The commander of the light horse brigade, Colonel Harry Chauvel, had agreed that his men should go to Gallipoli and act as infantry in support of the infantry brigades already there. The horses could not be used effectively in such a landscape and had been left behind at Heliopolis in Egypt.  Along with the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, the horsemen had begun landing on 15 May, the early groups moving up Monash Valley to support Colonel John Monash's battalion, located at the head. The mood at the time of their landing must have been sombre.  On 15 May, the Australian commander, Major-General William Bridges, set out to visit Chauvel as he landed.  Bridges was shot in the thigh when he stepped out into the open from behind a sandbagged barrier. Quick thinking saved him from bleeding to death, but the wound was so severe that he would probably have died from shock if the leg had been amputated, and the belief was that he would die from gangrene poisoning if it were not.  He was evacuated to the hospital ship Gascon and died at sea on 18 May.

 

8 LHR did not follow their comrades into Monash Valley, instead moving upwards and entering the trenches at Walker's Ridge, not far from Russell's Top and the narrow strip of land called the Nek.

 

Walker's Ridge(AWM A03089)

 

 After a rest in early June they moved back to Walker's Ridge on the tenth.

 

8 Light Horsemen moving out of a rest area  (AWM H03127)

 

The unit suffered its first casualties on 29 May, one man being killed and one wounded after a Turkish attack.  By 27 June, nine men had been killed and sixteen wounded, most of the injuries caused by Turkish shells.  Another attack on the twenty-ninth killed six more men and wounded twelve. 

 

The unit went into a rest area again on 4 July at the foot of Walker's Ridge.  Even there, however, the men were not safe.  On 14 July, their  medical officer was killed while swimming at Anzac Beach.  As the embedded correspondent, Charles Bean, noted, no place was safe at Gallipoli.  When the men went back into action at Walker's Top on 29 July, one man was killed and two wounded on the same day at an obviously appropriately named place called Shrapnel Terrace.

 

Shrapnel Terrace on the steep path to Walker's Ridge  (AWM J02738)

 

By 6 August, 8 LHR had moved to the nearby Russell's Top, adjacent to a narrow stretch of land called the Nek, to participate in an offensive planned to begin that day.  Two assaults, on Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, both to the left of Anzac Cove, would be made, and a British landing at Suvla Bay (seven kilometres north of the cove) would be carried out.  To divert the Turks from providing support for their forces at Suvla, two diversions to the right of Anzac Cove would be made, one at Lone Pine and one further south at Cape Helles.  8 LHR at Russell's Top would form the first assault line across the Nek, capture the Turkish trenches there, move up to hill Baby 700, capture it and then link up with New Zealanders coming down from the top after capturing Chunuk Bair.  The combined force would then take the Turkish stronghold on Battleship Hill and thus open the way across the peninsula towards the Dardanelles.  Anyway, that was the plan.

 

View across the Nek from the Australian trenches 1919.  The Turkish trenches can clearly be seen, with

Baby 700 in the background. Note the skull and bones in the centre of the picture.(AWM G02013B)

 

An attack across the Nek was always going to be suicidal.  The Turkish trenches were heavily fortified with rifles and machine guns.  Australian troops would be running across open ground, straight into a hail of fire.  A line of 150 8 LHR men would attack first and capture the forward trench, using bombs and bayonets.  A second line would then sweep on past and take the lower trenches of Baby 700. Third and fourth lines from 10 LHR (Western Australians) would sweep on further, pass the Turkish fortifications and then dig in on Baby 700.

 

We know a lot about this attack because it was immortalised in Peter Weir's film Gallipoli.  At 4.30 am on 7 August, after an ineffective preliminary bombardment of the Turkish trenches that stopped seven minutes early, the first line of 8 LHR men went over the top, led by their commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander White. In an incredibly noisy hail of rifle and machine gun bullets, most died within three paces of the parapet (the forward top edge of the trench). White was killed after ten paces.  There being no order to stand down, the second line went two minutes after the first.  Les Carlyon tells us that it went even though Turkish fire was still thudding into the bodies of the first line, causing them to convulse in front of the parapet. The result was the same. The tragedy was expanded when the two lines of 10 LHR were ordered to go as well, even when the commander of the unit protested and recommended a stand-down. It was a wholesale slaughter.

 

After withdrawing from the front and going into a bivouac, the acting commander of 8 LHR took a census of the survivors.  He noted that twenty-two men were confirmed dead - including Alexander White - seventy-six were wounded and 127 were missing.  Wally was listed among the missing.  On 15 August, he and most of the others were declared killed in action.  The bodies of those killed still lay across the Nek.  It would have been suicidal to try to retrieve them.  They remained there until the end of the war, slowly rotting away until the only things left were their skeletons.  Hence the presence of the bones in the picture above.

 

The only successful part of the offensive was the capture of the Turkish trenches at Lone Pine.  However, it was costly: 2 000 Australian casualties.

 

After the war ended, the Imperial War Graves Commission interred the bones in anonymous graves.  As Wally and his 8 LHR compatriots had no known graves, their names were inscribed on the memorial built at Lone Pine.

 

(Commonwealth War Graves Commission)

 

Sources

 

Australian War Memorial

National Archives of Australia

Carlyon, Les: Gallipoli, Sydney, Pan McMillan, 2001

Coulthart, Ross: Charles Bean, Sydney, HarperCollins, 2014

McMullin, Ross: Pompey Elliott, Melbourne, Scribe, 2nd edition, 2008 

 

 

 

War Service Commemorated

Anzac Honoured Dead 7 Aug 1915

Essendon Gazette Roll of Honour killed

Regimental Register

 

PRIVATE CAMILLUS W. ESSAY, killed on August 7 at Lonesome Pine, was a native of Wentworth, New South Wales, but enlisted from Kensington, joining the 8th Light Horse. He spent his 23rd birth-day in the trenches. He was a good  horse-man and rifle-shot, and, prior to enlisting, was employed on Werai Station, New South Wales. ROLL OF HONOUR. (1915, September 22). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 7. Retrieved July 4, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1562893

 

Deaths on Service

 

The Argus 21 September 1915

Courtesy of Kim Phillips Spirits of Gallipoli website.

 

In Memoriam

   

Lone Pine and Walker's Ridge.  

A loving tribute to my gallant comrades, officers,

non-coms., and privates of the famous 8th Light

Horse Regiment, who fought and fell at Galli-

poli, August 7th, 1915.

They did their part.

- (Inserted by Ivan J. Dunkel, A.I.F., Abroad.)

 

ESSAY. -In loving memory of our dear brother,  

Camillus (Wally), 8th Light Horse, killed in    

action at Lonesome Pine, 7th August, 1915, aged

23 years.        

Sadly missed. R.I.P.

-(Inserted by his loving sisters and brothers,

Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Maloney, Will, and Moran.)

The Argus 7 August 1916

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1605858

 

ESSAY -ln loving remembrance of our dear Camil

lus (Wally) 8th Light Horse killed in action at  

Walkers Ridge, 7th August, 1915, aged 23 years,  

R I P (Inserted by his loving sisters and  

brothers Mrs Hughes, Mrs. Moloney, Will and  

Moran)   

The Argus 7 August 1917

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1641188

 

ESSAY.-In loving remembrance of our dear

brother, Camillus (Wally), 8th Light Horse,

killed in action at Walker's Ridge, 7th August,  

1915. R.I.P. (Inserted by his loving sisters and

brothers, Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Molony, Will, and

Moran.)

The Argus 7 August 1918

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1403568

 

EIGHTH LIGHT HORSE REGIMENT.-In reverent

memory of those Members of the 8th Light

Horse Regiment who gave their lives at Walker's

Ridge,   Gallipoli, 7th August, 1915.

 

ESSAY.-In loving memory of our dear brother,

Camillus (Wally), and his brave comrades of the

8th Light Hone, who fought and fell at Lone

Pine on August 7, 1915. (Inserted by his loving

sisters and brothers, Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Molony,

Will, and Moran, of Kensington.)

The Argus 7 August 1919

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4707844

 

No further entries in 1920 or 1921.