| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Gaudie-C-H-M-Gunner-22300 (redirected from Gaudie C H M Gunner 22300)

Page history last edited by Lenore Frost 9 years, 1 month ago

Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington, 1914-1918

 

Gaudie C H M    Gunner    22300    Charles Hugh  23 Howitzer Bde    34    Labourer    Single    C of E

Address:    Moonee Ponds, Maribyrnong Rd, 332    

Next of Kin:    Gaudie, G, father, 332 Maribyrnong Rd, Moonee Ponds    

Enlisted:    29 Jan 1916        

Embarked:     A7 Medic 20 May 1916

 

Relatives on Active Service:

Gaudie-S-R-Pte-1858  brother

Gaudie, J L  Pte, Black Watch, cousin KIA

 

Gunner Charles Hugh Gaudie

 

Rod Martin

 

Occasionally, one can come upon a record of a soldier and, scratching one's head, ask, why?  Two times, three times: why?  Why was this man passed fit for enlistment?  Why was he sent to the battle zone? Why was he not sent home as soon as his illness was diagnosed and a medical prognosis provided?  It may be, of course, that Charles Gaudie insisted upon 'doing his bit', regardless of recommendations to the contrary.  However, a prescient commanding officer would surely have realised that there was too much danger of Charles's situation ending badly, and the military being accused of gross neglect as a result.  There are no records in his war service file to indicate that Charles's relatives took issue with the military after his early death.  Perhaps they just accepted it as being an unfortunate consequence of military service.  Had it happened today, however, the availability of information and advice through the mass media, as well as the presence of members of the legal profession steeped in the knowledge of precedent, would probably ensure that it became a scandal for which someone would have to take the blame.

 

Thirty-four year-old labourer Charles Gaudie from Maribyrnong Road, Moonee Ponds, enlisted on 29 January 1916.  He was a slight man, weighing only about fifty-seven kilos and standing only 169 centimetres tall. A medical officer on the Western Front later described him as being 'a bit thin'.  One could be suspicious of his recorded chest expansion - thirty-three to thirty-six inches - but the Australian government at that time was desperate for recruits, the failure of the Gallipoli venture and the horror stories from the Western Front (although heavily censored in some cases) having a negative influence on the numbers of men volunteering.  It may be that, along with many others, Charles was passed fit and accepted despite his physical shortcomings.

 

His physical stature, and his age, may be the reasons why Charles was assigned to 23 Howitzer Brigade rather than an infantry battalion.  He did his initial training in Victoria before embarking on A7 HMAT Medic on 20 May 1916, headed for Plymouth on the south coast of England.

 

Troops waiting to board HMAT Medic, Port Melbourne, 20 May 1916 (AWM PB0564)

 

 

HMAT Medic sailing from Port Melbourne, 20 May 1916 (AWM P08000.001)

 

The troops reached Plymouth on 18 July after having sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid German submarines in the Mediterranean.  From there they were transferred to the military training camp at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain.  It was not long, however, before Charles was in trouble.  On 26 August, he reported to the medical officer, complaining that he had caught a cold while on the ship and that he was coughing up phlegm and had tightness in his chest.  He admitted that he smoked an average of eight cigarettes a day.  The medical officer sent him to Fargo Military hospital nearby.  Once there, he was diagnosed with disease of the mitral valve, probably stenosis.  This is a narrowing of the mitral valve in the heart, an affliction that can lead to infection, blood clots and, in the worst case, heart failure.  The most likely cause of this problem is rheumatic fever in earlier years.  Charles only revealed in September that he had had an attack of 'rheumatics' sixteen years earlier and had been diagnosed with mitral disease at that time. This diagnosis and knowledge of his history was bad enough in itself, but the doctors also reported that the wet and cold and the physical exertion entailed in active service would probably break down his resistance and precipitate heart failure.

 

So why didn't they send him home on the next available ship - or, at the least, keep him in England doing some kind of supportive task?  We don't know.  However, we do know that Charles was transferred to 3 Divisional Ammunition Column (DAC) the day after he entered Fargo Hospital and he stayed in England until 24 November 1916.  He had obviously been judged fit enough by that time to go to war.  This was despite the fact that, on 6 September, the army medical board had classified his condition as 'permanently unfit for general Service, but fit for Home Service.'  The suggestion that Charles was keen to 'do his bit' and concealed his true condition as much as he could is supported by the reality that he must have failed to disclose his disease when undertaking his initial medical examination in Australia.  Moreover, he waited  a while before telling the doctors at Fargo that he had a heart complaint.  Why?  It may be that he pleaded with the medical board to be allowed to go to war despite his condition.  If so, those responsible for allowing it were grossly negligent.

 

3 DAC embarked for France on 24 November 1916 - just in time to 'enjoy' what was described as the coldest European winter in forty years.  The unit accompanied the new 3 Division, specifically created by the Australian government to be a model for other units to copy.  It had been extensively trained in England since July under its commander, Major-General John Monash.  As its name implies, 3 Divisional Ammunition Column had the job of keeping artillery and infantry supplied with ammunition.  It performed this task using horses pulling wagons called limbers.

 

3 DAC returning to Lena Wood, France, to pick up more ammunition on 8 August 1918.  The weight of the materials they carried can be judged by the fact that the leading carriage is pulled by three sets of horses. AWM C04097)

 

3 Division was located near Armentières in the so called 'nursery sector' in December, being involved in occasional skirmishes with the Germans.  Conditions in the area were very muddy, the commanding officer of 3 DAC reporting at the end of December that they 'proved most trying for the personnel and animals.'

 

 

British soldiers on the Somme, winter 1916-17. Note the sheepskin coats -

and the mud!   (AWM H08528)

 

Unfortunately, 3 DAC's war diary for 1917 and the first half of 1918 is missing, so we cannot keep a very close eye on Charles's progress during that time.  However, we do know that 3 Division moved to the Ypres area in Belgium in early 1917 to participate in the Third Battle of Ypres.  This conflict, recommended by British commander in chief Sir Douglas Haig, was ostensibly designed to push the German front back as far as the village of Passchendaele and capture the occupied coast of Belgium and the submarine pens located there.  Haig's belief was that such a victory would demoralise the Germans and make it easier to finally defeat them.  The starting point of the battle was to be at Messines, south of Ypres.  Twenty huge mines had been placed secretly under the German-occupied Messines Ridge.  3 Division was the only Australian force to be involved in the first phase, and took part in the occupation of the ridge after nineteen of the mines were successfully detonated on 7 June. Charles would have been involved in supplying the 3 Division men during the attack.

 

The success of Third Ypres would depend upon the weather remaining fine and the fragile, naturally swampy soils of the Ypres area remaining reasonably firm as a result.  For some reason, Haig delayed the start of the major attack until 31 July.  When it finally began, so did torrential rain.  The initial bombardments quickly turned the terrain into a bog of thick mud and often deadly shell holes filled with water.

 

Conditions near Menin  Road, September 1917  (AWM E00889)

  

The mud consumed everything: men, horses, wagons, guns. Countless soldiers, laden  with twenty-seven kilo packs and sodden clothing, fell into the shell holes and drowned.  How Charles and his compatriots were able to resupply their infantry comrades in such circumstances can only be imagined.  Yet there were some victories.  3 Division moved north after successful Australian attacks at Menin Road and Polygon Wood  in order to participate in the Battle of Broodeseinde, designed to capture the strategically important Broodeseinde Ridge.   Once again the Australians were successful in their venture.  However, each of these minor battles was conducted at great human cost.  By the end of Broodeseinde, the Australians had advanced less than two kilometres and suffered 6 432 casualties.  As British historian John Masters puts it, Broodeseinde was a success to the extent of one mile deep, seven miles wide - 'but no one cared any more.'  Third Ypres was hopelessly bogged down and the battle already written off by most observers.  Broodeseinde did encourage Haig to keep on going, however, and Passchendaele was finally captured by the Canadians in November, with the help of 3 Division among others.  It was, however, a pyrrhic victory.  38 000 Australian soldiers were killed or wounded in a battle that captured an expanse of mud and a devastated village, but which left the German Hindenburg defensive line unbroken.

 

 

H. Septimus Power: Bringing up the ammunition. Flanders, Autumn 1917  (AWM ART03333)

 

3 Division stayed on in Flanders over Christmas and into the new year of 1918.  On 9 February, Charles went on leave to England and returned a fortnight later.  The following month, the men were rushed south to the Somme region in France to fight against a massive German offensive.  The Germans used reinforcements from the Eastern Front, available now that the new Russian Bolshevik regime had sued for peace.  They were also keen to end the war before large contingents of American troops arrived in Europe (the United States had entered the war in April 1917, but had to recruit and train its forces before embarking for the Western Front).   3 Division fought defensively though March and April, finally assisting in halting the German advance in battles at Morlancourt and Villers Bretonneux.

 

Having stopped the German advance, the Allies were able to regroup and prepare to conduct their own offensive.  One of their first attacks was at Hamel on 4 July.  Meticulously planned by Sir John Monash the battle, involving Australian and American troops, was over in just a few hours, all objectives being achieved.  3 Division participated in this success.

 

A month later, on 8 August, the combined counter-offensive began, the first victory being the Australian one at Amiens.  3 Division also participated in this, as it did in the ensuing battles of Mont St. Quentin and the Hindenburg Line.  Exhausted and decimated, the Australian forces were finally withdrawn from battle in the first week of October 1918.  Just over one month later, on 11 November, the war ended.

 

The remains of as British artillery limber hit by a German shell during the Battle of

Mont St. Quentin, September 1918. (AWM E03155)

 

Amazingly, Charles had survived the bitter winters, the many perils of Third Ypres and the savagery of the battles throughout 1918 without being injured in any significant way.  He had well and truly earned the campaign medals and the congratulations that were to come his way.  Along with his compatriots, he stayed in France after the armistice was signed, as the repatriation of the forces was taking considerable time to organise and put into effect.  Charles went on leave to England on 20 December, missing an open mutiny of the troops in 3 DAC that began on Boxing Day when they received an order to move to new billets. Sixty men were arrested for refusing to obey orders.  The troops were particularly concerned that, if they did move, their compatriots who were still in hospital would not return to Australia with them.  It was also noted that men in other units were refusing to obey orders as well.  The arrested men were finally released on 7 January, presumably after the unit had been placated, at least temporarily.  Charles arrived back from leave on the seventh, so he missed some of the action.

 

By March, 3 DAC was still in France but in the process of demobilising and looking after the horses.  On the fifteenth, Charles reported to hospital complaining of a pain in his side and a cough.  He was diagnosed with bronchitis and was transferred to St. Andrew's Military Hospital at Lewisham in England.  He obviously responded to treatment because he was granted furlough on 11 April until the twenty-fifth of that month.  However, he was back in hospital by the twenty-second and this time his condition was labelled 'cardiac'.  Within a month he was repatriated to Australia, obviously in a poor state.  The medical board stated that his disability was attributed to his service and the climate during the war.  The fact that he was quite ill at this time can be evidence by the photograph below, taken at an Australian auxiliary hospital on 22 May 1919.  Charles is the man in bed in the back row on the right-hand side.

 

(AWM D00541)

 

We do not know what happened to Charles once he arrived home. Was he able to reunite with his family, or did he have a prolonged stay in hospital, slowly deteriorating?  The 1919 electoral roll for the district does indicate that he had an address in Ascot Vale during that year, so he may have been able to return to his occupation of labouring, albeit for only a short period of time.  He was discharged from the army on 5 August 1919 and died on 23 January the following year.  The cause of death was listed as heart failure being brought about by mitral pleurisy.  He was buried in Footscray Cemetery.

 

The military accepted that Charles's condition was as a result of his war service, and his death could have led to charges of negligence on its part.  However, Charles's family appears to have accepted his death without trying to lay any blame.  Their subsequent communications with the war department are respectful and focused purely on proper recognition of his war service in the form of a military headstone over his grave and the receipt of his medals and a commemorative scroll and 'Dead Man's Penny' plaque recognising that he had died as a result of the war.  These were granted.

 

It would appear that the military got out of it cheaply!

 

 

Sources

 

Australian War Memorial                                          

Bean, C.E.W: The official history of Australia in the war of 1914-1918, Sydney,     

                       Angus and Robertson, 12 volumes, 1941

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

Frost, Lenore

Gibbs, Philip: From Bapaume to Passchendaele 1917, London, William Heinemann,            

                       1918

http://www.diggerhistory.info

Masters, John: Fourteen eighteen, London, Corgi, 1970

National Archives of Australia

Travers, Richard: Diggers in France: Australian soldiers on the Western Front,

                             Sydney, ABC Books, 2008

 

Mr. C. Gaudie, of Crown Terrace, Ascot Vale, has received an interesting letter from his son, who is on active service in France. He states that he has been on a short holiday to Montrose, on the east coast of Scotland, to his uncle. The cemetery at Sleepy Hillock is the prettiest he had ever seen. He there visited the grave of the late Lieutenant A. E. P. Mott, who was buried along-side some others of the flying squadron. He also visited the flying school at Montrose.

 

ROLL OF HONOR. (1918, April 25). The Essendon Gazette and Keilor, Bulla and Broadmeadows Reporter (Moonee Ponds, Vic. : 1914 - 1918), p. 3 Edition: Morning. Retrieved June 10, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article74605755

 

Date of death:  23/01/1920

FOOTSCRAY CEMETERY

 

War Service Commemorated

Essendon Town Hall F-L

Moonee Ponds West State School*

Essendon Gazette Roll of Honour With the Colours

North Melbourne Electric Tramways and Lighting Company

 

No In Memoriam notices in The Argus to 1924.

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.