By JESSE GRAHAM
THE LIVES of World War I soldiers are currently on display at Healesville Library, with personal stories from Diggers on the frontline coming to life through unique historical treasures.
An exhibition of military items from World War I currently fill the display cases at Healesville Library, featuring stories and items straight from the front lines.
Military historian Rod Wilson organised the exhibition and supplied items he has collected over his life, and said the stories they contain give an insight into life on the frontlines.
Among the treasures in the exhibition is a pack carried by a soldier at the Battle of The Nek, where waves of Australian troops were cut down by Turkish machine-gun fire.
Trooper David McGarvie, a sniper with the 8th Australian Light Horse Regiment, managed to make it to near Turkish parapets and survive the battle after being shot in the foot and retreating in the night.
But, before this, he had to watch hundreds of his comrades get cut down in subsequent waves of attack and lay open to fire and the intense sunlight through the day.
“They were decimated – it was slaughter,” Mr Wilson said.
“He could see the men coming but could do nothing about it.”
McGarvie’s personal effects from the battle include his pith helmet, his dog tag and his pack full of equipment, including a Bible which his son took to World War II.
The tales told through the military objects are not just stories of sadness from war, but include others of hope and romance found as a result.
The exhibition features fragments from a zeppelin bombing in London, collected by the later-wife of a Digger, who was sent there for medical assistance after being shot in the head.
The soldier met a woman at Brooke War Hospital in London and, after the war was over, they married and came back to Australia.
Another story was contained in the cabinet, in the form of a biscuit from a soldier’s rations.
The biscuit was sent home from a soldier to Broadmeadows in 1914 and has survived the last 101 years, which Mr Wilson said was due to their intense hardness.
“It’s signed by both soldiers and has 1914 on the back – that’s how hard they are,” Mr Wilson said.
“My grandfather sent one home to my grandmother – he drew a picture of a pyramid and the Sphinx, put my grandmother’s address on the front, put a stamp on and sent it.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t survive.”
Many other stories fill the cabinet, including that of the first Australian nurse casualty in the war, New Zealand and Turkish soldiers’ items and a curious metallic “ANZAC” nameplate.
Mr Wilson said the plate was from a property named after the Diggers, which he said was common practice, even in the Yarra Valley – referencing a Lone Pine property in Warburton, named after a large battle in the campaign.
He said he hoped residents would come to visit the exhibition, to get more of an insight into the lives of soldiers and the campaigns they fought in.
The Anzac exhibition will run for the entire month of April at the Healesville Library, which is based at the Healesville Community Link building behind the Memo Hall on 110 River Street.
For more information, call 5962 4423.
