By KATH GANNAWAY
A DISPLAY launched this week at Healesville Library commemorates the centenary of the 1916 Somme offensive in the second year of WWI.
Drawing on memorabilia collected over a lifetime, Badger Creek military historian Rod Wilson has put together a snapshot of life and death on the Western Front.
The Australian War Memorial records that the worst 24 hours in Australian history occurred at Fromelles, France, where Australians suffered 5533 casualties in one night.
The major contribution of Australian troops to the Somme offensive was in the fighting around Pozieres and Mouquet Farm between 23 July and 3 September, as well as several attacks around Flers in November.
Mr Wilson said about half the Australian soldiers on Fromelles would have had their first experience of war on Gallipoli.
As with several items on display, a small black Bible, has a story to tell.
Mr Wilson bought the pocket-size Bible in an op shop when he was about 20 to carry in his hiking backpack.
“I’d probably used it for a couple of years when I was flicking through and found the name and some details of the owner,” he said.
He was able, later on, to research the name, Pte R E Cooke, D Coy, 60 Infantry Battalion, on the internet and realised the dates coincided with the battle of Fromelles where Cooke had been wounded.
The Bible and its owner both survived Gallipoli and Fromelles.
A German helmet, nick-named ‘the coal scuttle’ by the allies, was souvenired by Yellingbo veteran Pte Fred Parslow of the 4th Division, Machine Gun Battalion, 1st AIF.
With much of the film footage and photographs of the Western Front depicting shocking scenes in the trenches and knee-deep mud, a trench map and trenching tool resonate as an inanimate and powerful connection to the human experience.
They belonged to Lilydale soldier Pte Jim Baddeley of the 5th Infantry Battalion, 5th Division.
Baddeley enlisted at 17 after forging his mother’s signature and arrived on the Western Front in the winter of 1916, battling not only a fierce enemy but the freezing conditions on the Somme.
Mr Wilson said his collection is a mix of personal items with a known history, and others of which nothing is known.
“I had a lot of things given to me as a boy and teenager and if I can possibly find out the history of an item, I go to great lengths to return that history to the item,” he said.
“Otherwise, it is a generic item that represents part of the story of everyone.”
The Centenary of the 1916 Somme display is on throughout July at Healesville Library and will be followed by a display to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam.
