By GARRY HOWE
JULY 19, 1916, was a day that never left Sergeant Clair Whiteside.
The Reverend’s son from Officer spent a large part of that day with a gunshot wound to the head, dodging machine-gun fire and wading through a sea of bodies on the battlefield at Fromelles in France.
It is widely considered the darkest day in Australia’s history.
The 5th Division suffered 5533 casualties in those bloody 24 hours – equal to Australia’s total casualties for the Boer War, Korean War and Vietnam War combined.
“It looked like putting up cardboard nine-pins in a hurricane – only it was human beings who were facing up to it,” Sergeant Whiteside later wrote.
That day became so etched in his psyche that when he was married a few years after arriving back in Australia, Sergeant Whiteside chose 19 July as his wedding day. He was so committed to the date, it was a midweek marriage.
Years later, when he was elected to Berwick Shire, the significance hit home again. He attended his first meeting of council on 19 July, 1940.
“He would often reflect on how much that date came to be important in his life,” his daughter Betty Whiteside said from her Berwick home.
Thomas Clair Whiteside was a prolific letter writer. In the two and a half years he was on active service, he penned more than 200 letters home. Most were to his parents; a few were to Gazette founder Albert Edward Thomas and were published in the newspaper at the time.
Betty still has the letters, crammed into two shoeboxes in her unit in the Edrington estate. In 1999 she published them in a book, A Valley In France, and is now in the process of deciding where the originals will eventually end up – probably the State Library.
One of the most poignant letters was the one he wrote from his hospital bed at the 3rd Southern General Hospital in Oxford, England, on 28 July, 1916, nursing that head wound from France.
It was nine days after the horrors of Fromelles – the first major battle fought by Australian troops on the Western Front. Orchestrated by a British corps commander, Fromelles was intended to be a feint to draw German troops away from the Somme offensive being pursued further south.
However, the Germans quickly realised the intention and the battle was an abject failure. It began in earnest at 6pm on 19 July and was all but over by 8am on 20 July. The troops suffered badly at the hands of German machine gunners and the 5th Division was so decimated that it was incapable of offensive action for months.
Free of the censors, Sgt Whiteside was able to give a graphic description of the events of that day. After a feed of pig and potatoes, they set off for battle.
“The first thin line of heroes gets on the parapet and makes off for opposing lines,” he wrote to his mother.
“The first lines fare the best – for the terrible machine-gun is deadly once he sees the game is properly on. It looked like putting up cardboard nine-pins in a hurricane – only it was human beings who were facing up to it. A good number were wounded before the charge, but a short distance into No Man’s Land and the grass was thick with them.
“It was at the ends of the lagoon where planks crossed a ditch that the machine-guns got their haul. It was jump, jump, jump over some poor beggar the whole time, but it was pat yourself on the back at the other side.”
He had an early dice with death, with shrapnel hitting his rifle, just near where he was holding it. Then he copped one.
“I arrived at Fritz’s front door and was quizzing around to see if our fellows had knocked anywhere. A machine-gun rat-ta-tat-tat tapping in the grass a few yards to my left and it was while trying to learn something about its crew that a sniper caught me. Got a nasty one on the head and, of course, for a minute I thought I was done for. Had the sensation a poor old rabbit gets when you hit him on the ears.”
He kept his old gas helmet jammed up to his forehead to stop the bleeding and moved to a nearby shell-hole. At this stage the Australian artillery, “thinking they had not opened up the way enough”, started lobbing shells among their own troops.
“A shell lobbed in the exact spot where I had been hit and once more I counted my blessings and decided for a still safer spot,” he wrote.
Sgt Whiteside happened upon Bill Skinner of Trafalgar and the pair set about finding safer ground.
“Skinner and I crawled and hustled like old nick when no flare-shells were about, avoiding the worst shelled spots – lay in shell-holes and long grass when the flares were up,” he wrote. “(We) had a machine-gun turned on us two or three times. (We) waded waist-deep in water for a few yards down one trench. Had a little difficulty getting through some of our own barbed wire but finally bawled out 59th and dropped down in a trench full of friends. They took us to their dressing station where we both had rough field dressings put on.”
The communication trenches were being blown to pieces, so the pair was advised to stay where they were for the night.
“That I did and slept the remainder of the night with my head in the old tin helmet – better than I have slept since.”
The few hours he spent lying low until dark and then crawling when night arrived, when no flares were up, seemed like days – listening with interest and speculation as to where the next shell was going to lob.
“I often wonder what happened to many a chap I passed lying helpless in the grass,” he said.
“For my part I was strong and had my wits about me and it was only through acting on every inspiration that, with God’s help, I got out of it.”
He observed that many men were “undergoing repairs” and hadn’t realised at that stage how many were actually “underground”.
In the letter, Sgt Whiteside mentioned a couple by name – his farmer mates Will O’Sullivan from Berwick and Alan Russell from Leongatha.
At the time of writing he did not know their fate.
Both were dead – O’Sullivan by his own hand and Russell from a gunshot wound.
Records show that Russell, only 19, suffered a gunshot wound to his chest, thigh and left arm. He was admitted to the 8th Field Ambulance on 21 July and transferred the same day to the 8th Casualty Clearing Station, where he died of his wounds.
Commanding officer, H.T.C Layh, a bank clerk from Coburg, told a Court of Enquiry, held in the field, on 24 September 1916 that: “Pte O’Sullivan was sent back by the 59th Battalion when it proceeded to the trenches 19-7-16, to conduct the 57th Battalion to the billets evacuated … I am of opinion that he must have committed suicide while of unsound mind”.
Sgt Whiteside lost some personal belongings while trying to escape the Fromelles carnage. They were found by a soldier and, four months later, someone sent three photos to a Sydney newspaper for identification. They were recognised by a relative and sent on to his mother, Sally.
He eventually found his way back to the fighting in France and was wounded again at Bullecourt in April 1917. He also fought in the Harbonnieres campaign in August 1918 and was involved in heavy fighting around Peronne before the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918.
Sgt Whiteside was one of the lucky ones given quick passage home and he arrived home to a hearty welcome celebration at the Berwick Presbyterian Church in February 1919. Among the speakers was prominent Berwick doctor Percy Langmore, who in 1999 was named the Gazette’s Citizen of the Century.
He would go on to devote himself to family and civic life, being hailed as one of the district’s finest citizens in a Gazette obituary after his death in November 1959.
Settling with his wife and their six children at their Clairmont property, he became heavily involved in community affairs, particularly with the church and Officer sporting clubs, and in 1940 was elected to Berwick Shire Council, serving one term as shire president in 1946.
He was instrumental in the establishment of the memorial gates that stand at the entrance to the Officer Recreation Reserve, but when they were officially opened in November 1951, he was so riddled with arthritis that he could not take to the stage.
“Despite the intense pain which he suffered at various times, he was uncomplaining at all times,” the Gazette obituary read. “Indeed, his brightness under all circumstances not only amazed but also inspired his visitors.
“It was not only as a public figure but also as a private individual that Clair Whiteside was a shining example. His fortitude, integrity and strength of character were only matched by his kindliness, good fellowship and neighbourliness.
“Officer owes much to this fine man, not only for what he taught by precept and example, but also for those unrecorded little acts of kindness which made him the personal friend of many.”
