Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

When Jack Noble enlisted in February 1917, he was 42 years old, with 4 living children. His eldest son, Vic was in the 32nd Battalion, and had just returned to the Western Front, after 6 months recuperating from a wound suffered at the battle of Fromelles.

Jack sailed with the 13th reinforcements of the 32nd probably with the expectation of being in the same battalion as his son. However, very few of these reinforcements actually joined the 32nd. Jack joined the 43rd Battalion on Christmas Eve, 1917.

There is a family story that Vic, who had been attached to the 8th Brigade HQ as draughtsman, approached his Brigade Major, R. G Casey, (later to be a prominent diplomat, politician and then Governor-General) to try to arrange for he and his father to be closer together – perhaps for his father to join the 32nd battalion as they had hoped. The request was denied with the words, ‘The war was not made to suit you and me, Noble.’

Jack seems to have been continuously with the 43rd Battalion from Christmas 1917 until August 1918 (apart from 2 weeks after fracturing a rib in ‘Coy training and recreation’ at the end of January). This means he was engaged in the defence of Amiens during the German Spring offensive, the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux and the Battle of Hamel.

Jack was wounded on 22 August. The battalion advanced to support an attack near Bray, on the Somme, but was stopped by artillery fire, and forced to take shelter in shell holes and old trenches. They suffered significant casualties as, all day, they waited ‘under a continuous fire of field and heavy guns.’

Although his wound was minor, by November 8 Jack was on a ship back to Australia, for discharge due to ‘Premature Senility and Rheumatism.’

Nearly 50 years later, in his very old age, in his 90’s, Jack was certainly not senile. It appears that the term ‘premature senility’ meant that a soldier was, because of his age, no longer fit for frontline service – too old to be a frontline soldier. It is not difficult to find other examples of men for whom the same term was used, and invariably they were in their late 30’s or 40’s. This is also supported by the initial reason for Jack being returned to England from France was ‘Age and rheumatism’. Had he been ‘soldiering on’ at the Front despite increasing rheumatism brought on by the privations of life on the Front? Did a doctor just make the decision that it was unreasonable to expect a man of Jack’s age to continue in a frontline unit? Or were there other factors we do not know about?

Jack and Vic died within a month of each other in late 1966.