Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

The newspapers were full of details about the early battles of World War 1, when my grandfather Frederick Charles White enlisted on 21 July 1915, at Liverpool, NSW. He has no mentions in Trove until a letter from his son is published in 1940 where he is named ’Digger White’. He left no letters or journals, and apart from his service record, little is known of him or his war years. He is not mentioned in the Battalion history, nor is he on an Honour Board for his local area. However, he does appear on the Wall of Remembrance at Bundanoon constructed in 2008. Despite serving in many big battles, this one small plaque is the only public recognition of his great valour.

Frederick came from a complicated blended family who were mostly still in London, he emigrated in 1913 to become a farm labourer. Frederick knew his great grandmother was French and may have known she came from Verdun. Reading news of the Battle of Verdun may have helped prompt his enlistment. He was allocated Service Number 787 and placed in C Company (Coy) of the 30th Battalion, 5th Division of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). His attestation papers state he had served over two years in the Kings Royal Rifles, his discharge had been ‘purchased’. Examining the Roll for his company, none appear to have come from near Exeter where he was working, so he enlisted alone. Private Eric McKinnon, B Coy 30th AIF, did leave a diary and his experiences will mirror those of FC White.

The 30th Battalion underwent initial training at Liverpool but in September 1915 they moved to the Royal Agricultural Showground at Moore Park. The embarkation on the Beltana on 9 November was an orderly one, perhaps because everyone was on board before the pubs opened. When the equator was crossed, the ‘crossing the line’ ceremony was carried out. Most of the soldiers on board had never experienced this, but grandfather would have anticipated the antics as he had witnessed this just two years previously. The Beltana arrived in Alexandria on 10 December 1915.

The 30th remained in the Middle East mainly near Ferry Post, until 15 June 1916 when 1017 men entrained in cattle trucks for Alexandria and on to the ship Horatia headed for Marseilles. A long train journey took them to Paris and on to Hazebrouk. On 10 July they moved into the firing line at Bois Grenier in the front-line trenches. They stayed four days in the ‘nursery’, in this time two men were killed and fifteen wounded.

A week later, they were in the thick of it at Fromelles. At 6pm, they attacked the German trenches. The trench maps had been hastily prepared and were misleading. The German front line had numerous concrete-lined shelters that withstood the bombardments, protecting the German soldiers.

McKinnon wrote in his diary of 19 July:
“Our artillery chopped their line up and drove most of them out of their trenches and at 5pm the boys charged. Along both lines was a dense wall of <[muck]> caused by bursting of shells, high explosives and shrapnel, an incessant roar was kept up by the guns, machine guns, hand grenades and other kinds of bombs & a few rifles. The 8th took their trenches, but the support was not there for them, so after hanging on through the night, they had to retire in the morning.” And further “The carnage was simply awful, all along the original 1st line there were dead and wounded & the sap [trench] to the dressing station was taken possession of almost by stretcher bearers.”

In ‘New South Wales and the Great War’ Parry and Manera wrote “By dawn the next day, 5533 of the 7500 men of the 5th Division had been killed, badly wounded and/or captured. Fromelles remains the most catastrophic 24 hours suffered by Australian soldiers.”

Official records never convey the horror soldiers experienced when running through the mud and sinking knee-deep into the rotting body of one of their friends. This was the experience of FC White’s son when he served in WW2.

They spent six weeks in the front line before being relieved on 6 September 1916. On 11 September, Frederick was evacuated to England with tonsilitis. Perhaps it was during the three months in hospital that he again met Annie Sloman; they had known each other before he emigrated. Immediately after his hospital discharge, they married on 9 December 1916. Two weeks later he returned to service at Perham Downs. On 10 February 1917, he re-joined his unit in Etaples, France. Within two weeks he was wounded and shipped to England for eighteen months.

On 15 August 1918 he returned to France, now in the 2nd Machine Gun Battalion (2MGB). “From the Battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918 until the Armistice on 11 November is the period known as the ‘Hundred Days’. This was a time of almost constant advance for the allied armies”.

The 2MGB was at the Battle of Villers Bretonneux, 31,000 rounds were fired in one day. They continued to Mont St Quentin, Peronne and Fouillacourt. The taking of Mont St Quentin and Péronne was regarded among the finest Australian feats on the Western Front. Between 3-6 October, they saw action at Bellicourt capturing Montbrehain. This was their last battle, from here they were taken to Hervilly on relief.

Annie gave birth to a son, Frederick Reginald Noel White on 25 December 1918. A brother-in law Reginald Blackwell had died at Flanders, and Noël was the family name of his French great grandmother. While preference was given to early enlisters to be demobilised quickly, Frederick was still in France. He finally arrived in England on 13 February, but the baby died seven days later of Encephalitis lethargica – linked to Spanish Influenza.

When Frederick and Annie arrived in Sydney on the Indarra on 9 September 1919, the band played ‘Rule Brittania’. They settled in Liverpool, NSW and had four more children.

Lieut Col H Sloan wrote ‘The Purple and Gold – A history of the 30th Battalion (AIF). In it he makes no mention of FC White but refers to the poem ‘Napoleon & the English Sailor’, written about FC White’s forbear whom Napolean had captured. As FC White’s children frequently recited the poem, it is reasonable to assume Frederick had also recited it during entertainments.

His medals ‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’ were kept in the family, who knew very little of his service, only that he served in France and the Middle East. The photo of him taken on ANZAC day 1937 shows a Scottish band in the background, research reveals the 30th Battalion was known as the NSW Scottish Regiment.
Bill Grammage wrote in ‘The Broken Years’ that ‘WW1 casualties totalled about 215,585, approximately 65 per cent of those who embarked with the AIF. About 2000 returned men were permanently hospitalised because of the war. About 1 in 5 died on active service through the course of the war’. At Fromelles, the 30th lost 33 of 231 members, so 1 in 6 died in just 3 days.

Frederick Charles White enlisted to serve his King and Country. He served for over four years, and for his service he received just three medals. He was exceptional in that he survived Fromelles, Villers Bretoneaux, Mont St Quentin, Peronne, Bellicourt and Montbrehain, yet he is only remembered on one small plaque on a war memorial in the Southern Highlands that his family knew nothing about.
It breaks my heart.