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MACK, John Dodds (1880-1957)

John Dodds Mack known as 'Jack' was born 12 September 1880, the son of pastoralist, Joseph Mack and Helen nee Dodds, of Berry Bank, Victoria. He was educated as a boarder at Geelong College where he was enrolled in 1895. His address at entry was 'Berrybank', Lismore. He was a member of the 1st Football Teams of 1897 and 1898.

During World War I, he enlisted (No 524) 6 January 1915, and embarked on HMAT A16 Star of Victoria on 25 February 1915 for Egypt, and Gallipoli and Palestine.

His nephew recalled many years later, 'John served through World War One with 8th Light Horse, and was blown up by mortar on Gallipoli, and buried with his dinner. He was very annoyed as there would be no more food before breakfast.'

John Hamilton in Goodbye Cobber, God Bless You wrote:

'Meanwhile Jack Mack had been taken from his troop to join Lance/Corporal Don Oliver’s ‘howitzer bomb gun’ crew, where he replaced a man who was sick. It was a decision that probably saved the Berry Bank man’s life. Don Oliver would play a critical role in what was to come. Each line in the charge would carry four small red-and-yellow marker flags. As soon as he saw one waved from the first line of the Turkish trenches, Don was to hurry across with his trench mortar crew. ... (Later) Jack Mack was also evacuated from Gallipoli with pleurisy. After re-occurrent (sic) sickness, he went on to ride with the light horse in Palestine, where he was shot in the left arm. He returned to Australia and managed a property he called Royston, named after his celebrated general, ‘Galloping Jack Royston'1.'

'Jack' wrote to his sister Mary describing his posting to Don Oliver’s crew:

'Noel Rutledge got a bit sick last week and was sent off for a fortnight’s spell and I’ve been shifted out of the troop till he returns taking his place with Don Oliver working a howitzer bomb gun. Sounds rather a big thing doesn’t it, but really two men can carry it and takes three to work it. Has a range of about 400 yards, throwing a 4 lb. bomb of high explosives, which we endeavour to lob in the Turk trenches and when we get one in, well a lot of things seem to happen all at once. The Turks have got one too, and their main object, like ourselves, seem to be to drop a bomb on the opposing gun, which all adds to the interest and keeps life from getting too monotonous. But we’ve been here under constant fire for over ten weeks now and I’m getting very blasé; this morning for example, after working at our gun till midnight, we lay down for a bit of a sleep and naturally I went to sleep. After a couple of hours I woke up with Don kicking me and shouting to ‘get up, they’ve blown us out’, and it seems that two bombs had come over and exploded close enough to chuck a bit of dirt over us without disturbing my slumbers.'

He wrote again at New Year 1918:

'A few days before New Year, Captain Hurley2 who went with both Shackleton and Mawson to the Pole as photographer came along to take official photos of the ALH in action etc, and a very decent fellow he is. On two separate evenings he invited all the scouts and any other fellows about who were not on duty to gather around the camp fire, where he told us in full detail all about the two expeditions. We would not have missed those two evenings for a fiver, and what added to the interest was that we were able to interrupt and ask questions and got a deuce of a lot of instructive and interesting information that a lecturer could not possibly give from the platform to a mixed audience! He took a lot of most interesting photos that you’ll probably see in Melbourne later including a ‘movie’ of the whole brigade on the move one day after the infantry relieved us.'

The Australian War Memorial (AWM) Collection holds amongst other things a men’s open face pocket watch missing its cover and chain, the watch has a white enamelled face with Roman numerals in black lettering around the circumference. There is a smaller seconds face at the bottom of the watch face, and the hands are missing. There is a winding crown at the top of the watch, and a circular metal loop for attachment to a chain. The reverse of the watch is engraved ‘61154 F’ and a small triangular pattern is engraved above this. There is also a souvenir chain necklace with ten coins suspended from it. The coins are of varying sizes and all of Middle Eastern origin. They are linked to the necklace with small metal rings that have been soldered closed. Some of the coins have been identified as Turkish Kurus and Piastre and Egyptian Para, the rest are undecipherable due to their worn condition. The coins are threaded on either side of the necklace at equal distances. There is an empty metal loop on one side where a coin may have been removed or detached. A collection of maps from the Middle Eastern region, Syria, Homs, Haifa, Sinai, Egypt, Cairo, Damascus, Gaza and district, Jerusalem, and Palestine.

These pieces are all associated with the service of Private J D Mack. On 22 April 1917 he was accepted as a member of the 3rd Brigade scouts, and served with them for the duration of the war and later in March 1919 during the Egyptian rebellion. He was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal on 3 December 1917. Mack was wounded in action at Es Salt, Palestine on 3 May 1918.

The AWM published Under the auspices of the Board of Management, the AWM published Australian Chivalry, edited by J L Treloar, Director of the AWM. The following text for ‘The Es Salt Raid’, by G W Lambert, was taken from the Official History by H S Gullett:

'Twice in the spring of 1918 Australians took part in raids east of the Jordan. As a result of the first raid the Turks – who on April 11th unsuccessfully retaliated at Ghoraniye and Musallabeh – concentrated a powerful infantry force at Shuriet Nimrin astride the road to Es Salt, and covering the Hejaz railway. With the object of destroying this force, the Londoners of the 60th Infantry Division were to make a frontal attack against it at dawn on April 30th, while the Australian Mounted Division, after seizing the bridgehead at Damieh, fifteen miles up the river from Ghoraniye, would capture Es Salt and thence send a force down the road to Shunet Nimrin to take the Turks in the rear. Shortly before daybreak on the 30th the 4th Light Horse Brigade, followed by the 3rd, rode out from Ghoraniye and made up the narrow plain; but with the first streaks of dawn they were seen by the enemy gunners, and shrapnel began to burst over them. 'As the gunfire increased each troop and each individual man instinctively drew apart, until the galloping brigade, spread out over the whole floor of the valley, presented a picture from which all formation or control seemed suddenly to have departed. On either flank, where the men rode on ground broken with many wadys, this apparent chaos was intensified. The horses, excited by the shells, fought strongly for their heads; about their bodies and necks nosebags stuffed with feed, bundles of rations, reserves of canteen stores and firewood, quart-pots, and spare bandoliers, bounced and pounded, until many of even the most expertly tied knots were loosened, and the plain was strewn with every kind of light horseman’s campaigning possessions. The safety of galloping horses in open formation under shell-fire was never more strikingly demonstrated. In the long gallop only six men were killed and seventeen wounded.' Unable to secure the Turkish bridgehead, the 4th Brigade took up a position a mile or so distant, athwart the Damieh-Es Salt road; and the 3rd, by a brilliant piece of work, captured Es Salt. But the Shunet Nimrin defences could not be pierced, either from front or rear. Next morning the enemy fell in strength on the 4th Brigade, which was forced back and had to fight desperately hard to save itself from destruction. It nevertheless managed to keep open a lower track to Es Salt, down which the other mounted brigades, heavily pressed, were able to withdraw on the night of May 3rd.'

'Jack' Mack embarked for return to Australia on 11 June 1919 aboard HMT Dorset, and was discharged on 10 August 1919. His obituary in The Pastoral Review on 18 June 1957 read in part:
'He was a veteran of World War 1 in the 8th Light Horse Regiment, Gallipoli, where he was wounded. Later he saw service in Syria, Palestine and Egypt and returned to Australia in 1919.'

John Mack died in 1957. Pegasus published a brief obituary:
'John Dodds Mack died on May 13 at Heidelberg. He was a pupil at the college from 1895 to 1898, in his last two years a member of the first football team. Most of his life was spent in pastoral pursuits, his hobby being horse racing, in which sport he was well known as owner, trainer and rider at picnic race meetings. As a member of the first AIF, he took part in the original landing on Gallipoli where he was wounded.'

His brother, Ernest Harold Mack (1886-1916), also educated at Geelong College, died of wounds suffered at the Battle of Magdhaba on 23 December 1916.

Three other brothers, Norman Oscar Mack (1887-1961), Sidney Arthur Mack (1884-1958), and Stanley Mack (1889-1960), were also educated at Geelong College.


The book The Anzacs by Patsy Adam-Smith includes letters from John Mack and their is also material held by the National Library of Australia.

1 (Brigadier John Robinson Royston CMG DSO, CO of the 3rd Brigade, of the ‘Royston Riders’, a style of commando unit formed after the Evacuation of Gallipoli).

2 (James Francis Hurley was born at Glebe, Sydney, on 15th October 1885 and became interested in photography as a young man. He began his career with a Sydney postcard company at the age of 20 in 1905. Hurley grew to regard photography as a medium that could be manipulated to achieve a desired effect and he began to follow the well-established practice of making composite prints by combining two or more negatives to make an image. He was also a proponent of colour photography. An inveterate traveller, Hurley was on one of his six trips to the Antarctic - the famous Shackleton expedition of 1914-16 - when the Great War began. In 1917, he became one of the AIF’s official photographers with the honorary rank of captain. Some of Hurley’s most famous images of the war were taken during the Passchendaele campaign in the second half of 1917. He ran considerable risks to get his shots, earning the name 'the mad photographer' from the troops. War affected Hurley deeply but he also found the battlefield fascinating.)


Sources: Pegasus June 1957 p51; Geelong Collegians at the Great World War compiled by James Affleck. pp 243-45 (citing Pegasus; Australian War Memorial; J L Treloar (Ed.), Director of the Australian War Memorial, Australian Chivalry: Reproductions in colour and duo-tone of Official War Paintings; The Pastoral Review, 18 June 1957; John Hamilton, Goodbye Cobber, God Bless You: The fatal charge of the Light Horse, Gallipoli, August 7th 1915; National Archives).

Mack, John Dodds (1881–1957)

Mr. John Dodds Mack, who had been living in retirement at Mt. Macedon, Victoria, for some years, died at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital on 13th May at the age of 76.

The late Mr. Mack was the son of Joseph and Helen Mack, of Berry Bank, Vic., and a third generation member of a well-known pioneer pastoral family of the Western District of that State, but he lived most of his life as a pastoralist in Western Riverina. He was a veteran of World War I in the 8th Light Horse Regiment and participated in the landing at Gallipoli, where he was wounded. Later he saw service in Syria, Palestine and Egypt and returned to Australia in 1919. His early experience of the land was gained in jackerooing back of Broken Hill, and after the war he established Royston in the Hillston District in Western Riverina. There he became a leading pastoralist and a devoted citizen.

Sir Douglas Copland writes of him:—"John Mack breathed the spirit of the outback as few people I have met, and it was a joy to listen to his quiet voice recounting triumph and disaster during his long and varied experience. Though I knew him only a few months in his ebbing tide, I feel as though I have lost a life-long friend. He was the stuff of which heroes are made, and his record in war and peace was one of facing the odds however menacing and difficult, and weathering the storm until fortune smiled again. A quiet, unobtrusive but adorable character, he has passed into the silence leaving memories of friendliness and courage among his cavalry mates in war and his many companions of the outback over a long and pioneer life on the land."