Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 445 HANLY Thomas Martin             9th Battalion
 
Tom Hanly was born in Toowoomba on 18th October 1876 to a family of four brothers and at least one sister. The family probably lived in the Clifton area south of Toowoomba. Tom was a member of the Queensland Mounted Infantry (similar to the Light Horse) from 1898 to 1901. By the time that the First World War broke out, Tom was living in the Bell district and he described his occupation as grazier.
 
Tom presented himself for enlistment at Dalby courthouse on 23th August 1914. Once passed fit by the recruiting officer, he proceeded by train to Brisbane and then to Enoggera where he was placed into “D” Company of the 9th Battalion; the first battalion to be raised in Queensland as part of the AIF. One month later, and with barely enough time to be fitted with boots and uniforms, the 9th Battalion embarked on the “Omrah” at Pinkenba wharf. The embarkation roll for the 9th Battalion lists Thomas Hanly, Grazier of Bell near Dalby, aged 37. As his father had died in 1907, Tom nominated his mother, Margaret of Nobby near Clifton, as his next of kin.
 
The “Omrah” only sailed as far as Melbourne before the ship was ordered into Port Phillip due to a suspicion that ships from German Admiral Graf von Spee’s China Squadron were somewhere in the Western Pacific and posed a serious threat to shipping in the Coral and Tasman Seas. Once news was received that the squadron, minus the light cruiser “Emden,” was well to the east near the Cook Islands, the ships of the first contingent could sail on to Albany where the fleet assembled prior to sailing across the Indian Ocean to Alexandria in Egypt. The 9th Battalion was part of the 3rd Brigade of the Australian Division and spent most of the time in camp training in company, battalion and then brigade exercises. The 9th Battalion sailed to the Greek island of Lemnos on the 1st March 1915 to prepare for the Gallipoli landings. The rest of the Anzac Force did not join the 9th until early April.
 
The plan for the landings at Anzac Cove called for 3 battalions of the 3rd Brigade to be the covering force (first ashore) with the 9th Battalion landing on the far right of the beach, closest to the Turkish Guns at Gaba Tepe and in the most exposed position. “A” and “B” Companies of the 9th Battalion were to go ashore first at 4:30 am on 25th April 1915. The other two companies of the 9th Battalion landed soon after the first wave were ashore and were greeted by chaos. The troops were confronted with steep shrubby cliffs and narrow gullies on a beachhead of less than 500 yards. Due to miscalculations, the men had landed in what they thought was the wrong location and there was much confusion on the beach as men, equipment and casualties piled up on the beach.
 
Sometime during that first day at Anzac Cove, Tom Hanly received a gunshot wound to his left shoulder. He was evacuated from the beach to a hospital ship standing off shore and was transported to the #2 Australian General Hospital at Heliopolis in the Cairo suburbs. After six weeks of treatment and convalescence, Tom returned to the Gallipoli front on 17th June and resumed his duties with “D” Company. He probably learned that his brother, Lieutenant John Hanly of the 5th Light Horse was missing presumed killed on 6th June.
 
On 26th September, Tom reported to the #1 Casualty Clearing Station on the Anzac Beach with a fever. Five days later he was evacuated to a hospital ship with enteric (typhoid) fever. He spent some time in hospital in Malta before being transferred to the #1 Australian General Hospital in Cairo on 18th December 1915. Ten days later Tom was discharged to the convalescent depot at Port Said.
 
Typhoid was a difficult infection to treat without recourse to antibiotics and the recovery was often lengthy. A medical board determined that Tom should be sent back to Australia for “change” which meant that after a suitable interval in Australia, the patient would be reassessed and either returned to duty or discharged due to disability. On 21st January 1916, Tom boarded the “Commonwealth” in Egypt and one month later arrived in Melbourne, from where he journeyed by train back to Brisbane and then probably to the family farm at Nobby.
 
With rest, Tom recovered well and reported back to the depot at Enoggera where he was cleared and added to the 22nd draft of reinforcements for the 9th Battalion. The reinforcements boarded the “Marathon” in Brisbane on 27th October 196 and landed at Plymouth on 9th January 1917. The men proceeded to the 3rdBrigade Training Depot at Codford for training and after a brief stay in hospital with mumps, Tom proceeded to France to join his battalion on 12th April 1917 where no doubt due to his Gallipoli experience and age (he was 39) Tom was appointed Lance Corporal.
 
The war that Tom returned to was very different from his short experience on Gallipoli. The western front battles were typified by mud and lethal shell fire. In April 1917, the 9th Battalion, now part of the 1st Division AIF, was holding position in front of the Hindenburg Line near Lagnicourt and Tom would have been exposed to snow and frost as well as an intractable enemy. British attempts to break through the Hindenburg Line were abandoned and the men of the AIF who had endured a tough few months during the 1916/17campaign on the Somme were withdrawn to safer areas where they could rest, take on reinforcements, attend divisional baths and engage in sports and recreation.
 
The British field commander, General Douglas Haig, planned a new offensive for the summer of 1917 in Belgian Flanders and the five divisions of AIF would be included in that campaign which became known as the Battle for Passchendaele. After a lengthy period of rest and training, the 1st Division of the AIF was put in to an attack on the 20th September in the Battle of Menin Road. By the end of the day, and with all objectives taken, L Cpl Tom Hanly was listed as wounded and missing.
 
Exhaustive enquiries by the authorities, including scouring lists of POWs, failed to locate any trace of Tom or his remains. At a Court of Inquiry conducted on 8th April 1918, it was determined that Tom Hanly had been killed in action on 20th September 1917. There was no known grave.
 
In a cruel twist of fate, a parcel of Tom’s personal effects was despatched to his mother at Nobby near Warwick. The ship, which was carrying the personal effects of some 5000 deceased servicemen as well as a group of AIF personnel being returned to Australia for discharge, was torpedoed by an enemy submarine just south of the Scilly Isles off Lands End in Cornwall. There was no loss of life but the ship’s cargo was lost.
 
Tom Hanly’s remains were never located. He is one of 56,000 British and Dominion servicemen, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave. Their names are inscribed on the portland stone tablets under the arches of the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres.
Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign. The ceremony concludes with the laying of wreaths, the recitation of the ode, and the playing of the Last Post by the city’s bugle corps
The commemoration of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian war artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting, which now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, toured Australia during the 1920s and 30s and drew huge crowds.
By the time that campaign medals were being distributed to relatives in the early 1920s, Tom’s mother had died. His 1914/15 Star, Empire medal and Victory Medal were sent to Tom’s eldest brother, Maurice; who also received John Hanly’s medals. Neither brother has a known grave.