Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Biography: PTE Patrick James Thyne

‘Farewell to little Sonny Thyne, farewell to Millbrook’s pride, where ere go we wish you luck and fortune with the tide’

The young spirited and adventurous 21 year old Patrick Thyne left Australian shores for the battlefields of World War One on the 11th of May 1917. He returned to Australian soil almost a year after it ended on the 9th of October 1919. E came home a somewhat different man, physically he was relatively unscathed but it seemed his mind was tortured just as so many others were by this 'Great War', Patrick was changed man thereafter. 

 Patrick James Thyne was born in the small country township of Millbrook, Victoria on the 2nd of January, 1896, he was the eldest of six children to Cornelius and Rebecca Thyne who were 2nd generation Australian farmers in the district. After finishing his schooling at St. Thomas's in Millbrook he took up labouring jobs in the area and further afield in Gippsland. On the 1st Of April 1916 Patrick arrived at the Ararat Town Hall (115km's from Millbrook) to enlist in the A.I.F. Being catholic it seems that the views of the anti-conscription activist Dr. Mannix had no bearing on this decision, perhaps it was with the first anniversary of Gallipoli fast approaching the impressionable young Patrick was being swept up with the huge patronage being felt in Australia at that time.

 Being aged only 20 years and 3 months it was required that he have the signed permission of one or both parents, it appears when looking at the writing on the application form that Patrick 'forged' the signature of his father (his mother has died the previous year) as later that year his father Cornelius writes this letter (dated October 24th, 1916) to the authorities.

This letter was in response to another letter sent to the Bungaree Police Station from the A.I.F receiving depot in South Melbourne, it read (1) 'I shall be obliged if you will have enquiries made for the person mentioned on the attached card, who enlisted but failed to report himself and inform me of the result as soon as possible. If traced I will have a warrant issued for his arrest and you will be communicated with direct when the warrant is issued. I have the permission of the Chief Commissioner of Police to make this request' (1)

 The response from the Bungaree Policeman was; (2) 'Thyne has not been in this district for this last six months. I interviewed his people who state that he is in Gippsland somewhere about Kooweerup working for the farmers there'. (2) One has to wonder that perhaps Patrick had to admit to his father that he did forge his signature and with Cornelius’s obvious opposition to him joining up (as stated in his letter) Patrick decided to wait out his time working away until turning of age.

 Patrick turned 21 on the 2nd of January 1917 and on the 20th of January he enlists for a second time, this time in Dandenong, he is deemed to be in excellent health and on the 5th of March he is sent for training at the Seymour A.I.F camp, he is given the enlistment number of 3642 and placed in the 2nd Pioneer Battalion, reinforcement 9. On 11th of May Patrick finally sails out of Melbourne headed for the front.

 (3) The 2nd Pioneers were the Pioneer Battalion of the 2nd Division as indicated by the diamond-shaped colour patch. Their skills and capability were broad from building, construction and maintenance to road and track preparation and maintenance. They could also, and did quite often, fight as infantry.

The 2nd Pioneers were raised in 1916 and were engaged in every action undertaken by the 2nd Division, starting at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm in mid 1916 through Bullecourt and Third Ypres in 1917, the stemming of the German tide in the Spring Offensive of 1918, the "Peaceful Penetration" phase leading up to and including the Hundred Days campaign in late 1918. (3)

       After Disembarking in Plymouth on the 19th of July Patrick and his regiment were sent to the temporary training camp at Fovant in Wiltshire, England. it is not until 5th of February 1918 that his record reveal his next movements (4) 'proceeded o/seas to France' (4) Arriving the next day at Le Havre; the port of entry for troops and supplies, he is then detached to the 2nd Australian division corps regiment and taken on strength to the field from the 11th of February and stays there in position until 7th of October 1918. During this time the local paper report twice that Patrick is in France and in the 'firing line' and a letter arrives home to his father.

The armistice on the 11th of November 1918 brought an end to the fighting on the Western Front, The Great War was over but for Patrick it was only beginning, and on the 21st of November he is taken to the no. 3 Australian General hospital, based at Abbeville. It states he is sick and has a sprained ankle. By the 30th of November he is back at Le Havre, and then moved out of his unit on the 14th of January. On the 29th of March he is attached to Graves Registration Detachment in France, Patrick is in this role of duty for what would have been a harrowing 4 months. On the 28th of July he detached from the Graves R. D. and sails from France to England, returning to Australia on the 'Ajana' that left on the 2nd of August, arriving home on the 9th of October 1919.

 Patrick was awarded 3 medals, the Star, British War medal and the Victory medal. In 1944 Patrick sends this letter requesting a ‘next to kin badge’

 A reply letter from Base records states that his wife Frances was not eligible because they were not married until after Patrick’s discharge from the forces. As Patrick had no children it is not known what became of his medals.

Patrick James Thyne passed away on the 4th of August 1965 aged 69 years. No one truly knows what it was that impacted his character post war the most, in researching the ‘Graves R.D’. I found this quote by Henry George Whiting; “We will be a hard headed crowd when we get back, after the sights we see…” He writes of (5) ‘the grisly but vitally important task of exhuming dead allied soldiers, identifying them and reburying them into organised cemeteries’.(5) It’s my belief that Patrick suffered from ‘Shell Shock’ as Marina Larsson wrote (6) Shell shock was the ‘saddest heritage’ of war for many soldiers and their families’ (6) Patrick’s service to his country is commendable even with its cost to his well being; Patrick your family honours you, ‘Lest we forget’.

Bibliography:

(1)   National Archives of Australia: https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8099802

(2)   National Archives of Australia: https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8099802

(3)   2nd Pioneer Battalion, RSL Virtual War Memorial https://rslvirtualwarmemorial.org.au/explore/units/62

(4)   National Archives of Australia: https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8099802

(5)   Australian War Memorial: https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2014/11/05/sombre-duty/#comments

(6)   ‘Families and Institutions for Shell-shocked Soldiers in Australia after the First World War by Marina Larsson, Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved.