Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Joseph Blagg was given the name Josiah when he was born but always called himself Joseph or Joe, even in legal documents. He was born at Moredun, a sheep station between Armidale and Glen Innes in New South Wales, on 2 July 1872. His father, Frederick, was a shepherd who taught his sons his profession. Joe was only 9 years old when his mother, Mary Ellen (nee Henning) died in Inverell in 1881. His father had become blind by this time, and the family, which included two children even younger than Joe and several not much older, was destitute. Joe left home two years later and went to Queensland to work as a shepherd boy and to help in the shearing sheds in the Goondiwindi region. He returned to NSW as a young man and tried tin mining with his brothers for a while around Tingha, but he loved working with horses, and he became a drover and drove mobs of cattle all over Australia.

Joe told his family that during the Boer War, when Australian troops were fighting in South Africa, he made several voyages, as a civilian, in transport ships taking horses to the soldiers. No documentary evidence of this has been found, but Joe did enlist on 29 April 1902, a few months before his 30th birthday, joining the only Boer War battalion to be raised entirely in Queensland. However, the war ended on 31 May 1902 and by the time Joe’s ship arrived in South Africa peace had been declared. He returned to Australia without having been involved in the fighting.

After the Boer War, Joe spent much of his time droving. He is reputed to have driven cattle for Harry Redford (aka Captain Starlight), and to have worked for Sir Sidney Kidman (the cattle king). While he did not like Kidman, he admired his strategy of buying up properties to have places to spell his cattle and horses during long droving trips. Joe too acquired several properties during these years, and he worked on and managed several stations. In 1909 he married Annie Horswood, and in 1915, after several miscarriages, he and Annie adopted a son, Thomas.

When Australia entered World War I on 4 August 1914, Joe was 42, much older than the Australian Army wanted its soldiers to be, and he was also only 5ft 4in tall. The requirements in August 1914 were for men who enlisted to be 19 to 38 years of age with a height of 5ft 6in. These requirements were relaxed in 1915, and again in April 1917, as more soldiers were needed for the war effort.[i]

[i] Enlistment standards | Australian War Memorial 

When Joe enlisted on 4 April 1917, he was 44 years 9 months old. He and Annie had obtained a house in the Brisbane suburb of Sandgate, and it was there that Annie spent the war years. Joe was assigned to the 4th Pioneers and was part of the 10th Reinforcements who embarked from Sydney on 14th June 1917 aboard the ship HMAT A20 "Hororata". He arrived in England on 26 August and was stationed at Fovant in Wiltshire for further training before being sent to France.

For a period of just over 3 weeks in March 1918, Joe, along with several others, was detached from his unit to work with the 184th Tunnelling Company in France. Perhaps his mining experience influenced this decision. The 184th Tunnelling Company was a British one formed in Rouen, France in October 1915 and which moved immediately to the Somme area. Over the years the company had been involved in building gun emplacements and underground shelters and preparing roads and bridges for tank crossings. In March 1918 when Joe was assigned to the company, they were stationed in northern France close to the Belgian border.[ii]

[ii] 184th Tunnelling Company - Wikipedia

An inspection of the War Diaries of the 4th Australian Pioneers from February to November 1918, when Joe is known to have been in the field, confirms that he was likely to have been involved in fighting at Villers Bretonneux, Amiens, the Somme, Hamel, and parts of the Hindenburg Line. As well as recording their military engagements during that period, the diaries also chronicle the times the soldiers were spelled from the fighting. If the men were able to bathe, it was significant enough to be reported in the monthly diary reports - and it certainly didn't happen every month! When it did happen, new underwear was generally issued at the same time.

This sort of detail highlights the awful conditions the soldiers endured at the front. [iii]

[iii] AWM4 Subclass 14/16 - 4th Australian Pioneer Battalion | Australian War Memorial

Joe became just one of many soldiers caught up in the influenza pandemic that broke out towards the end of the war, and which led to around 40 million deaths worldwide, many more than were killed because of the fighting. Fortunately, he was one who survived. His war record indicates that in late 1918 and early 1919 Joe suffered recurring bouts of influenza, bronchitis and tonsillitis. On 24 November 1918 (after the Armistice declaration on 11th which signalled the end of the war) Joe was twice sent to hospital in Rouen where he was declared dangerously ill with influenza and his wife in Australia was advised accordingly, and he was twice sent to the Alexandra Hospital in Cosham in England for convalescence. He was eventually returned to Australia on 17th March 1919 aboard the ship "Plassy" suffering post influenza disability and was discharged on 7th June 1919.

After the war Joe and Annie returned to Chinchilla on Queensland’s Darling Downs, where, with the help of a War Service Loan, Joe bought a house in town. Annie died in 1921 when their son was five. Joe worked on the Cactoblastis Experimental Farm (called the “Bug Farm” by the locals) then purchased a Prickly Pear Selection outside Chinchilla, the last property he was to purchase. For many years, however, he continued to take part in cattle drives.

Joe was far too old to join the regular army when World War II broke out, much to his frustration. He went off to town to enlist and came home thoroughly ropeable. “Those young whippersnappers wouldn’t have me”, he said, “just because I’m 72. Imagine it, a man of my experience”. Instead, he joined an informal Light Horse regiment in Chinchilla with which he trained. Joe died on 8 April 1945, shortly before the end of World War II. His son, Tom, served in the Army in that war.