Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

 JOHN THOMAS (JACK) STANFORD SN 760

The Bendigo Independent, June 11, 1915 published the following article titled - SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT.

Private J. Stanford writes from Heliopolis: — ‘A fortnight has passed since we received our baptism of fire in the true sense of the word, and those of us who have recovered from our wounds are wailing to be sent back to the firing line. I can assure you that our first taste of the "glories of war" was rather bitter, and we got it warm from the very jump. It seems wonderful that our men should have pressed forward under such an awful rain of lead and against such overwhelming odds. I think that to go right through that first day without being put out of action a person would need a charmed life. I was congratulating myself on getting on so far without injury at dinner-time of that day (the dinner-time we didn't have), and just about an hour after that a shell dropped behind me, and when I recovered by senses I had changed my opinion. A bullet whizzing past one's nose is not very terrifying, but when 'a shell bursts in sand 6ft behind you, you reckon the last minute has arrived. I was extremely fortunate in escaping serious injury, because there was another soldier between the shell and where I was standing and it lifted him up into the air, and in his flight over my head his foot caught me in the back of the head, with the result that I was rendered unconscious, and when I came to, I was suffering from shell blindness, and a sprained ankle.

The poor chap who was hurled up into the air got a frightful wound in the back, owing to some of the shrapnel hitting him. Those of us who were injured were taken back to Egypt, and we are still here. Two young chaps who were in the Baptist Young Men's Institute when I attended at Hargreaves Street, were injured.

Paul was one, and he got a badly twisted knee, and Chas.Crawford was shot, through the upper part of the left breast, near the shoulder, and also had his fingers, badly damaged. We were all together in the hospital, and while we were there two more Hargreaves Street boys came in to see us, Roy Gollan and — Stanton, so the B.Y.M.I, was well represented.

We have a hard job in front of us, and we can see nothing but success in front of us. If the "English and French soldiers keep their end up there will be a brilliant finish. The Australians can be relied upon to do everything that is expected of them. The British tars from the war boats accompanying us were quite astonished and reckoned the coolness and dash of the Australians was the best they had ever seen. I'm afraid this letter is inclined to brag a little, but as there is something to brag about, you will excuse it. We can talk nothing but war now’.

John (Jack) Stanford enlisted on August 18, 1914. He stated on his Attestation Papers that he was born in Carlton, Melbourne and that he was 21 years of age.

He NOK was his mother, Mrs Murphy who lived at 30 Creek street, Bendigo. He worked as an ‘Orchardist’. The Bendigo Advertiser reported he worked at the property of Mr I Gerber, Orchardists in White Hills and Jack was also studying ‘Assaying and Metallurgy’ at the Bendigo School of Mines.  

We read later in the Bendigoian, Jack was one of seven students farewelled at the School of Mines Student Club event held at Leggo’s café.  The president of the club a Mr T. D Anderson in toasting those departing said ‘Patriotism was a thing of deeds, not words'.

Jack would be assigned to the 7th Battalion part of the 2nd Brigade, which was among the first units raised in the war. Forming less than a fortnight after the declaration of war, recruitment was conducted over just a period of three weeks and by the end of the period the process had been so successful that the battalion was over establishment.

Jack and ninety-four other Bendigo and Northern district lads would leave the Bendigo Railway station on August 19, the very next day after Jack enlisted. (Source – Bendigoian newspaper August 25, 1914- attached)

The 7th battalion would be led by Lieutenant Colonel Harold Elliot who later became Brigadier General ‘Pompey’ Elliot. He became legendary for his front line leadership and care for the average soldier in his charge throughout and after the war. From the country town of Charlton, north west of Bendigo he would go on to become one of very few Australian officers who would stand up to the often inept British High Command.

Limited training was able to take place at the Broadmeadows camp due to time constraints and in September the battalion is marched through the city of Melbourne and a month later they embarked on the HMAT Hororata A20 on October 19, bound for war wherever that be. Jack would be assigned to G company of the 7th Battalion which was almost entirely made up of Bendigo’s finest.  (Source- https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showUnit?unitCode=INF7CG)

The Hororata A20 becomes part of the first Australian Infantry Forces (AIF) flotilla to leave Australian shores. They would depart Port Melbourne and sail to Albany Western Australia and be joined by ships carrying the New Zealand force for escort across the globe. There would be 29 Australian troop ships and 10 from New Zealand.(Source- Outstanding footage of the loading of this vessel at Port Melbourne in the link below. http://anzacsightsound.org/videos/departure-of-the-australian-expeditionary-force )

Pompey Elliot would describe the impressive sight of the flotilla leaving the Albany Sound and how the Captain of the Hororata would propose a toast at mess, ‘to the youngest navy, the Australian Fleet’ which was most enthusiastically honoured. (Source – Pompey Elliot at War- ‘In his own words’ by Ross McMullin, Scribe)

Their first stop to refuel and replenish would be Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and then on into the Indian Ocean heading for the Suez Canal. Most on board this flotilla including the military hierarchy would have been thinking their destination was England and from there to Europe to fight the Germans. Pompey Elliot would only learn on November 28th as they approached the Suez Canal, that they would disembark at Cairo and not England after all.

They arrived in Alexandria, Egypt on 2 December 1914. They would set up camp at the Mena, ten miles west of Cairo on the river Nile looking towards the great pyramids of Giza. At the Mena Camp they were drilled six days a week – marching through the sand, digging and attacking trenches. It was here that they were formed into the ANZAC Corps, with the New Zealand forces. Major-General William Birdwood, a 49-year old British officer was given command of the Australian and New Zealand troops.

Training would end in the early April (5) 1915 when the 7th Battalion entrain to the port of Alexandria for the fateful journey to the Gallipoli peninsula, Turkey. After a relatively short sea journey, they were to join over 50,000 AIF, New Zealand, British and French troops off Lemnos Island, Greece for the greatest amphibious landing force in history ever assembled.  (source - wikipedia- 7th Battalion AIF) 

On the morning of 25 April 1915, the 7th battalion took part in the Landing at Anzac Cove, coming ashore as part of the second wave. The 7th Battalion got off to a bad start at Gallipoli.  On the left of the second wave, its boats landed near Fisherman's Hut to the north of North Beach.  Unfortunately for them, a Turkish defended locality was nearby and overlooked their landing point; the boats were caught in a hail of accurate machine gun fire, which inflicted heavy casualties. A number of the boats drifted off the beach full of dead and wounded.  A total of 5 officers and 179 men were lost during and immediately after the landing. This was higher than any other subsequent battle that the battalion fought during the war.(Source – RSL Virtual Memorial website)

Reading the letter written home by Jack, it is evident he was wounded when a shell hit him and other soldiers on the cliffs of Anzac Cove late in the day on April 25. He was evacuated over the next couple of days and sent back to Egypt to recover. He was admitted to the Number 1 General Hospital at Heliopolis near Cairo. (Photo)

After a month recuperating in hospital in Cairo writing letters and reacquainting himself with other Bendigo lads being treated, Jack returns to the Dardanelles Peninsula and rejoins the 7th Battalion on May 22.

Surviving another 6 weeks at Anzac Cove, Jack would be taken off Gallipoli and shipped back to Egypt and admitted to the Australian NZ Convalescent Hospital at Helouan. (No reason is provided in his service record) 

A report in the Bendigo Advertiser later in the year describes Jack’s injuries as too serious to return to the firing line. He would spend 12 days convalescing in July 1915 before being transferred into a ‘non-infantry’ role at the AIF headquarters in the Australian Army Postal Corp in Egypt.

Jack would serve in the Postal Corp through the remainder of 1914 and witness the return of some of his 7th Battalion colleagues evacuated off Anzac Cove in late December.

He would write a number of letters home to his mother Mrs Murphy of Hargreaves street and to Mr F J Every at the Bendigo Advertiser. His fiery letter titled ‘Footballers and Fine weather’ was an attack on those in Bendigo who had not signed up and the anti conscription forces back in Australia. In another letter to Mr Every he is less vitriolic and gives a vivid description of the sports day held in late December between the soldiers of the Commonwealth in Cairo.(Source - Both letters are attached in documents section here)

In March 1915, he is promoted to Corporal with the Postal Corp and as the number of soldiers remaining in Egypt decreases rapidly his skills and knowledge in the postal service are needed elsewhere.

Jack embarks on HMAT Euripides for Overseas. By September of that year he has reached the Base Depot of the Australian Imperial Forces at Estaples in Northern France. Jack is appointed Lance Sergaent in the AIF 5th Division, still in the Postal Corp. 

Mail from home was an absolute critical service that sustained the Australian diggers at the front. When the war switched to the western front for the AUstralian forces the mail would come via England. The footage at the Australian War memorial describes what's involved - 'Over seven hundred employees of whom the greater number are women who had to be specially trained for the work. Mail arrives by ship at Liverpool and the bag is sorted and despatched by rail to Australian Base Post Office London. Here it is sorted alphabetically and redirected according to the latest information on each soldier's record card. It is then sorted for despatch to AIF units, taken to Folkstone by van and shipped to Boulogne, France, where it is taken by rail truck to field post offices. The mail is taken to trenches by ration party. Mail for Australia was censored and consigned from the field post office, along the same route via Liverpool back to Australia'.  (Source – Video How the Digger gets his mail: the Australian Army postal services at workhttps://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F00020/ )

Jack would serve in France through the winter of 1917/18. In April, 1918, he would be assigned to the Third Division Motor Transport Company still ensuring the mail gets through. He would serve rigt through till victory looked assured in November, being ‘Marched Out’ to England just three days before the Armistice is announced.

Back in England, Jack would celebrate November 11 not in the streets of London but by being admitted to Hospital. He returned to duty in England on November 20, 1918.  Jack would be given priority for a passage home as he was a '1914 Soldier' and leaves England on December 3, 1918.

His ship would be the HMAT D. 34, named the Port Hacking and it carried 700 Anzacs or, as they called themselves, “1914 men.” The port Hacking left England on 3rd December 1914, the first troop ship to leave England after the Armistace and arrived back in Australia in early February 1915.

As these soldiers boarded the ship; their long journey home began. Boredom was one key factor in such a long journey, so to keep the soldiers occupied a magazine was produced called the 'Port Hacking Cough'. It was a ‘record of the 1914- 1919 men returning home on D. 34.’ In this publication were drawings, stories, reports, funny anecdotes and poems; things that the soldiers could read, relate to, and enjoy. It also advertised many of the ships various activities that were held, including concerts and boxing matches. Soldiers enjoyed reading this and many wrote letters to the editor, or tried their hand at writing a short story or poem. Given Jack’s eloquence in letter writing it is hard to imagine him not playing a role in this publication! (Source - http://armymuseumtasmania.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/no-24-the-port-hacking-cough.pdf )

On return to Australia, Jack would be discharged from the AIF on March 28, 1919. In May 1919 correspondence to the Record's Department by Jack, he appeared to living in Richmond and later East Kew in Melbourne.

Lance Sergeant Jack Stanford is remembered by the people of White Hills. The names of the local lads who sacrificed their lives and those that were fortunate to return from the Great War are shown on the embossed copper plaques on the White Hills Arch of Triumph, at the entrance to the White Hills Botanic Gardens.