Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Copyright 19 March 2013
Extracts from an unpublished book.
Author: Sue Roberts-Smith


"A Sense of Guilt"

I feel so proud and incredibly fortunate, I also feel a very real sense of guilt and distress and I hesitate to write some of my story, for Ben is not only an Australian hero but he is very much alive and I hope he is well. I will always be eternally grateful that he returned home from the horrors of war. The same cannot be said for the Australian families who have lost loved ones or for the families of those who have returned with horrendous wounds both physical and mental. Those who have been injured show outstanding courage and I am in awe of them and their ongoing bravery as they fight their demons, bearing the burdens of war as they try to return to normal lives within our community.

The media announces the sad news of death and injury of our soldiers. The news races through cables across the nation. Every death and every injury burns like a fire in my soul. My thoughts leap forward and rush to the family. I don’t know them, I will never meet them but I feel their heartbreak and an unbearable sense of grief, overwhelms me. That unbearable sense of grief, the terrible shock and horror, will break a mother’s heart and shatter a family.

When Ben was younger and before he deployed overseas, he would always phone to say goodbye. The call ended with us both saying “I love you” and then came the click of a disconnected call before the numbing silence at the end of the line. That dreadful feeling of helplessness and despair would engulf me. My husband’s arms were around me as tears ran in rivers down my face. It does not matter that my son is a giant at 6 feet 7 inches and all muscle, I want to protect him, he is my child and there is no fiercer love than a mother’s love for her child.

The greatest struggle for my son has been coping with the loss and injury to his mates. He has been enormously grieved to return to see devastated wives, children, parents and grandparents and other family members trying bravely to hold back their tears of despair. Despite his great courage, he has laid his life on the line to help his mates. The pain written on the faces of loved ones reaches deep into his soul.

To prevent a decline of my sanity I fight my fears. However, through the years I have not been immune to the frightening possibilities of what may happen to my son and the thoughts that terrify me are pushed into the darkest shadows of my mind so I do not lay awake at night longing for the day to dawn. Ben is home now and we are both safe for the time being.

Mabel Holloway, my Grandmother, a slightly built elegant woman, was awarded a medal in 1940 by the Commonwealth of Australia. The medal was for mothers and widows to mark the death of a son or husband on active service during World War II
I wear that medal as a brooch today and I wear it with great pride because her son was my Uncle, Robert Francis Holloway. Bob was South Australian Junior Professional Cycling Champion. This beautiful, handsome, athletic boy was so badly burnt and disfigured, he died in a field hospital three days after his horrific injuries in the Middle East on 27 May 1941. He was only 18, he was only a boy, his life had not begun! I wonder if the friends who survived him, lived their life with the smell of burning flesh and the battle raging around them each night when they closed their eyes to sleep. My father, Brian Holloway was too young to go to war and he remembered vividly the day his mother received the telegram. Her son Bob had died. She collapsed in the passageway of their home to live forever with a broken heart.
Mabel’s eldest son and my Uncle, Peter Holloway, was serving in the Navy on the HMAS Australia at the time of Robert’s death. Peter the eldest son of Mabel and Percy Holloway enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy on 26 February 1940 and trained at Cerberus in Victoria. He served as a signalman in the Mediterranean and also on the cruiser HMAS Australian after having been originally assigned to the ill-fated HMAS Sydney. He also served on the Destroyer HMAS Warramunga. He took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea and Savo Island. I cannot begin to imagine my Grandmother’s fear and grief as the war continued for the next three years.

George Delicate, brother of Mabel, and my Great Uncle, enlisted on 30 April 1912 into the Hampshire Regiment and fought in the Great War in France. He was discharged on 28 June 1915, no longer physically fit for war service. The right side of his face had been blown away by a gunshot wound. He was a handsome son and brother and now he was deeply scarred both physically and emotionally. His “Character Certificate” reads “he was industrious, honest, clean, a good hardworking man, intelligent and obliging”. Despite his dreadful injuries he returned to his sweetheart, also named Mabel and they married. With that scarred and disfigured face she loved him unconditionally until the day she died, she loved him as much as his mother Mary loved him - they did not see the injury, the scars and burns across his face. What they could see was the man from within, the man they both loved and welcomed home.

George went on to run a very successful business in South Australia. I remember Uncle George when I was a small child, I was very afraid of him because of his appearance and the dreadful damage to his face. I was too small to understand the horrors of war.

Percy Holloway, my Grandfather, was a young man of 20 when war broke out in the summer of 1914. He was tall and dashingly handsome with sensuous eyes. The eyes no longer radiant and blue, stare from an exquisitely sculpted face. The old photo shows him looking immaculate, in his AIF 10th Battalion uniform. His body looks firmly built, slender but muscular and even with those movie star looks there is something stunningly rugged about him. His large masculine looking hand with long slender fingers holds a cigarette. This hand does not tell of his life as an athlete or a young labourer neither of his actions during the war or the scars of his seven gunshot wounds.

He was the youngest son of Robert and Emma Holloway. He was one of four brothers, Eric Vinson, Ernest, John Charles and Percy. His father Robert was a Medical Practitioner and I like to imagine their life before the war in England was one of comfort.

Emma Holloway was 37 years old when Percy was born and 57 when he went to war. Two of Emma’s sons John and Percy were amongst the first to feel the cold sea-water lap their boots as they rushed forward towards those rugged hills of Anzac Cove at Gallipoli on 25 August 2015. Many of their mates perished as Turkish bullets flew at them and struck them down in the charge. The sea was cold and bloody as the wounded and dead fell. Charles died in 1915, I do not know if he died at war. The anguish their mother Emma must have felt is indefinable.

Percy suffered the malaise of war and his record shows he had dysentery, diarrhoea, septic cuts and infection as he lived in the squalid conditions of the trenches in Malta, Belgium and France. He received gun shot wounds to his legs, his arms his thigh and his head. How did he survive through those years of horror on the Western Front? How does any soldier survive and return to a normal life?

After the war, Percy went on to join the South Australian Police Force and his courage was again recognised. He was awarded a King’s Police Medal after the “Battle of Enfield” where he gave chase to help capture two escaped criminals. It is an exciting and dramatic story and the Adelaide newspaper of 1930 reports “then a motor bike slowed down and Constable PE Holloway leaped from the side car onto the truck. The end was near as shots poured into the cabin. Harrison and Newchurch, each struck by several bullets, slumped forward dead.”

My darling father, Brian Holloway passed away in January 2013. He had almost finished his autobiography "Cadet to Commissioner." The stories of his extraordinary life and the battles he fought are parallel in fear to those of his father Percy. He joined the Papua New Guinea Constabulary at 21 as a Sub-Inspector. During his 35 years of dedicated service he led his men, armed only with batons, into many tribal battles, terrifying, fierce and bloody, against an enemy armed with three headed clubs, stones, axes and spears. Men were killed and injured with horrific wounds. I remember him returning home on one occasion with a massive gapping infected tropical wound at the top of his leg. I loved my father dearly and that memory has always affected me and still sends shivers of fear through me. My father was awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and the Queen’s Police Medal (QPM) He gave 27 years dedicated service to the RPNG Constabulary. My mother Fae remained by my father’s side for 64 years, her courage and ability to cope in remote outstations with three children, while my father was constantly away fighting his battles, is outstanding.

My husband The Hon Len Roberts-Smith RFD QC is not a fighting warrior in the true sense of the word but he is a warrior and a man of courage, conviction and honour. For 40 years I have known him and for 38 years I have had the privilege of being his wife. In that time he has fought for justice for all people as though his life depends on it. “The pen is mightier than the sword" was written by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839. My husband has been clutching that pen from our days in Papua New Guinea as he served in the Crown Law Department, as Chief Crown Prosecutor and the first Public Prosecutor of PNG.

In Adelaide he was a Stipendiary Magistrate and in WA the Foundation Director of the Legal Aid Commission, he was Chairman of the Citizens' Advice Bureau of WA, and of the State Advisory Panel for Translators and Interpreters. He was President of the Civil Rehabilitation Council of WA. While in his own Legal practice he provided pro-bono work for many people. He was Deputy President of the Equal Opportunity Commission, Counsel to the WA Parliamentary Committee on Delegated Legislation, Deputy President of the Equal Opportunity Tribunal, Chairman of the State Government Committee of Review into the Administration of Criminal Justice in Queensland. He was a Judge in the Court of Appeals Division, Supreme Court of Western Australia, Judge Advocate General (JAG) of the Australian Defence Force, Commissioner of the Corruption and Crime Commission of WA. He has been an accredited Australian Advocacy Institute teacher, a member of the Legal Practice Board, Deputy Chairman of the Legal Practitioners’ Complaints Committee, and Chair of the Murdoch University Board of Discipline. He has conducted a Ministerial Review into the WA Witness Protection Program and the death of a protected witness. He joined the Australian Army Reserve in Adelaide and transferred to the Australian Army Legal Corps as a Reserve Legal Officer. He was promoted to Major and Judge Advocate and Defence Force Magistrate in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, then Colonel, he was a Major General and Judge Advocate General of the Australian Defence Force. He retired on 31 Jan 2011 but has taken on the role of Chairman of the ADF Task Force into allegations of abuse. He works tirelessly for the Australian Defence Force Assistance Trust, a trust which will provide benefits to members of the ADF and their families that are not otherwise covered by a specific trust. He is still fighting for justice and for what is right and his battles go on as he fills the role of Chairman for the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce? I am proud to stand by his side.

It is with a sense of relief that I end this story with our youngest son Sam. Until June 2014 he has been for six years a baritone and tenor with Opera Australia and not in any danger, unless of course he falls off the stage! He graduated after five years of study with a Bachelor of Music and Graduate Diploma in Opera from The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He joined Opera Australia in 2009 and was invited to join the Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artist Program in Sydney in 2012. Sam has been awarded numerous prizes including First place in the 2009 Australian Singing Competition, The Joan Sutherland Society Scholarship and the Symphony Australia Young Vocalist Award. Sam made his Opera Australia Principal debut in 2011 as Moralès in Carmen, followed by many performances in various operas and has recently performed in “Carmen on the Harbour” as Remendado. I am proud of his work ethic, his drive, dedication and hard work and I have no doubt he will go far in his chosen career. My heart fills with enormous pride each time I sit in the audience and hear his magnificent voice and I am glad he is safe.

Our soldiers fight for our country, they fight to keep us safe from the terror that tears other countries apart. When they return home many continue to fight. They fight their dreadful memories and demons. They have experienced fear that we cannot comprehend, injuries that will last a lifetime. It is now time for us to help them and to show them the respect, gratitude and the pride we feel that they have placed their lives on the line for each and every one of us so we can live a life of freedom in our democratic country Australia.

I am from a family of men and women, both past and present, who I admire and respect. Men and woman of great courage who have lived extraordinary lives with hard-work, bravery, kindness and with honour and integrity. I am proud and incredibly fortunate to be an Australian.

"In the dark before dawn, it looked as if a ghost from the past had joined the silent ranks of pilgrims, waiting for the sun to rise over the Gallipoli Peninsula.

On the rugged shores of North Beach, SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith sat with head bowed, the spitting image of a Digger who had been among the first to storm the rugged hills above Anzac Cove 97 years before. The likeness was no coincidence or trick of the light.

On April 25, 1915, Cpl Roberts-Smith’s great-grandfather Percy Edgecumbe Holloway landed at Gallipoli with the South Australian 10th Battalion under murderous Turkish fire.

In the footsteps of his forefather, the 33-year-old Victoria Cross recipient walked for the first time this week, a flesh-and-blood link to those who had forged the Anzac legend, a soldier heir to their ideals and spirit.

Almost 100 years removed from the battlefields of Afghanistan where Cpl Roberts-Smith earned Australia’s highest military honour, this is where the making of the VC recipient began, with a 21-year-old labourer from South Australia whose service and sacrifice would later be among the factors that helped inspire his great-grandson to don a uniform.

The dawn service on the hallowed ground where the nation was forged had a profound effect on Cpl Roberts-Smith.

“Today was a very special and a very humbling experience, ” he said. “Having had four relatives land at Gallipoli, from an emotional point of view, I was able to put myself there; having been in battle before.”

“I was actually thinking about what it would have been like to be sitting on those boats before the first round rang out, before they hit the beach, what they must have been thinking when they fought up the slopes.”

The landings that day on April 25 were the beginning of four bloody years of war for Pte Holloway, a personal trial that would see him struck down with sickness and bullets and infection on the forbidding ridges above Anzac Cove and on the battlefields of the Western Front.

Blue-eyed, 5’11 and brown haired, Pte Holloway was assigned to A Company, which landed on the beach near the centre of the cove.

His commanding officer, Major Miles Beevor, later said in his memoirs that 4.22am was when his watch stopped dead in the cold sea water as he was wading ashore.
Most of his comrades charged and climbed the hill looming above them, reaching Plugge’s Plateau.

Many were ordered on to take positions on Third Ridge, battling with the enemy at great cost, until counterattacks pushed them back. Others charged forward and were cut down by Turkish bullets.

A pair of 10th Battalion scouts, who penetrated further than any other Digger ever would throughout the rest of the nine-month campaign, sighted the gleaming water of the Dardanelles that was the Anzacs’ objective before they were forced to retreat.

By April 30, 50 of Pte Holloway’s mates from the 10th Battalion were dead, 232 were wounded and 184 were missing.

That single battalion sustained more casualties in five days than the Australian Defence Force has suffered in an entire decade of war in Afghanistan.

Cpl Roberts-Smith, who knows the pain of losing mates on the battlefield, said the losses the Anzacs suffered were unfathomable.

“You’re talking about young men who have come over and lost all of their mates, and they’ve been expected to fight on for the next four years, as most of them did, ” he said. “It always hurts to lose friends and mates or any Australian soldier. That is why this is so significant for us, because of the losses, but also how they dealt with it and fought on.”

All up, the bloody landing cost the Anzacs about 2000 casualties. A week later, the toll had climbed to about 8500.

Official service documents held by the National Archives, written in the scratchy hand of officers or the looping scrawl of Pte Holloway himself, reveal what happened next to Cpl Roberts-Smith’s great-grandfather as the desperate days of the initial fighting wore on into bitter months of attrition.

Pte Holloway, who had emigrated from Hampshire, England, to Australia, stayed in the thick of things at Gallipoli until October 1, 1915, when like many Anzacs, he became a victim of the squalid conditions in the trenches.

“Sick to hospital” and “sick, severe” were recorded in his service records.
The doctor’s diagnosis was dysentery and he was medically evacuated aboard a hospital ship, first to Malta then England.

He spent the remainder of his four years and 303 days of wartime service — 2½ years of them spent in the field — bouncing between hospitals in England and the fierce fighting on the Western Front.

He was wounded in July 1917 with “multiple gunshot wounds”.


By August he had been promoted to lieutenant, and in September that year he was in hospital again for a “septic finger”.

Lt Holloway returned to South Australia, where he later became a decorated police officer.

On Anzac Day, Cpl Roberts-Smith paid homage to all his family, warrior brothers and sisters past and present, those who had donned a uniform in the service of their country.

He hoped future generations would remember him and his generation of soldiers like he remembered his great-grandfather and the other Anzacs, not as historical or legendary figures, but as men who stood by their mates.

“You look at photos (of the Anzacs), you look at those guys and they are the same guys that I work with today, ” he said.

“They’ve got the same names, they are about the same age, they’ve got the same eyes. It’s no different.

“They are just young Australians doing their bit. Nothing has changed much. We’ve still got that larrikin streak. We’re very proud of our country and proud to serve it.”

The West Australian
Joseph Catanzaro April 26 2012