Patrick (Paddy) FLAHERTY

FLAHERTY, Patrick

Service Number: 1137
Enlisted: 11 August 1914, at Morphettville
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 10th Infantry Battalion
Born: Hetford, Ireland, May 1885
Home Town: Adelaide, South Australia
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Miner
Died: Razor cut to his throat, Adelaide Hospital, 25 July 1916
Cemetery: West Terrace Cemetery (General) Adelaide, South Australia
unmarked grave in Catholic Old Area
Memorials:
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World War 1 Service

11 Aug 1914: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 1137, 10th Infantry Battalion, at Morphettville
27 Dec 1914: Involvement Private, 1137, 10th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '10' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Themistocles embarkation_ship_number: A32 public_note: ''
27 Dec 1914: Embarked Private, 1137, 10th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Themistocles, Melbourne

Harp and Shamrock

Born in County Galway in Ireland, Patrick initially served five years in the navy, which is probably when he acquired his very Irish tattoo of the harp and shamrock. Patrick tried his hand at mining in Broken Hill but this was not to give him the consistent pay he had hoped for. He also had a year in the South Australian Infantry, but when the First World War broke out, he enlisted at Morphettville in the 10th Infantry, 1st Reinforcements on the 11th September 1914, just after his 30th birthday.
At the main Railway station in Cairo, Patrick stepped off a train on 18th February 1915, unaware that a second fast moving train was passing. He sustained sickening physical injuries including fracturing the lower third of his femur, his skull, and extensive damage to his mutilated left hand. The latter required three of his fingers to be amputated with just the index finger and thumb remaining. Patrick requiring extensive hospitalisation for his other wounds resulting in a significant shortening of his leg (6.5cm) and probably extensive brain trauma as well as the skull fracture. An inevitable Court of Enquiry was held in May 1915 but the conclusion was that the injury was accidental.
With his horrific injuries precluding him from any further involvement in fighting, Patrick was evacuated via the Suez back to Australia in June 1915 almost exactly nine months after enlisting. He arrived in Adelaide in July to be discharged two months later in September of 1915 as permanently unfit for service. Patrick was described as being of “good character” enabling him to receive a basic pension of 26 pounds ($52) per annum.
This previously fit and active man needed to learn to slowly walk with a crutch, re-learn how to use his hands and how to cope with his extensive head injuries – in effect his prospects for gaining meaningful employment were almost non-existent. He was also far away from family back in Ireland.
By coincidence, John James Retallack also served in the 10th Infantry Battalion and had similarly been a miner prior to enlisting a few weeks before Patrick. John also sustained a gunshot wound in the trenches which requiring amputation of his index and middle fingers. John was also discharged in September 1915 and the two found lodgings in Hindley Street, Adelaide.
Probably little was known about the effects of concussion or brain trauma at the time and there was little rehabilitation for returned soldiers, many of whom relied on lodgings that were crowded and offered little support, the latter being provided by excessive alcohol consumption. Both Patrick and John lived in rooms run by a Mrs Meires at 135 Hindley Street. In July 1916 a report from the City Watch House recorded that Patrick was seen mid-morning, but when the landlady went upstairs to make her own bed, she looked into Patrick’s room to see him slumped in a chair with his head hanging down and blood pooling on the floor. She called John; whose room was a few doors away. On arrival, John saw the blood and also a cut throat razor, readily available at the time, on Patrick’s bed. Still conscious, Patrick asked John to fetch the police, which he did. On returning with Constable Sweeney, Patrick was able to tell John he “had to” cut his throat as he “couldn’t breathe”. It is not clear from Patrick’s war record if he had been subjected to poison gas or if his head injury and possible brain injury caused this belief. Initially the ‘Advertiser’ newspaper reported that this wound was ‘not dangerous’
Patrick was taken in a cab to the Adelaide Hospital but died four days later from pneumonia caused by the laceration to his throat. The ‘Register’ reported that ‘The Coroner has decided not to hold an inquest’ – a tragic end for one so willing to work and fight.

His worried parents attempted to find Patrick, having exhausted any trail in London. In desperation they wrote to the Communications Base Records Department of Defence in Melbourne, in September of 1919. However, that department could only supply Patrick’s last known address in Morphett Street, Adelaide. In a heart-wrenching letter, his parents explain:
“We have not heard from him or of him since the war began but we know that he was amongst the first to leave Australia for Europe on the outbreak of hostilities. We have had our share of trouble two sons lost to us as far as we know, a third badly wounded, hoping that you will relieve our anxiety as soon as possible.’ Letters to Patrick’s original address on Morphett Street were returned as were his posthumously awarded medals. Tragically, neither they or the Department of defence were to know that Patrick had been boarding in nearby Hindley Street but died as a result of his own actions almost three years earlier.
In his short army career Patrick had earned the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal which were dispatched, then returned unclaimed, to his enlistment address at Morphett Street in Adelaide in March 1924
Patrick was buried in the Catholic Old Area of West Terrace Cemetery in an unmarked grave. Gone but not forgotten.
Researched and written by Kaye Lee, daughter of Bryan Holmes SX8133 2/48th Battalion. Also grand-daughter of Blanche Cummings nee Retallack.

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