TIMMINGS, Ernest Daniel
| Service Number: | 17444 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 1 May 1916 |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | Army Medical Corps (AIF) |
| Born: | Jarrahdale, Western Australia, 9 December 1895 |
| Home Town: | West Perth, Western Australia |
| Schooling: | Perth Modern School, Western Australia, 1911 |
| Occupation: | Clerk |
| Died: | Tuberculosis, Victoria Park, Perth, Western Australia, 26 February 1927, aged 31 years |
| Cemetery: |
Karrakatta Cemetery & Crematorium, Western Australia Gravesite Wesleyan DC 0008 |
| Memorials: | Subiaco Perth Modern School WW1Honour Board, Subiaco Perth Modern School War Memorial |
World War 1 Service
| 1 May 1916: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 17444, Army Medical Corps (AIF) | |
|---|---|---|
| 29 Jun 1917: | Involvement Private, 17444, Army Medical Corps (AIF), --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '23' embarkation_place: Fremantle embarkation_ship: HMAT Borda embarkation_ship_number: A30 public_note: '' | |
| 29 Jun 1917: | Embarked Private, 17444, Army Medical Corps (AIF), HMAT Borda, Fremantle |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by Robert Johnson
Ernest was a Modern School foundation student, commencing on 1 February, 1911. He was born in Jarrahdale and lived with his mother, Agnes Marion Timmings (nee McGregor) at 19 Hooper Street, West Perth.
Ernest enlisted in the AIF on 1 May 1916 at the age of 20. His service number was 17444 and he was appointed to the Army Medical Corps (AMC). His previous service in the Militia included three and a half years with the 22nd Army Medical Corps including 10 months at the Base Hospital in Fremantle.
Private Timmings embarked at Fremantle on 29 June 1917 on the ship HMAT A30 “Borda”. He disembarked at Plymouth, England, on 25 August 1917 and was sent to France on 1 October 1917. He was transferred on 8 October to 3rd Field Ambulance, the same unit in which John Simpson Kirkpatrick, known as “The Man With The Donkey”, served at Gallipoli in 1915.
The unit was based at Wittenhoek in Belgium when Ernest was gassed on 5 November 1917. He was transferred to England and admitted to the 1st Western General Hospital at Fazakerley in Liverpool (aka Toxteth Park Military Hospital, now the Aintree University Hospital) on 14 November 1917. Notes on Ernest’s hospital records while in Liverpool include “Shell gas poisoning”, “? debility – later an occasional sibilation in chest”.
On 14 December 1917 he was transferred to 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Dartford in Kent for treatment. He was transferred from there on 31 December 2017 to No. 3 Command Depot at Hurdcott near Salisbury, a convalescent facility. On 2 January 1918 Ernest was classified as B.1.A, that is, fit for service in lines of communications in France, but not in the front line.
On 19 March 1918 Ernest was discharged from No. 3 Command Depot at Hurdcott and transferred to the Overseas Training Brigade, also in Hurdcott. On 28 March 1918 he was transferred to the Australian Army Medical Corps Overseas Training Brigade in Parkhouse, England. It would have been a long, cold winter for Ernest in England but better there than on the Western Front.
On 26 April 1918 he re-joined the 3rd Field Ambulance, then based at St Sylvestre Cappel, a small village six kilometres north of Hazebrouck in France. Hazebrouck had been defended with great determination by the 1st Division from 13 April 1918 to 30 April 1918 against intense German attacks that were a part of the German “Spring Offensive” of 1918.
On 22 January 1919, Ernest was transferred to the Army Pay Corps with the 1st Division in France, on 28 April he was transferred to England and on 6 September he embarked on the “Berrima” for Australia, disembarking at Fremantle six weeks later on 18 October 1919. Exactly three months later on 18 January 1920 he was discharged from the AIF in Perth. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
Ernest died on 26 February 1927 at Edward Millen Repatriation Hospital in Victoria Park. His death certificate states that he was a clerk and that he died of tuberculosis and heart failure. There is no indication in his records that the effects of being gassed in 1917 contributed to his death. However, it was not unusual for the victims of gas to have their immune systems debilitated to the extent that they were more susceptible to diseases such as tuberculosis.
Effects of being gassed
A British nurse treating mustard gas cases recorded:
They cannot be bandaged or touched. We cover them with a tent of propped-up sheets. Gas burns must be agonizing because usually the other cases do not complain even with the worst wounds but gas cases are invariably beyond endurance and they cannot help crying out.[68]
A post-mortem account from the British official medical history records one of the British casualties:
Case four. Aged 39 years. Gassed 29 July 1917.
Admitted to casualty clearing station the same day. Died about ten days later. Brownish pigmentation present over large surfaces of the body. A white ring of skin where the wrist watch was. Marked superficial burning of the face and scrotum. The larynx much congested. The whole of the trachea was covered by a yellow membrane. The bronchi contained abundant gas. The lungs fairly voluminous. The right lung showing extensive collapse at the base. Liver congested and fatty. Stomach showed numerous submucous haemorrhages. The brain substance was unduly wet and very congested.[69]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I#British_casualties
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