Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

George Andrew (Charles) Bain was born at Braidwood NSW on 14 May 1898 and enlisted at Cootamundra NSW at the age of 17 on 25 January 1916. He had grown up as a child in Braidwood, Newtown and Redfern.

He was single, the son of George and Janet Bain of Budgong Gap Kangaroo Valley and had been labouring around the farms in the district. Surprisingly the recruiting officer accepted his enlistment and recorded his true birth date of 14 May 1898 despite Charles being under the minimum enlistment age of 18 years. The recruiting officer would have been aware that Charles would reach that age while still in camp in Australia and so assigned him firstly with the 1st Battalion to the A.I.F. Camp at Goulburn.

Charles’ mother Janet wrote her consent for his enlistment the day before with some help from Charles. So as to remove any doubt of his needs, he had scrawled “on the front” to her consent:
“ .. to join the Australian Reinforcements.”

After Goulburn he was later to be transferred to the 56th Battalion at Cootamundra to complete his training.

He embarked from Sydney with the 3rd Reinforcement of the 56th on the HMAT Barambah on 23 June 1916 with Donald Crutchily, also of the Valley. After landfall in England he went into base camp for further training and was re-assigned to “D” Company of the 35th Battalion, known as “Newcastle’s Own”. He embarked with the 35th for France on 21 November 1916, and into the onset of the worst European winter in recorded history.

Now barely 18 years of age Charles managed to be written up twice for disorderly conduct. On 5 January 1917 he was charged with:
“Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline in that at Armentiéres on the 5.1.17 when on the march he behaved in a disorderly manner.”

Considering that forced marches into Armentiéres could be as much as 18 miles in full pack the protest is understandable. He copped 3 days of CB (Confined to Barracks) from Major Brent Rodd. Confined to barracks was a minor punishment but tedious and unpleasant nonetheless. The servicemen charged would be required to parade and undergo rigorous dress and kit inspections throughout the day and to participate in menial camp tasks. This experience did not seem to concern him however because he was charged for a second episode of disorderly conduct on 17 June 1917 and penalised a further 7 days CB courtesy of Captain Robert Dixon. [Dixon won the DSO for conspicuous gallantry at Passchendaele later that year].

If his recalcitrant behaviour was the consequence of boredom then Charles had little further time to wait for action. The 35th Battalion was thrown into the Battle of Messines on 7 June 1917 as part of the Australian 3rd Division attack. Considered a resounding success the battle came at heavy losses nonetheless with the 35th Battalion suffering 436 casualties.

The month of July was spent alternating between the billets and the close support trenches at Messines. The enemy harassed them with shellfire at every opportunity with 45 casualties taken during the month. 12 were killed, include fellow Valley recruit James Dodd. The battalion commander wrote that July 1917 had been one of most strenuous in the history of the 35th.
The next two months were spent rebuilding and rejuvenating the exhausted battalion. They were rested in billets at Wismes for training and sports. The 35th won the Mule Race and the prize for the best Field Kitchen. They were also inspected by Field Marshall Douglas Haig on 22 September.

None of this relief could have prepared them for what came next – the worst battlefield in history - Passchendaele. The 35th was bussed to Ypres on 10 October and left Cavalry Camp in the late evening of the next day to be at the jumping off tape by 3.30am on 12 October. Conditions were extremely testing – a heavy and difficult track, constant enemy shelling and mud. The battalion rose at 5.25am and went forward with the 34th Battalion to take their primary objectives by 10am that morning. German machine guns took a heavy toll and the battalion required re-organisation before it became obvious that a strategic withdrawal was needed. A position was finally established barely 200 yards in front of their original tape line. The rains had turned the battlefield into a quagmire. Casualties among the 35th were 53 killed, 216 wounded and 56 missing. The 35th would be ineffective as a fighting unit for the next five months.

Charles’ efforts at Messines and Passchendaele were rewarded with two weeks of UK leave 12-26 January 1918. He was amongst 3 Officers and 30 men granted leave, all extremely appreciative of the relief from the frontline. Charles spent most of his time in Scotland and shopped for niceties and souvenirs which he posted to his mother Janet at Budgong.

Charles next fought in the defence of Amiens near Villers-Bretonneux in late March 1918 when the Germans launched their last spring offensive towards Paris. The fighting was desperate and the 35th Battalion suffered 70% casualties in this period. On 17 April the Germans barrage caught Charles’ D Coy. The Battalion War Diary records the event:
“From 4am till 6am enemy bombarded wood at O25, 26 and 31 with gas shells.
D Coy suffered 36 casualties as a result, notwithstanding the fact that all gas precautions were taken.”

Charles was amongst those casualties, gassed so badly he required evacuation to the Australian Infantry Base Depot Hospital at Etaples.

He wrote to his mother on 20 May after receiving home mail, the first that had been redirected to him from the Battalion since his gas wound. His mood reflected a significant change from the young man that had pressed his mother for consent to enlist two years earlier.
“It will take a while to get right after the gas. I don’t want any more of it one dose of that stuff is enough… I had my 20th birthday last week. It does not seem like a birthday at all. I expected to be home with you for it and have a bit of a dance and so on. But I am living in hopes of getting home soon as I think the war will soon be over. I would not care if it ended tomorrow.”

Charles rejoined his unit in the trenches at Villers-Bretonneux on 18 June. Though the Australians had dispossessed the Germans from the village in late April the sector was still extremely dangerous with active patrolling and raids, sniping, artillery barrages and aircraft sorties over the trenches on a daily basis.

The 35th was relieved in late June and moved to billets in Glissy. The improved rations, warm weather and swimming refreshed the men and they were reported to be in good spirits.

The Battalion Routine Order No.120 Item 503 warned Companies to issue orders that explosives were not to be used for stunning and killing fish in the River Somme. The concussion was breaking the Australian signal lines.

Known as the Hundred Days Offensive and beginning with the Battle of Amiens on 8 August, the tide of war was now turning against the Germans. General Erich Ludendorff described this as: “the darkest day of the German Army.”

Haig now pushed to order a crossing of the Somme and the 35th Battalion was tasked with advancing the line in front of Bray-sur-Somme. On one of the hottest days yet experienced in France, they advanced behind a creeping artillery barrage and were quickly at their first objective before a German counter barrage fell on their position.

Charles’ D Company was on the right side of the advance and took the brunt of this barrage for some 20 minutes. In going forward, Charles then sustained gunshot wounds to both legs and a fractured left tibia. His casualty is mentioned in the Battalion Routine Order No.139 August 1918. 131 others make up that list of killed and wounded for the first action on 22-23 August alone.

These serious injuries required Charles’ evacuation to hospital at the Graylingwell War Hospital Chichester and then to the 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital (AAH) at Harefield.

The effects of the war and his wounds are apparent in photographs for home that were taken at the AAH. Though two years older than his enlistment photo he is visibly pale and has lost condition.

Charles’ war was over. His wounds were assessed as too severe to see him return to combat and consequently he was invalided and assigned an early transfer home when he had recovered sufficiently to travel. However Charles was still confined to hospital at the end of the war, celebrating Christmas of 1918 and the New Year in Ward 40 at the AAH.

Charles finally left England on the hospital ship Kanowna on 5 January 1919 and was stretchered off the ship at Sydney on 14 March 1919. After three years of war service, he was still not 21 years of age.

Ongoing treatment of his wounds delayed his discharge from the A.I.F. until January 1920. His 15/- pension was increased to 21/- per week on 1 July 1920. By comparison, Australian factory workers were earning £4 at this time for a 44 hour week.

Charles’ final medical report prior to discharge read that X-rays showed a cavity in the upper third of the left tibia at the fracture site and sequestrum (fragments of dead bone). This would require further surgery at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Camperdown in June 1922 to remove the dead bone fragments and to drain the exudates from the wound.

Charles returned to Quandialla in the central west of NSW to wheat/sheep farming. He took up a 600 acre Sutton Estate Soldier Land Settlement Scheme allotment there and worked it before selling up and buying again at Girral to the south of West Wyalong. The Soldier Land Settlement Scheme was introduced to re-integrate returned servicemen back into post war society, to provide a livelihood and an opportunity to gain land ownership.

Charles made a success of this farming where many others failed and forfeited the land. Small allotments, the depression of 1929, drought and falling prices forced many to abandon their farms, often in substantial debt. Many, like Charles, also had to persevere through the physical handicaps that their war wounds inflicted.

Charles did not speak about the war nor complain of his wounds. But work on the land is hard and he frequently found it necessary to splint his lower left leg before going out of a day. A large wad of cotton bandage was also packed into the cavity that the wound had created in the back of his left leg. His lower right leg was not without its problems either as the Achilles tendon had adhered to the scar tissue there.

In 1948 Charles sold up again and moved to a property at Ungarie between West Wyalong and Condobolin NSW. He remained here until retirement in 1962 and a final move to 14 Cypress Street West Wyalong. He had married Flora King in November 1921 at St Pauls Church in Sydney but tragically she passed away in 1933 at the age of 35. Charles remarried to Hazel Spencer at Forbes in March 1942.

He retired from farming in 1964 and enjoyed relatively good health before some hospital admissions in his late 70’s following a mild stroke. In 1976 he was recognised in one of the Nurses’ Report entries as:
“… a co-operative pleasant elderly man. Does not complain.”

Doctor Baker similarly warmed to Charles when he sutured an arm gash that was a consequence of a fainting spell in December 1976. Charles had by now spent enough time in hospitals to become a model patient.

He lost his war medals in the move from Ungarie to West Wyalong and made application to the War Records Office in Canberra in 1965 for their replacement.

Charles passed away suddenly watching television at home on 30 November 1981 and is buried in the Wyalong Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Hazel, 3 adult children and 2 grandchildren.

He is remembered on the Kangaroo Valley War Memorial but his name is also inscribed on the war memorial in the centre of Quandialla, the Honour Board at the Quandialla Soldiers Memorial Hall, and the Grenfell War Memorial.