HURDIS, Thomas
| Service Number: | 2919 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 12 September 1916 |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 59th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Newtown, New South Wales, Australia, 1890 |
| Home Town: | Kogarah, Sydney, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Leichardt Public School and Sobraon reformatory school |
| Occupation: | Labourer |
| Died: | Died of wounds, Le Treport France, 3 October 1917 |
| Cemetery: |
Mont Huon Military Cemetery, le Treport, France Plot IV, Row O, Grave No. IA, Mont Huon Military Cemetery, Le Treport, Haute-Normandie, France |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour |
World War 1 Service
| 12 Sep 1916: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 2919, 59th Infantry Battalion | |
|---|---|---|
| 3 Nov 1916: | Embarked AIF WW1, Private, 2919, 59th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '20' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Afric embarkation_ship_number: A19 public_note: '' | |
| 31 Jul 1917: | Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 2919, 59th Infantry Battalion, Third Ypres | |
| 26 Sep 1917: | Wounded AIF WW1, Private, 2919, 59th Infantry Battalion, Polygon Wood, Wounded in action gunshot and shrapnel wounds to face (serious). Evacuated to Pennsylvania Base Hospital No 10 - Le Treport | |
| 3 Oct 1917: | Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 2919, 59th Infantry Battalion, Polygon Wood, Died of Wounds following surgery. Soldier removed his dressings that were packing wounds in his face and subsequently bled to death. Buried at Le Treport Military cemetery 12 Oct 1917 |
Furore after discovery of an ANZAC soldier's skull in US Museum
They have established the skull is almost certainly that of 27-year-old private Thomas Hurdis of Sydney who died after suffering horrendous facial wounds on the opening day of the Battle of Polygon Wood on 26 September 1917. He survived two gunshots to the face and lost part of his jaw to a shrapnel wound before being moved to a casualty clearing station and then to an American military hospital in France where he was treated by the US ophthalmologist WT Shoemaker.
The soldier bled to death on 3 October 1917, after removing his own bandages. Shoemaker surgically removed his head and, according to an explanation about the skull’s provenance, which had until earlier this week been on the Mütter website, “donated” it to the museum.
The Mütter website had explained: “This Australian soldier’s skull has extensive damage caused by bullet wounds sustained in the Battle of Passchendaele (or Third Ypres, Battle of Polygon Wood) in the first world war. He was shot on 28 September 1917. Most of the damage was caused by a lead bullet that entered the mouth and passed through the palate and right eye. Shrapnel destroyed the ascending ramus of the right jaw, and another bullet, visible here, struck the left frontal sinus.
“Philadelphia opthalmologist and surgeon WT Shoemaker treated this soldier at a battlefield hospital in France. This soldier survived his initial injuries and treatments. But five days after his injuries, blind and disoriented, he pulled out the bandage materials in his mouth that packed the wounds. He bled to death.”
Australian military records show that Private Hurdis, of the 1st Australian Imperial Force 59th Battalion, died on 3 October at the American hospital where Shoemaker operated during 1917. He was buried on 12 October 1917, at Mont Huon military cemetery at Le Treport, France.
Hurdis, according to Australian records, was the only 1st AIF soldier to endure such wounds who died on 3 October 1917.
Private Hurdis’s younger brother John went missing, presumed dead, along with hundreds of other AIF soldiers, in what is regarded as the blackest day in Australian military history – the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916, which claimed 5,553 Australian casualties including 1,917 dead and 470 prisoners.
Submitted 14 October 2017 by Steve Larkins
Biography contributed by Steve Larkins
The son of John and Harriet HURDIS, 132 Henderson Road, Alexandria, New South Wales.
Extract from - Guardian Article 28 Sep 2017 (www.theguardian.com)
He stood five feet seven (1.7m), had auburn hair, was born in Newtown, Sydney and attended Leichhardt public school. Both he and his younger brother John had run-ins with the law as children – both for committing minor thefts.
Thomas and John were both, at various times, sentenced to time aboard the Sobraon, a reformatory school based on a ship where wayward boys were taught seafaring and trade skills. This might account for the tattoo of an anchor on his left arm.
The boys’ father seems to have been largely absent, records indicate, while his mother, Harriet, moved from address to address throughout the western suburbs of Sydney.
In 1919, she wrote to the military authorities from her address in Sydney’s Annandale: “It was awfully sad . . . the two sons went to the front with the AIF and were both dead in less than two years. Now I am all alone in the world.”
Submitted by Steve Larkins 14 Oct 2017
Biography contributed by Frank Carroll
Extract from https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/251634431/27959935#
Dundas.—Absconded from the Carpentarian Reformatory, on the 30th ultimo,—Thomas Hurdis. He is 16 years of age, 5 feet 1 inch high, fair complexion, blue eyes, light-brown hair, anchor tattooed on left forearm. Supposed to have come to Sydney. Identical with Thomas Hurdis, alias Claridge (vide Police Gazette, 1906, page 122).
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