Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Finlay McPhee
Enlisted 14 August 1915 – 3rd Infantry Battalion – No 3989
Finlay (or Fin as he was known) was a 29 year old school teacher and one of the first of his many cousins in northern NSW to go to war. He travelled from his home at Brushgrove on the Clarence River near Grafton to Liverpool near Sydney where he enlisted and was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Battalion as part of the 12th Reinforcement for that Battalion to replace the soldiers that continued to be killed and wounded at Gallipoli.

The rather short (5ft 4.5 in) blue eyed and brown haired Private Finlay left Sydney for Egypt on board the troopship Medic on 30 December 1915, by which time the Gallipoli campaign was over. He joined his Battalion in Egypt and then left Alexandria on 29 March 1916 on board the Transylvania, arriving in Marseilles in France on 4 April.
Taken by train to the front line in northern France, he arrived at the front on 25 May 1916, after passing through the coastal French town of Etaples, the base camp for soldiers going or returning to the front.
Like the 2nd Battalion, the first action seen by the 3rd Battalion was at the Battle of Pozieres. Like Reg Griffiths, Fin was one of the many casualties of this battle when on 23 July 1916 he was shot in both legs.
After being taken back to Etaples, he was then evacuated from Calais and taken to the Norfolk War Hospital in Norwich in England.
After recuperating in England he returned to his unit at the front in March 1917 where he took part in the First Battle of Bullecourt. The Australian line around the village of Maricourt received almost saturation bombing from the German heavy artillery on 4 May and Finlay was struck by shell fragments in his right arm and both legs.
Almost all of his unit were killed by the bombardment and their blown up bodies were later buried in the Maricourt Wood where they have remained undisturbed ever since.
The seriously wounded Finlay was taken by field ambulance to the Australian General Hospital at Rouen where his right leg was amputated. However, he died from his wounds on 13 May 1917 and was buried at the specially built extension of the St Sever Cemetery at Rouen, the same cemetery where his cousin Roy Lattimore would be buried a year later.
His mother Ellen, who was a widow and living at Brushgrove, received a telegram on 19 May stating that her son had died from wounds.
Ten weeks later she received a post card from a nursing sister at the hospital in Rouen written the day before his death, saying that the doctors hoped to save his leg and that she looked forward to writing another card saying her son was improving.
Although other cousins had already been wounded in the war, some quite seriously, Finlay was the first of his family to be killed and the death of this quiet and reserved but well-loved young man was keenly felt within the McPhee and Lattimore families and across the local community.
His name is included on the Honour Board at the public school at Gilletts Ridge, near Brushgrove, where he had been the teacher.

Glendon O'Connor 2015