Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Alfred Harper (Al) WHALAN, born 1884, registered at East Macquarie; a Methodist unmarried labourer aged 29 and residing c/o  F. W. Caswell, Murgon Qld. Al embarked on HMAT Omrah [ship number A5] as a Private SERN: 255 with the 9th Infantry Battalion, Australian Infantry Force, in Brisbane on 24 September 1914; Al was in the 9th Battalion that landed on Gallipoli at 04:30 on 25 April 1915, he was wounded a couple of times, left in December 1915 to join the newly-formed 49th Battalion.

† Al was killed in action aged 32 years in the first battle for the Somme on 3 September 1916 (body never found), memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, and was awarded the Military Medal.

  
#255 WHALAN Alfred Harper. 9th / 49th Battalion
 
Alf Whalan was born at Oberon in NSW, one of four sons born to parents Alfred snr and Agatha Whalan on 20th October 1884. The Whalan family had risen to prominence in the early years of the NSW colony when Alfred’s Grandfather, Charles Whalan was granted 950 acres of land on the Fish River by the Governor of NSW. Over the next three generations, the Whalan clan established themselves in the Oberon district. Alf attended school at Oberon and then perhaps worked as a miner in one of the many mining operations in the area.
 
Sometime around 1911, Alf journeyed north to the South Burnett where he worked as a labourer on the property of Mr F. W. Caswell of Murgon. He also became a member of the Murgon Rifle Club. Soon after the declaration of war in August 1914, recruiting for the volunteer Australian Imperial Force began. Alf Whalan and nine other young men from the Murgon district, took the train together to Gympie, the nearest recruiting centre. The Murgon boys were all single, most in their early to mid-twenties and came from a farming background. It is likely that they all knew each other, perhaps through membership in the Cloyna or Murgon Rifle Clubs.
 
On 2nd September 1914, Alf and his mates enlisted in Gympie and were given travel warrants to take the train to Enoggera where they were taken on as recruits into “B” Company of the 9th Infantry Battalion and where they were given successive regimental numbers. Alf stated his occupation as labourer and named his father, Alfred of Oberon as his next of kin. He was 29 years old.
 
Uniforms and equipment were issued and rudimentary training begun. The battalion paraded through the streets of Brisbane prior to boarding the transport “Omrah” at the Pinkenba Wharf on 24th September 1914. The “Omrah” departed Brisbane the next day. The ten Murgon Boys are listed on the embarkation roll with successive regimental numbers.
 
The “Omrah” arrived in Port Phillip Bay and the battalion disembarked from their transport in Melbourne and spent from the 1st to the 16th of October in training, with the other battalions of the 3rd Brigade. On the 17thOctober, the battalion was inspected on the Melbourne Town Pier by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher. Fisher was well known to the Murgon Boys as he was their local member, having worked in mining in Howard and Gympie before entering Parliament as the member for Wide Bay. The Battalion then re-embarked on the “Omrah” and sailed for King George Sound, Albany to rendezvous with the rest of the first division transports before sailing for Egypt on 1st November.
 
The convoy arrived at Suez on 29th November and sailed through the Suez Canal to Port Said and then on to Alexandria where the battalion disembarked and marched into the Mena Camp on the outskirts of Cairo.The three brigades of the AIF, some 1500 men, set about engaging in a training regime first on company and battalion levels and then brigade manoeuvres.  The work was hot and dusty but one saving grace was that Mena was so close to Cairo that men could easily take a tram into the city, whether they had a pass or not, to sample the delights on offer. To the Murgon Boys, none of whom had much experience of the world beyond their farms, Cairo and its exotic environment must have presented a memorable spectacle.
 
As the months at Mena passed, it became obvious that the Australians were being trained to become part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. On the 1st March 1915, the 9th Battalion and the other three battalions of the 3rd Brigade boarded transport ships for a journey across the Adriatic to the Island of Lemnos where the invasion force for the Dardanelles was being assembled. When the 9th arrived in Mudros Harbour on 7th March, the battalion disembarked and set up camp on the harbour shore from which position, the troops began to practice boat and landing drills.
 
The plan for the landing on the Gallipoli shore just north of Gaba Tepe was for the 3rd Brigade to be the covering force (first ashore) with the 9th Battalion taking up position on the far right of the line, closest to Gaba Tepe and the Turkish artillery emplaced there. The 9th Battalion men boarded the battleship HMS London late on the 24th April. The ships carrying the covering force slipped silently out of Mudros Harbour and headed for their designated station off the Gallipoli coastline. The men from “A” and “B” companies, who would be in the first wave climbed down the scaling ladders to a destroyer which would take them closer in shore before boarding lifeboats which in turn would be towed by steam launches to within a few hundred yards of the beach. All of this was achieved in complete silence and when the first of the 9th Battalion men waded ashore around 4:30am, there was very little opposition from the Turkish defenders. Alf Whalan was one of the first men to set foot on the Gallipoli shore along with the rest of the Murgon Boys.
 
On 29th April, Alf received a gunshot wound to his left arm. He was evacuated by hospital ship to Cairo where he was treated at the 2nd Australian Hospital at Heliopolis. Alf was discharged and sent back to the 9th Battalion on Gallipoli on 17th June. In August 1914, Alf was promoted to Lance Corporal and then Corporal a month later. In November, Alf was again evacuated back to Egypt, this time with dysentery. By the time that he was well enough to be discharged, the entire ANZAC force had been withdrawn from the peninsula.
 
During the first months of 1916, the AIF was expanded to double its original size by creating four divisions out of two. This was achieved by splitting existing 1st and 2nd division battalions to create the nucleus of two new battalions. Alf’s 9th battalion was split to form the 49th Battalion of the 4th Division. Alf Whalan was transferred to the 49th Battalion on 2nd April and reverted to the rank of private. After additional training and the inclusion of new reinforcements from Australia, the 4th Division arrived in Marseilles on 12th May 1916.
 
In July 1916, Haig (Supreme British Commander on the Western Front) launched the Somme offensive in France. Casualties were enormous but Haig was determined to keep up the pressure. Three of the four Australian divisions in France were deployed to the Somme. (The other division, the 5th had already suffered a mauling at Fromelles). The Australians were to go into their first major action at Pozieres.
 
The 1st and 2nd Divisions were thrust into the struggle for Pozieres first during late July and early August, and had secured the village and the important blockhouse on the site of a windmill above the village. The 49th Battalion was put in to the line to relieve a 2nd Division battalion on 13th August. The 49th commander was in need of intelligence regarding the enemy’s disposition on his front and a party of four men, Privates Pretorius, Whalan, Hamilton and Burne, crept out at night during a heavy artillery barrage. The men were forced to shelter in a large shell hole all of the next day and had to wait until nightfall to return safely. Their report provided valuable information and all four were recommended for the Military Medal when the battalion was relieved. Alf wrote to his mother informing her of his award which was not properly gazetted until November 1916.
 
After a few weeks rest, the 49th was called up to continue the offensive towards a ruined farm only a few hundred yards from Pozieres which the Germans had heavily fortified by extending the cellars and creating a line of three defensive trenches. The farm was depicted on the maps as “La Ferme du Mouquet” but the Australians referred to it as “Moo Cow Farm” or “Mucky Farm.”
 
The assault of the farm was conducted on an ever-decreasing front up a shallow gully that was enfiladed by German artillery and machine guns. The ground was so churned up that advancing troops could not recognise a trench line when they reached it. Attempts to dig new trenches were unsuccessful due to the loose ground caving in. In an attack beginning at 5:10am on 3rd September 1916, the 49th Battalion advanced on the farm under an intense artillery barrage. During this attack, Alfred Whalan was reported missing. Alf’s family made numerous attempts to seek further information about their son’s fate. Requests made through the Red Cross were unable to locate any witnesses and the matter was left unresolved until a formal court of inquiry, exactly one year after the action at Mouquet Farm, determined that in light of no official reports to the contrary, Alfred Whalan MM was declared killed in action at Mouquet Farm on 3rdSeptember 1916.
 
No remains of Alfred Whalan were ever located. He is commemorated on the stone tablets of the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux, across the Somme River from Pozieres. His name is one of over 10,000 Australians who lost their lives in France and have no known grave.
 
Of the four sons of Alfred and Agatha Whalan, three were killed in the war.