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Australia

Joseph the son of Francis Winks Byron DARMODY & Emma BIRKHEAD and was born on the 4th of September 1882 in Glanville, SA.

He was baptized in St Paul’s Anglican Church, Pt Adelaide, on the 2nd of November 1882.

Francis and Emma were married on the 6th of January 1880 in St Paul’s Anglican Church, Pt Pirie, SA.

His father was the son of James Wilkes DARMODY & Margaret WINKS and was born on the in 1849 in Workhouse Stoke Damerel, Devon, England.

His mother was the daughter of Joseph BIRKHEAD & Maria MORTON and was born on the 10th of November 1856 in Adelaide, SA.

Joseph was the second child born into this family of 10 children; 4 boys and 6 girls.

Joseph’s father was a painter in Pt Pirie and the family moved to Sutherland Street, Semaphore just before Joseph was born.

Joseph and his siblings attended the local school and on leaving school Joseph followed in his father’s footsteps and became a painter.

He was also a very talented pianist and held concerts.

In the mid 1900’s Joseph joined the South Australian Naval Force and served with them for 6 years.

His brother Charles also joined the South Australian Naval Force and by 1908 was an Able Seaman on board the Westralia. Charles then served on the Barrier and in 1912 was serving on the Steamer Cotswold Range, heading to Manila from NSW

By 1912 Joseph had moved to Darling Street, Medindie with his parents.

His mother died on the 26th of July 1914 at their home and they buried her in the North Road Cemetery.

Shortly after his mothers death the Darmody family moved to 90 Highbury Street, Prospect.

Charles by now was a Senior Quartermaster on the Steamship Craigforth, which was shipping cargo in the Black Sea.

In July 1914 they loaded 4.370 tonnes of wheat at Henichesk, Ukraine for delivery to Hamburg, Germany, via the Dardanelles.

On the 5th of August 1914 Charles was lucky to survive when his ship hit a mine near Istanbul-Büyükdere and was beached in damaged condition. Fourteen of his crew members were killed in the explosion.

They were then towed into Halıcıoğlu for temporary repairs and the cargo was removed by barges and seized by the Turkish authorities.

After repairs they proceeded for the Dardanelles and arrived on the 27th of September at Çanakkale, but were refused to pass the Dardanelles which were closed on this day by the Osmanlı Government and ordered to sail for Gelibolu. On arrival at Gelibolu they were ordered by Osmanlı Government to sail for Istanbul, They arrived in Istanbul on the 13th of October an anchored, only to be detained 2 weeks later and taken as Prisoner’s of War, even though Turkey had not entered the war as yet. 

Charles was then released and managed to get to Alexandria, through Romania and Greece. Whilst there he volunteered for service with the British Naval Expeditionary Forces, for the relief of Antwerp, but was rejected on account of dental defects.

During this time, Joseph’s other brother George, enlisted into the RAN on the 13th of October 1914 and was allotted the service number 4150 and the rank of Stoker.

After being rejected by the British Naval Expeditionary Forces, Charles joined the crew of HMTS Warwickshire in early 1915, carrying troops to France on the Rangoon service.

At the age of 33 Joseph enlisted into the AIF, Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train on the 21st of December 1915 in Adelaide and was allotted the service number 503 and was posted to Seymour, Victoria.

Joseph and his unit began their training in horsemanship, engineering and pontoon bridging at the Domain in Melbourne.

On the 19th of July 1916 he was posted to the 14th Reinforcements of the Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train and gained the rank of - Able Bodied Driver.

Joseph embarked from Melbourne on board RMS Malwa on the 25th of July 1916, disembarking in Egypt where he remained for the rest of his war service.

During this time Charles was transferred to HMTS Istrar, carrying troops to Salonika. Luckily he was then transferred to HM Trentham Hall, a munitions ship, as HMTS Istrar was torpedoed and sunk by U-Boat U-39 on the 2nd of December 1916 about 120 miles out of Alexandria.

Charles was then promoted to 3rd Officer of HM Trentham Hall, running to the White Sea in Russia. He then had another narrow escape when he left port the day before seven munition ships were blown up, and 600 lives were lost, at Archangel in March 1917.

It was while on his second voyage from Archangel that his ship was beached on Pluckington Bank, and became a total wreck, in the River Mersey through heavy enemy gunfire on the 25th of May 1917.

Charles was then placed as a relieving officer on HMTS Rydall Hall.

Joseph returned to Australia on the 29th of May 1917 on board the troopship HMAT Bulla, disembarking in Melbourne on the 8th of July.

Joseph was discharged from the AIF on the 24th of July 1917 and by 1918 he had moved to Burra.

George by now had been serving on HMAS Australia since the 2nd of August 1916 and had been in the North Sea, patrolling as a unit of the British Grand Fleet.

It was while he was in Burra that he received the news of Charles’s death. On the return voyage, loaded with Manganese Ore, from Calcutta to Dunkirk Charles’s ship was torpedoed by U-Boat UC 75, and he was, with 22 other crew, lost at sea, presumed drowned, on the 1st of December 1917.

George remained on HMAS Australia and in the last year of the war HMAS Australia was used for aircraft experiments, with the ship’s echelon turrets being thought to offer better wind exposure and a safer take-off position than alternative warships.

On the 7th of March 1918 they successfully launched a Sopwith 1½ Strutter from a platform erected on one of the ships 12-inch gun turrets. This was the first ever launching of a two-seater aircraft from a battle cruiser. They then went on to achieve the first take-off with a full load on the 4th of April 1918 and launch several more flights without difficulty, including one at anchor. By the end of the war nearly every British capital ship carried a Strutter for reconnaissance and a Sopwith Pup or Sopwith Camel as a fighter.

The signing of the Armistice brought the fighting in Europe to an end and on the 21st of November, the Grand Fleet came out from the Firth-of-Forth in two divisions to meet the German High Seas Fleet steaming across the North Sea to be interned at Scapa Flow. 

HMAS Australia had the honour of leading the port line at the head of her squadron. 

HMAS Melbourne and HMAS Sydney were also there, taking their place among the light cruisers. After anchoring, each enemy ship was allocated a guard-ship. 

George and his crew members on board HMAS Australia were given charge of the latest German battle cruiser Hindenburg.

George completed his service and was discharged from the RAN on the 12th of June 1919.

By 1923 Joseph had moved back to Adelaide and was living with his father at 40 Olive Street, Prospect.

His father died on the 5th of July 1923 and they buried him in the North Road Cemetery.

By 19347 Joseph had moved to 71 Pulsford Road, Prospect.

On the 23rd of May 1939 Joseph was admitted into the Adelaide Hospital where he remained until his death on the 22nd of June 1939.

Joseph was buried in the North Road Cemetery; Path 1 South, Plot 1298

His grave was never marked and the site expired and has been resold.

Military Service;

At the age of 33 Joseph enlisted into the AIF, Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train on the 21st of December 1915 in Adelaide and was allotted the service number 503 and was posted to Seymour, Victoria.

He listed his father of 90 Highbury Street, Prospect, as his next of kin.

Joseph and his unit began their training in horsemanship, engineering and pontoon bridging at the Domain in Melbourne.

On the 19th of July he was posted to the 14th Reinforcements of the Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train and gained the rank of - Able Bodied Driver.

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The 1st Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train (1st RANBT) was formed in Melbourne on the 28th of February 1915 and was intended to be a horse drawn engineering unit attached to the Royal Naval Division (RND), then serving as infantry on the Western Front. The term ‘train’, in its title, was a direct reference to the horse drawn wagons that would, in theory, form and move ‘in train’ to carry the unit’s heavy lumber, building materials and engineering equipment to the front.

Due to the nature of their work ashore, the men of the 1st RANBT were dressed in the khaki uniform worn by soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF).

Special badges were adopted to distinguish them as a naval unit which included oxidised brass anchors that were worn on the hats, caps, sleeves and collars of ratings’ tunics, instead of the Rising Sun.

Chief petty officers retained the normal naval pattern cap badge worn at that time. Varying patterns of AIF styled colour patches, depicting a red anchor on a navy blue background, were also sewn to the shoulders of tunics and army badges of rank (chevrons) were sometimes used on sleeves to denote rank if naval equivalents were not available:

Three chevrons - Chief Petty Officers
Two chevrons - Petty Officers
One chevron - Leading Seamen

The adoption of these distinguishing marks was approved by the Naval Secretary on the 28th of May 1915. Officers attached to the 1st RANBT continued to wear naval pattern badges on their caps coupled with naval pattern shoulder boards, worn on khaki, military styled tunics.

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Joseph embarked from Melbourne on board RMS Malwa on the 25th of July 1916.

They disembarked in Egypt on the 25th of August and Joseph was admitted into the Moascar Isolation Camp near Ismalia, suffering from mumps.

He was then transferred to the 24th Stationary Hospital in Moascar on the 2nd of September, where he remained until he was discharged to duty on the 10th of September to the 1st Light Horse Training Regiment.

On the 30th of September Joseph marched out to join his unit, who were camped at Kubri West on the Suez Canal.

Throughout 1916 Joseph and his unit carried out the dull but necessary work of maintaining and operating its assigned bridges over the Suez Canal.

Their role was to operate various ‘swinging’ pontoon bridges in use there at that time. These bridges were used to allow men, horses, camels and vehicles to cross the canal before being 'broken' to allow ships to pass through it.

This operation was punctuated with infrequent bombing raids by German aircraft and on one occasion a 1st RANBT patrol captured a small number of sick Turkish soldiers who had become lost in the desert.

The tedium of the work they were undertaking led a number of the Bridging Train men to submit repeated requests to transfer to the AIF so that they could play a more active part in the war effort. On one occasion Lieutenant Commander Bracegirdle attached a number of them to a British Army unit for a period of one week to 'experience' front line service. It did not, however, have the desired effect and men in the unit frequently complained that they were not being effectively used and that their work could be done by civilian labourers.

This disenchantment was exacerbated by a number of deaths due to illness and accidents. Two able seamen died from Enteric Fever during late 1916 while a third drowned in the Suez Canal.

The pace of the fighting in the Sinai, in the second half of 1916, quickened and soon the front line troops were pushing the Turkish forces back and the resupply of food, water and ammunition for these forward units became a problem. A plan was subsequently developed to conduct an amphibious assault in late December 1916 and seize the Turkish coastal town of El Arish which could then be used as a forward resupply base. The 1st RANBT was directed to provide a 50 man detachment to land with the troops and construct a pier over which supplies could be landed from ships.

On the 22nd of December the 1st RANBT detachment landed at El Arish from lighters and quickly built two piers. Fortunately the town had been abandoned by the Turks a few days before and no resistance was encountered, but the coastal waters were mined and the men ashore were also still within the range of Turkish artillery. Due to the good work done at El Arish the 1st RANBT was advised by British authorities that they were to be relieved of their duties on the Suez Canal and were to be attached to the forces advancing into Palestine.

On the 17th of March 1917 Joseph was admitted to a Government Hospital in Suez for specialist eye treatment. He was discharged from hospital 8 days later and rejoined his unit at Kubri.

It was now, however, that events took a dramatic turn for the 1st RANBT.

The complaints about the non-combatant work being done by the men had been raised in Federal Parliament and following consultation with the senior Australian officer in the Middle East, Lieutenant General Sir Harry Chauvel, a recommendation was made that the unit be disbanded and its men used as reinforcements for the AIF.

Consequently, Lieutenant Commander Bracegirdle was advised that his unit was to be dispersed; its men transferring to the AIF or being returned to Australia for discharge.

On the 27th of March 1917 the 1st RANBT was officially disbanded.

This, however, was not the end of their involvement in operations. On the 24th of March, British authorities, still in control of the detachment at El Arish, sent them to Gaza on the troopship Proton, where an attack on the city by Sir Archibald Murray's forces was planned to take place on 26-27 March.

Unfortunately the attack failed preventing the 1st RANBT from landing and building piers but they were briefly involved in salvaging a British aircraft that suffered engine failure during the attack ditching near the Proton.

By mid-April the various 1st RANBT detachments had been co-located at Kubri on the Suez Canal where a further 127 men transferred to the AIF. A number of others transferred to other services including the RAN, RN, Royal Flying Corps and the Egyptian Labour Corps.

Joseph and the remaining 176 men elected to return to Australia for discharge and on the 29th of May 1917 they embarked in the troopship HMAT Bulla, disembarking in Melbourne on the 8th of July.

The bulk of Joseph’s mates were discharged, although some later re-enlisted in the AIF or the ANMEF for garrison duties in New Guinea.

Joseph was discharged from the AIF on the 24th of July 1917.