Charlie Cumming GRANEY

GRANEY, Charlie Cumming

    Service Number: 20129
    Enlisted: 10 January 1918, 1918.04.30 Unit embarked Embarkation details: from Sydney, New South Wales, on board SS Port Darwin 1918.06.10 Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire 1918.08.06 Unit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board SS Gaika 1918.09.04 Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A41 Bakara 1918.09.14 Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board SS Port Darwin 1918.10.22 Unit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A36 Boonah 1918.10.29 Unit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A36 Boonah 1918.11.07 Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board SS Carpentaria
    Last Rank: Private
    Last Unit: Army Medical Corps (AIF)
    Born: Emmaville, New South Wales, Australia, 16 January 1896
    Home Town: Coogee, Randwick, New South Wales
    Schooling: Sydney Technical High School, New South Wales, Australia
    Occupation: Clerk
    Died: Cheltenham, New South Wales, Australia, 19 September 1980, aged 84 years, cause of death not yet discovered
    Cemetery: Not yet discovered
    Memorials: Sydney Technical High School WW1 Roll Of Honour
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    World War 1 Service

    10 Jan 1918: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 20129, Army Medical Corps (AIF), 1918.04.30 Unit embarked Embarkation details: from Sydney, New South Wales, on board SS Port Darwin 1918.06.10 Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire 1918.08.06 Unit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board SS Gaika 1918.09.04 Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A41 Bakara 1918.09.14 Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board SS Port Darwin 1918.10.22 Unit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A36 Boonah 1918.10.29 Unit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A36 Boonah 1918.11.07 Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board SS Carpentaria
    22 Oct 1918: Involvement Private, 20129, Army Medical Corps (AIF), --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '23' embarkation_place: Adelaide embarkation_ship: HMAT Boonah embarkation_ship_number: A36 public_note: ''
    22 Oct 1918: Embarked Private, 20129, Army Medical Corps (AIF), HMAT Boonah, Adelaide

    Help us honour Charlie Cumming Graney's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

    Biography contributed by Sydney Technical High School

    Charles Cumming Graney - Serivce Number : 20129

    Charles Cumming Graney was born on April 16, 1896, in Emmaville, New South Wales, Australia (1). He was the third youngest of seven children, born to Laura Louisa Ezzy and Ernest Frederick Graney (2) . His older sister, Minnie Graney, also served in World War I as a staff nurse in the Medical Officers unit (3) . Graney completed four years of education at Sydney Technical High School from 1911 to 1915. During his first year, he ranked sixth in his class of 37 students, excelling particularly in English, history, and geography (4) .

    Before Graney’s enlistment into the Army Medical Corps, he had served in military service for an unknown amount of time in the 19th Infantry (5) . It was on the 30 November 1917 at the age of 22 when Graney enlisted into the Army Medical Corps (6) and underwent training in Liverpool Showground Training Camp. Afterwards, for six months from the 9th Feb - 12th August he served in the military hospital, Victoria Barracks. He was then transferred for service in Field Hospital, Liverpool up until his day of embarkation on board the HMAT A36 Boonah (7) .

    The HMAT A36 Boonah carried an estimated 760 soldiers upon leaving Adelaide, with a rough additional 158 soldiers boarding the ship during a stopover at Fremantle, WA on the 29th of October 1918 . The ship was 13 days out at sea from Fremantle when the armistice was signed. Upon hearing this, arrangements were made for the HMAT A36 Boonah to return to Australia after re-coaling in Durban, South Africa which was a 3-day trip away from their location. Unfortunately, at the time Durban was highly infected with the Spanish flu where it is presumed that stevedores working at the dock spread the disease to the crewmembers. The journey back to Australia was grueling. Harsh weather conditions forced all the soldiers to crowd below deck, making for an optimal environment for the disease to spread (8) . By the time the ship anchored at Gage Roads, WA, there were over 300 confirmed cases of the Spanish flu on board the ship, of which the 300 most sick were ferried to a quarantine station at Woodmans Point (9) .

    Life on the ship over the next few days was punishing “Great has been the mental strain” as Chaplain Rev. A. W. Bean, a soldier on board the ship described it (10) . There were constantly more soldiers showing symptoms and because the authorities had ordered a 7-day incubation period with no new cases for those on board the ship to be allowed ashore, the soldiers were denied entry onto the port. Casualties from the Spanish flu continued, and with the number of soldiers catching the flu increasing each day, so did the outrage from the public (11) . “Enough of this inhuman incarceration of soldiers in the disease-stricken cubby hole of a floating hell” (12) .

    It wasn’t until the 20th of December 1918 that the ship, breaking the quarantine restriction, was ordered to disembark from Woodmans Quarantine Station, possibly to defuse the situation. After a 34-day long voyage with 17 new reported cases during the return, the HMAT A36 arrived at Adelaide on the 23rd of January 1919, where the remaining soldiers were quarantined at Torrens Island Quarantine Station. In total, there were 31 Deaths from the Spanish flu, 27 soldiers and 4 nurses (13). It is unknown if Charles Cumming Graney had caught the disease during this disaster, however, the hardships and conditions he endured during the voyage are a feat of their own.

    Graney was discharged from service after 25 days of quarantine, on the 17th of February 1919 (14). After moving back to NSW, he married to Alicia Betty Walton in Randwick, in the year 1930 (15) . Following this, in 1931 he found employment in the Chief’s secretary department (16) . 16th of March 1933 was a significant date, marking the birth of their only child, Prudence Alicia Graney (17) . Charles Cumming Graney passed on the 19th of September 1980 at the age of 84, outliving many others at the time (18) . 

    While Graney may not have fought on the battlefield, his survival of the Spanish flu, which had claimed the lives of 50 million people worldwide, highlights just some of the ongoing threats faced by soldiers even after the armistice (19) . His resilience throughout the pandemic exemplifies the brutal challenges that soldiers faced beyond the battlefield, and It is for his resilience against such hardships that his name is proudly displayed on the Sydney Technical High School WW1 Roll of Honour.

     


    References


    1. Anonymous. (n.d.). Graney Charles Cumming : SERN 20129 : POB Emmaville NSW : NOK F Graney Ernest Frederick (p.7). National Archives of Australia. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4671058

    2. Anonymous. (n.d). Ernest Frederick Graney.  Ancestry. https://www.ancestry.com.au/genealogy/records/ernest-frederick-graney-24-xqwk7

    3. Anonymous. (n.d). GRANEY Charlie Cumming. Honour Board Project. Word Document (p. 3).

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z02v2-RxpK8Fw53M9zXGDVsKGP3CIubW/edit

    4. Anonymous. (n.d). THS 1911 division first year. Honour Board Project. Drive. Image 1.

    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HYQxPald7Y2o-DmcWxwzsUSNWMaiE3uZ

    5. Anonymous. (n.d).  GRANEY Charlie Cumming. Honour Board Project. Word Document (p. 1)

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z02v2-RxpK8Fw53M9zXGDVsKGP3CIubW/edit

    6. Anonymous. (n.d.). Graney Charles Cumming : SERN 20129 : POB Emmaville NSW : NOK F Graney Ernest Frederick (p.1). National Archives of Australia.

    https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4671058

    7. Ibid (p. 4)

    8. Anonymous. (n.d). “Boonah” Tragedy. Monument Australia.

    https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/disaster/pandemic/display/119710-%22boonah%22-tragedy

    9. Anonymous. (2021, October 11). HMAT A36 Boonah. BirtwistleWiki

    https://birtwistlewiki.com.au/wiki/HMAT_A36_Boonah

    10. Anonymous. (1918, December 24). Y.M.C.A. ON BOONAH. The Register. Trove.

    https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60534185

    11. Anonymous. (n.d). “Boonah” Tragedy. Monument Australia.

    https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/disaster/pandemic/display/119710-%22boonah%22-tragedy

    12. Anonymous. (1918, December 15). [Article on the public outrage of the situation]. The Sunday Times. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boonah_crisis

    13. Anonymous. (2021, October 11). HMAT A36 Boonah. BirtwistleWiki

    https://birtwistlewiki.com.au/wiki/HMAT_A36_Boonah

    14. Anonymous. (n.d.). Graney Charles Cumming : SERN 20129 : POB Emmaville NSW : NOK F Graney Ernest Frederick (p.4). National Archives of Australia.

    https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4671058

    15. Anonymous. (n.d).  GRANEY Charlie Cumming. Honour Board Project. Word Document (p. 2)

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z02v2-RxpK8Fw53M9zXGDVsKGP3CIubW/edit

    16. Mark Gosling. (1931, December 31). Chief Secretary’s Department. New South Wales Government Gazette. Trove.

    https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/219909330?searchTerm=graney%20charlie%20cummings

    17. Anonymous. (n.d).  GRANEY Charlie Cumming. Honour Board Project. Word Document (p. 2)

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z02v2-RxpK8Fw53M9zXGDVsKGP3CIubW/edit

    18. Ibid (p. 3)

    19. Anonymous. (2021, September, 21). Spanish Flu. Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21777-spanish-flu


    Bibliography


    Anonymous. (n.d.). Graney Charles Cumming : SERN 20129 : POB Emmaville NSW : NOK F Graney Ernest 

    Frederick. National Archives of Australia. 

    https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4671058

    Anonymous. (n.d). Ernest Frederick Graney.  Ancestry. 

    https://www.ancestry.com.au/genealogy/records/ernest-frederick-graney-24-xqwk7

    Anonymous. (n.d). GRANEY Charlie Cumming. Honour Board Project. Word Document.

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z02v2-RxpK8Fw53M9zXGDVsKGP3CIubW/edit

    Anonymous. (n.d). THS 1911 division first year. Honour Board Project. Drive.

    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HYQxPald7Y2o-DmcWxwzsUSNWMaiE3uZ

    Anonymous. (n.d). “Boonah” Tragedy. Monument Australia.

    https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/disaster/pandemic/display/119710-%22boonah%22-tragedy

    Anonymous. (2021, October 11). HMAT A36 Boonah. BirtwistleWiki

    https://birtwistlewiki.com.au/wiki/HMAT_A36_Boonah

    Anonymous. (1918, December 24). Y.M.C.A. ON BOONAH. The Register. Trove.

    https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60534185

    Anonymous. (1918, December 15). [Article on the public outrage of the situation]. The Sunday Times. Wikipedia.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boonah_crisis

    Mark Gosling. (1931, December 31). Chief Secretary’s Department. New South Wales Government Gazette. Trove.

    https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/219909330?searchTerm=graney%20charlie%20cummings

    Anonymous. (2021, September, 21). Spanish Flu. Cleveland Clinic. 

    https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21777-spanish-flu

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