Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

TURNBULL Thomas #676 9th Battalion
 
 
As was often the case, Tom Turnbull’s name appears on the Caboolture Roll of Honour due to his mother and sisters living in the area for some time. There is very little evidence that Tom had any connection with the Caboolture area.
 
Tom enlisted on 25th August 1914, just three weeks after war was declared. No recruiting office had been established in the city so Tom journeyed to Enoggera camp when his attestation papers were completed. He claimed he was 21 years old, single and gave his occupation as sailor. He had been born at Byron Bay, as had several of his siblings.
 
Correspondence in Tom’s file in the National Archives suggest that he was the eldest of eight children. All four of the boys in the family would eventually enlist. Ellen Turnbull had advised the authorities who were attempting to contact Tom’s father that her husband had abandoned her and the children. Ellen and the younger girls would appear to have moved frequently and at the time of Tom’s enlistment the family were living at Landsborough.
 
Tom’s time at Enoggera was very short. Within a month of entering camp, he had been allocated to the 9thBattalion. Surprisingly, given the state of the family finances, Tom did not allocate any of his pay to his mother. Instead, the embarkation roll shows an allocation of two shillings and sixpence per day to a Commonwealth Bank savings account in his own name.
One month after James’ enlistment, the 9th Battalion, after parading through the streets of Brisbane, boarded HMAT “Omrah” at the Pinkenbah Wharf. Fears of German naval activity in the Pacific caused a short delay in the gathering of the first transports, particularly the New Zealand contingent. The 9th Battalion disembarked from their transport in Melbourne and spent from the 1st to the 16th of October in training, probably with the other battalions of the 3rd Brigade. On the 17th October, the battalion was inspected on the Melbourne Town Pier by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher (who had famously pledged to “defend the empire to the last man and last shilling” during the election campaign of 1914) and the Minister of Defence, Senator George Pearce. 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 via Colombo, Aden, Suez and Port Said.
 
While the convoy was a sea, news was received that Turkey had entered the war on the side of Germany and Austria Hungary. The Australian troops who had enlisted thinking they would be fighting Germans in France were billeted under canvas on the outskirts of Cairo. The British had intended that the untested Australians would perform the role of garrison troops but once the Dardenelles campaign was devised, the 1st Division AIF would have a front line role. On 2nd March 1915, the 9th Battalion boarded a troop transport at Alexandria and sailed for Mudros Harbour on the Greek island of Lemnos. The troops would spend six weeks at Mudros while the invasion fleet for the amphibious landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula assembled. Time was spent practising boat drills.
 
The plan for the landing at the ANZAC beachhead called for the 3rd Brigade (9th,10th , 11th and 12thBattalions) to land first as the covering force with the 9th Battalion on the right of the line closest to the Turkish artillery batteries at Gaba Tepe. The landing took place between the time that the moon had set and dawn. Most of the 3rd Brigade made it ashore but there was much confusion on the beach with individual soldiers and groups charging up the steep cliffs without any leadership. Sometime on that first day, 25th April 1915, Tom was wounded. He somehow ended up back on the beach, perhaps carried there by stretcher bearers or some of his mates.
 
The planning for evacuation of the wounded at Anzac was woefully inadequate. Wounded were piling up on the narrow beach within artillery range. The men lay in the hot sun for hours. There was initially only one hospital ship allocated to the sector and this soon became overcrowded, as the wounded were brought off the beach on horse barges. It was recorded that some barges, loaded with stretcher cases, were forced to go around the fleet standing off shore begging for the wounded to be unloaded. In amongst this confusion, Tom Turnbull was off loaded onto the “Seang Choon”, a troop transport. Unfortunately, Tom would succumb to his wounds on 28th April and was buried at sea.
 
By the time of the Gallipoli landings, Ellen Turnbull had moved from Landsborough to Caboolture. Confirmation of Tom’s death reached 
Melbourne on 7th May. The commander of the 1st Military District (Queensland) sent a telegram to Father Baldwin of the Caboolture parish requesting he advise Ellen of her son’s death. Fr Baldwin wrote to the authorities in Brisbane saying Ellen and some of her children had moved from Caboolture to Lawnton and he was concerned that she would see her son’s name in the casualty lists before being officially informed. Ellen did in fact learn of Tom’s death in this manner.
 
Ellen rather promptly applied for war pensions for herself and four daughters who she claimed were too young to work. She was granted a pension of 10/- a week but her daughter’s claims were disallowed. Over the next few years Ellen sought to access the war gratuity payable on a soldier’s death and the contents of Tom’s savings account.
 
Tom Turnbull is commemorated on the memorial tablets at Lone Pine, Gallipoli.