88. Officers and other ranks of No. 1 Australian Light Car Patrol (AWM B00708).
Two images of the last days of the 1st Australian Light Car Patrol stand out. The first is a photo taken in Aleppo, Syria, where 19 of the patrol’s 21 members pose for a group portrait. At the rear of the image a light car is visible on the left and two Lewis guns sit in the foreground. The war had either ended or was about to end and there is a sense of pride and unity projecting from the group. The second, a word image, comprises the final lines of James’ ‘The Motor Patrol’. It is a parody of the song Kind thoughts can never die which British soldiers turned to Old soldiers never die—they simply fade away. In these few words James encapsulates the emotion behind the disbandment of a very close and unique unit of the AIF and hints of a future life in peacetime Australia.
The 1st Australian Light Car Patrol in Aleppo in 1918
With the surrender of the Ottoman Empire in October 1918, the 1st Australian Light Car Patrol’s establishment consisted of two officers and 19 NCOs and men who manned six Model T Fords and the captured German touring car. During its existence, 33 members of the AIF had been on the unit’s posted strength as well as an unknown number of British Army soldiers who were attached at various stages, usually driver-mechanics from the ASC and despatch riders. Since August 1916 the Armoured Car Battery and, later, Light Car Patrol, had seen 27 months of active service in two distinct campaigns.
The leadership of the Light Cars was extraordinarily stable. Captain James was both the driving force behind the unit and the only officer commanding from its formation in March 1916 to its disbandment in March 1919. His involvement also included the period from April 1915 when he initiated the project. Lieutenant Cornwell also served with the patrol through its entire service, less one month while on detachment. Sergeants Langley and Creek were also foundation members whose service dated back to 1915 at Royal Park. The three corporals, Hyman, Bissett and Morgan, all dated their service to the days of the Deport Battalion in Melbourne. These men all served between 28 and 31 months with the Armoured Cars or Light Cars. This service would have been far longer had time at the depot battalion been included.
The composition of the unit in October 1919 is worth examining. Some 38% had embarked in June 1916 with the Armoured Car Section in Melbourne, while 62% were reinforcements. The average full-time service was 36 months with two members serving 47 months; the shortest full-time service was 23 months. The average service with the patrol was 19 months with the longest 31 and the shortest eight. The morale of the unit appears to have remained high throughout its existence. The two key indicators of this are the incidence of military offences and venereal disease—there are no recorded cases of either in the personnel files of men while serving with the unit.
The demographics of the patrol also illustrate some interesting trends. The average age was 29 years with the oldest member 41 and the youngest 22. The largest proportion enlisted from rural areas at 66%. Overwhelmingly protestant and native-born Australian, only one member was born overseas and one was Roman Catholic.
It is evident that, by October 1918, the Light Car Patrol was a very settled unit with a stable leadership at all levels. This was also an experienced group with all members having extended service in both the Light Cars and the broader AIF. The average age of 29 also suggests a degree of maturity among its members. Since August 1916 the Light Car Patrol had operated in both Egypt and Palestine without any casualties due to enemy action, while hospitalisations were limited to vehicle accidents and illness. Again this is a tribute to the leadership and skills of the members of the Light Cars.
Old soldiers never die—they simply fade away
Following the armistice in the Middle East in 1918, the thoughts of the men of the Light Cars must have turned to their futures and what peace would bring. In most cases unit histories end with the disbandment and return to Australia, and the future experiences of unit members are not part of the story. James’ sentimental lines at the close of ‘The Motor Patrol’ end his story. However, the explosion of archival databases and family history sites in recent years enables the story to be continued into the post-war era. With various degrees of success it is now possible to see how the men of Light Car Patrol ‘faded away’.
Of the 33 men who served in the Armoured and Light Cars, only three had returned to Australia by the end of December 1918, one due to family reasons, the others assessed as medically unfit. Trooper K.C. Riley was the only one not to survive the war. He had returned to the 6th Light Horse and was killed in action shortly after. The New Year of 1919 brought tragedy to the Light Cars when one of its foundation members and stalwarts, Sergeant Langley, was admitted to hospital with cerebral malaria. He died the following day, thus becoming the unit’s only casualty in 30 months of active service.
Like most AIF units, the process of fading away began in 1919. Corporal Morgan and Private Pines were victims of the outbreak of illness in the winter of 1919 and were evacuated to the 14th Australian General Hospital and later returned to Australia for medical reasons.
It is evident that the period between January and March was not the happiest time for the members of the Light Car Patrol. They were surrounded by the chaos and suffering caused by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the outbreak of tribal warfare and hatred. Some of the events they witnessed were truly horrific in nature. Alongside these issues was a sense of isolation as AIF formations were withdrawn to Egypt and the Light Car Patrol remained under Imperial control. Above all, the members experienced the overwhelming desire to return home to Australia.
Trooper Leo Cohn’s letters of early 1919 document both a yearning for home and a sense of frustration at the end of an extended period of overseas service:
It is absolutely scandalous the way we are treated. We are the only Australians up here and are attached to a division of Indian Regulars and worst of all we have got an OC who sits back and takes what they give him. All the rest of the AIF are down at Suez ready to get on the boat as soon as they come along and we are stuck up here as “Army of Occupation”. There is a rumour that we are shifting down on the Euphrates in a few days. One thing it might be a bit warmer if we get out of the hills. It snowed this morning and has been blowing all day. Am afraid I have got the blues today. Anyway I don’t suppose they can get us all home in five minutes, still it is hard to be among the last.140
89. Members of the Light Car Patrol enjoy a trip to the pyramids and the Sphinx in their final days in Egypt (Creek collection ATM LCP.HC.010 HR).
The members of the Light Cars were gradually posted to the AIF Details Camp pending their return to Australia. In early March the vehicles were returned to the stores depot. Leo Cohn recorded the last days of the Light Car Patrol: ‘We were recalled from Ain Tab three weeks ago, gave in our cars and guns and landed down here expecting to get on a boat any day. The day we landed, of course, the Jacko must run amuck and upset everything. Anyway we are in the embarkation camp and are down amongst the first to leave, so as soon as things settle down we will get away...’ His letter continues to describe both the chaos of Syria and the journey to Egypt:
I will try and tell you what we have done since leaving Ain Tab. We drove to Aleppo and handed the cars and guns over. The night before we arrived there had been a bit of an Armenian massacre. But we were quite surprised that was all ... Then we had five days of sitting in trucks, changing trains, getting out and walking over damaged bridges and all troubles and trials that of course you must expect about eight hundred miles of indifferently constructed lines of communication. To us it was all terribly interesting to see the places we had chased Jacko over and which we were seeing for the last time. The trip from Dera to Samuk on the Sea of Galilee was simply wonderful. The line follows the Jarmuk River for about twenty miles. One minute straight above will be immense waterfalls, next you can look down in the ravine with water rushing everywhere. At one place there are two tunnels through the same hill. It was something worth seeing. At Kantara we decided that it would do us all the world of good to have a few days in Cairo. Although we were a bit frightened of missing a boat, a few days feeding us would be very tempting. We had only been there a few hours when the trouble began. At first it was all a good joke and we spent our time walking about with sticks. When we arrived at Moascar all was bustle and they were talking of giving us cars again but it blew over. The Light Horse was reissued with horses and are scattered all over Egypt.
On 13 March Captain James and the final ten members of the unit marched into the AIF Details Camp to await their return to Australia and their homes and loved ones. This was three years to the day from James’ initial appointment to the Armoured Car Section.
The wait for the troopship at the Details Camp at Moascar proved a frustrating period, and again the letters home from Leo Cohn record increasing irritation and impatience:
Another boat goes tomorrow and we are going to be left behind again. We had been led to believe that we were certain to go and yesterday the boat-roll went up and our names were not on it. One of our fellows named Harkin is going and is going to post this when he arrives and has promised to ring you up.
Received two letters from you, two from O and one from Dad. So pleased to hear that the wee fellow is doing well, but wish Lorne was better. What an awful time you must have had with the ‘flu scare. By the cable news it seems to be pretty well in hand now.
Slight interruption caused by an Indignation Meeting to find out why we are here and when we are going home. We got poor satisfaction but they promised to write to HQ and see that we get on the next boat. We lost faith in our OC so are doing a lot on our own. He doesn’t want to lose his good job ... Nearly every day there is a boat going through from France, but they seem to have forgotten that we want to get back to civilisation. Anyway I don’t suppose it will be more than a few weeks before we get away so I sincerely hope that before you receive this we will be well on our way back.141
90. Hurry up and wait! Members of the Light Car Patrol waiting for transport to the Kaiser-i-Hind in May 1919 (Cohn collection ATM LCP.LC 003).
91. Homeward Bound! Kaiser-i-Hind in May 1919 (Cohn collection ATM LCP.LC 007).
Typically, men would return to Australia as transport became available and when their turn came, given the quota system on which repatriation was based. Under this system, the AIF and its units simply ‘faded away’ as the men trickled home in small numbers. However, James and his ten men all returned to Australia together on the Kaiser-i-Hind on 16 May, arriving in June 1919. Two men chose different paths home. McGibbon, who had transferred to the AFC in August 1917, was discharged in Palestine to take up a commission with the American Red Cross where he became the workshop manager in Jerusalem. He would return to Australia sometime in 1920 with an American war bride. Driver Holley was posted to AIF Headquarters in London to complete a commercial course with the Non-Military Employment Program. He would be the last member of the Light Cars to return to Australia, finally reaching familiar shores in November 1919.
On arrival in Australia, medical examination and discharge awaited. The majority of men were discharged within weeks of their arrival, Captain James the last in October 1920. The average length of service was 42 months, the longest Captain James at 66 and the shortest Driver Jones at 22.
92. The return home was not smooth sailing for all. Leo Cohn pictured at Caulfield Rehabilitation Hospital with a group of returned soldiers. He took almost six months to regain his health following discharge (Cohn collection ATM LCP.LC 008).
The electoral rolls and correspondence found on individual files allows a glimpse into the lives of these men following their return to Australia. Some 65% resumed their pre-war lives and settled close to where they had previously resided. Of the remainder, 35% relocated shortly after the end of the war. Around 14% shifted from rural areas to metropolitan centres while 13% either relocated from metropolitan areas to rural areas or from one rural district to another. The remaining men left Australia in the 1920s. McGibbon returned to Australia briefly and then migrated with his young family to the US. Somny returned to his home in the UK in the 1920s. The electoral rolls also show that most men returned to their pre-war occupations.
93. Home! George Morgan with Mabel in Castlemaine, 1919 (Morgan collection ATM.LC.GM.020).
Return to Australia following the Great War also allowed lives to be resumed after the interruption of the war years. Fourteen members married between 1918 and 1922. All but one man would eventually marry. The economic circumstances of the 1920s and the Great Depression would also cause considerable hardship to many. Ivan Young’s family business, Young Brothers, would be sold in the 1930s as a consequence of the financial pressures of the Great Depression. It appears that Martin Pines lost his farm in the early 1930s and relocated to several addresses in Sydney in the following years. In 1939, in his application to join the CMF, he stated that he had been unemployed since 1937. Two men who saw only very brief service in the Light Cars, Archibald Gibb and John Driscoll, were dogged by misfortune in the post-war world. Archibald Gibbs’ pre-war life had been touched by scandal several times, and this pattern would resume on his return to Australia. His marriage was dissolved in 1928 and he became unemployed during the Great Depression. In 1931 he was jailed for converting funds for his own use; on his release in 1932 he was killed during a domestic dispute. John Driscoll appears never to have settled well to civilian life. He worked as a rabbiter and labourer, his first marriage dissolved and he moved addresses frequently. His later life was marked by two major criminal convictions and alcoholism. His service in the Second World War would provide a brief period of stability. He would die in 1946 at the early age of 50. There is little doubt that many of these men suffered considerable stress in post-war Australia.
Some men returned to the situation they left when they enlisted. Typical was George Morgan who returned to Castlemaine in 1919 to his wife and young daughter. Family legend has him returning to Thomson’s Engineering with a request to see his former employer concerning re-employment. The manager refused to allow such a direct approach and blocked the door. George then picked the man up and removed the obstacle. He subsequently returned to work and remained with Thomson’s until his retirement. He would raise a family, work and retire in his home at Castlemaine and live an ordinary life that revolved around his community and family. Like many other old diggers, he would not speak openly about his wartime experiences, but would sit with other old diggers every Anzac Day and quietly share a drink, remembering his lost brother and dear friend Jack Langley.
Further military service would have been a distant thought for many of the men of the Light Car Patrol as they returned to Australia in 1919. However a small number immediately returned to the militia. Lieutenants Cornwell and Young were appointed to the 3rd Military District Reserve of Officers and remained so until the 1940s when their appointments were terminated without recall for service. Captain James would be appointed to the 38th Fortress Company, Royal Australian Engineers (RAE), in 1920 and play a part in rebuilding the CMF after the Great War. He would retire as a major in 1924 and remain on the Reserve of Officers until 1942. Trooper Gray joined the 18th Light Horse Regiment in South Australia in 1921 where he was commissioned as a lieutenant. He resigned his commission in 1925. He was appointed to the Reserve of Officers, 3rd Military District, in 1939 and remained until 1944.
The outbreak of another world war in 1939 would see several members return to the colours. Between 1939 and 1941 Bosanquet, Driscoll, Forsyth, Jones, Pines and Christensen all enlisted in the CMF. For Driscoll and Pines, the return to uniform appears to have provided much-needed economic security and stability, as each was unemployed at the time. These men served in garrison battalions, lines of communications or training units. None would see active service outside Australia and all were discharged by 1944. Cohn, Simpson and, after his second discharge from the CMF, Driscoll, would join the part-time and unpaid VDC in 1942. In far-off America, McGibbon would have to register for selective service with the American Armed Forces.
One the great tragedies that befell the diggers of the Great War was that, a mere 20 years later, their children would also be required to serve in a world war. It has been possible to identify eight children who served in the Second World War period, although the number is probably far greater. Six served in the AMF: one in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), four in the Army, and one in the RAAF. Two would serve in foreign forces: one as a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps and another in the US National Guard. The children of Gordon McKay, who died on Anzac Day 1922, deserve special mention. Lance Corporal Keith McKay would be taken prisoner in the campaign in Greece in May 1941 and would not return home until 1945. His brother Alan would serve in the CMF before transferring to the RAAF where he was killed in an air accident at East Sale in 1945.
The circumstances of the deaths of all the members of the Armoured and Light Cars have been documented except for one. Two died on service in the Middle East while the remaining deaths spanned the years from 1922 to 1984 when the last survivor, Leo Cohn, died aged 87. There was an initial spate of deaths soon after the Great War. In 1922 the unit’s youngest member, Henry Harkin, died of juvenile diabetes, the same year as George McKay, who had relocated to a soldier settler farm in Cowra. McKay died from complications following a farm accident. Albert Holley passed away in 1925. Three died as a result of misadventure. Archibald Gibbs was shot dead outside the Surrey Hills Court in 1933 after a domestic dispute. Gaston Somny died in one of the UK’s first commercial aviation accidents in 1935 and James Riley was thrown from a horse in 1955 while mustering sheep. The average age at death was 70 years of age, the oldest Bert Creek at 92 in 1980 and the youngest Henry Harkin at 25.
As with any group, the men of the Armoured and Light Cars enjoyed mixed success and achievement, and the last two survivors, Bert Creek and Leo Cohn, both lived in Bendigo in their final years. Bert became a local identity who was regularly interviewed around Anzac Day when he would recount his adventures in the Palestine campaign and driving for the Prince of Wales. If alive today he would be regarded as a ‘living treasure’. Leo Cohn, a successful businessman, championed the interests of north-west Victoria and, unsurprisingly, the development of the regional television networks. He received an Order of the British Empire in 1964 for service to his community. Each man had embraced a technology that, in 1914, was regarded as cutting edge in that era. Both men served their nation in time of war and, in the post-war world, resumed their lives and continued to serve their families, communities and nation.
Thus it was that the men of Australia’s first mechanised military unit finally faded away.
94. Ernest James sits inside one of his scale models (James collection ATM LCP.EJ 003).
Grown Up Toys
Hobby Becomes an Industry
By R. B. IRVING
THERE is a big difference between models and mere toys, as every youngster knows. Although there is not a toy in the building, a visit to the Model Dockyard, in Swanston Street, would gladden the heart of any boy. The shop is filled with models of trains, aero planes, steam engines, and ships, ranging from models in high glass cases to fully rigged sailing ships and power-driven liners. The Model Dockyard not only sells models, but encourages craftsmen of all ages to make their own. The manager of the Dockyard (Captain E. H. James) has helped the formation of five clubs, whose activities cover the modelling of ships, powerboats, trains, and aeroplanes.
Captain James has been interested in the making of models all his life. One of his earliest recollections is of being found lying in a pool of oil beneath an engine at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1888 by an anxious mother, who had searched several hours for her mechanically minded son. In the early nineties of last century he watched the construction of the first successful steam-driven car built in Australia, at the workshop of Mr. Herbert Thompson, of Armadale. Later this car was driven to Sydney at an average speed of 8 m.p.h. The journey occupied a fortnight. When aged l8 years, Captain James and his brother built one of the first steam driven launches in Melbourne. During the war Captain James was a member of the first Australian Armoured Car Section, which built the first armoured car in Australia at the works of the Vulcan Engineering Company in South Melbourne.
Men Like It
About six years ago Captain James and a friend, who had been making models together for years, found that they had enough models in their workshop to stock a shop, so they started a business in Flinders Street. The shop soon proved too small, so the dockyard was moved to larger premises in Elizabeth Street. The dockyard soon outgrew these premises too, and last year was moved to its present situation in Swanston Street. Captain James finds that his models interest not only boys but men. He exhibited some models at the International Motor Show this year. There was a large crowd round the exhibit all night. The front row was composed almost entirely of fathers. From small boys on the edge of the crowd was frequently heard the cry, “Let’s have a look, Dad.”
Captain James has high praise for the skill of many craftsmen who come to him for advice and materials. In his shop he has a model of the Bounty, which was built according to instructions published in “The Argus” in 1935. Model aeroplanes, made in Australia, are recognized as the best in the world, he says. They are exported in large quantities to England, America, Sweden, and South Africa. Shortly after the war two war pilots, Captain Hervey and Mr. Gordon, started a factory for model aeroplanes. These models became famous not only in Victoria but overseas, and probably were the first of their kind in the world. Thus Victoria had an early lead in the industry, of which its hundreds of model aeroplane clubs have taken advantage.
Rides for Children
A model train running on a quarter of a mile of track will be the chief feature of the exhibit at ‘The Argus’ 20th Century Exhibition. The engine is a replica of the AA locomotives which were used to draw the Sydney express until 1907. It has a scale speed of 45 M.P.H., and draws five vans and carriages. The largest of these carriages, which is 3ft. 6in. in height, will hold eight children. It is fitted with windows, doors, and electric lights. All the carriages are fitted with spring buffers and steam brakes. The train was built by Captain James in his backyard at Hawthorn. The engine took three years to build.
Other exhibits at the Model Dockyard stand will include models of trains, steam engines, ships, and petrol-driven aeroplanes, made by members of the Victorian Model Railways Society, the Victorian Model Engineers’ Society, the Victorian Model Ship Builders’ Society, and the Victorian Model Power Plane Society.
(The Argus, 29 July 1937)
96. In his later years Bert Creek’s war time experiences were the subject of newspaper special features. Roy Withell’s piece appeared in the late 1970s. (Courtesy Creek family collection)