Soldier Christmas behaviour
ABOVE: This photo appeared on page 8 of Brisbane’s “The Telegraph” newspaper of 19 February 1916 under the headline, “Unique Postcard”. The caption read: “Private T. Murphy, one of the 10th reinforcements of the 9th Battalion, writing on 24th December, says: ‘Enclosed you will find a post card of the transport and the signatures of some of the boys who left Brisbane on 5th October, 1915. Would you be kind enough to allow the boys a little space in your valuable and much read paper, in which to put the photos and their signatures, so that their parents and friends may have the pleasure of seeing the picture of that good little boat which carried them across to fight in the noble cause which our Empire has been brought into, and we are ready and willing to die for? By doing so you will be doing the boys a great favour, and you may keep the said card as a token of respect from the 10th reinforcements of the ever famous 9th Battalion. Wishing you a merry Christmas and every success with your wonderful paper’.” One of the men whose signature appears on the postcard was 19-year-old grocer, Trooper Thomas Loraine Kerr, No.1322, who had enlisted at Narrabri, New South Wales, on 29 July 1915. Embarkation records reveal that he sailed with his unit, the 10th reinforcements of the 7th Australian Light Horse Regiment, aboard HMAT A32, “Thermistocles”, out of Sydney Harbour on 5 October 1915. The postcard, however, depicts the troopship, HMAT A69, “Warilda”. Trooper (later Driver) Kerr served with the 2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade Field Ambulance as a driver in the Middle East campaign, seeing out the war and returning to Australia on 3 August 1919. He was residing at 176 Bridge Street, West Tamworth, New South Wales, in 1964. Other signatures discernible belong to Private Arthur Albert Dowling (No.1352, 10th reinforcements of the 7th Australian Light Horse Regiment) and Private Ernest Joseph Giffen Jones (No. 3072, 10th Reinforcements, 11th Infantry Battalion).
THE SOLDIERS’ CONDUCT.
Canon Garland [ David John Garland ], resident chaplain at the camps, states that the conduct of the men in camp during Christmastide was wholly admirable.
He had been in all the camps during the holidays, had mixed with the men in their huts and tents, and personally had not seen any the worse for liquor, nor heard of any such.
By the trains which arrived at Enoggera on Christmas Eve there were only two men the worse for liquor, and they were civilians, not one soldier.
Civilian friends on whose opinion he could rely had told him that they had been in the city on Christmas Eve, some of them at a late hour, and had seen nothing but good behaviour on the part of the soldiers.
Less than a dozen soldiers had been taken care of by the military pickets for being over the mark.
He believed this admirable result was due largely to the appeal made by the State Commandant (Colonel Lee, D.S.O.) [ George Leonard Lee ], who had urged the men to show a real manly spirit, and maintain the good name which the troops at present have in this State by conducting themselves in a soldierly manner.
He had asked then not to allow the high reputation of Queensland’s soldiers to be sullied by the actions of the few.
Canon Garland added that he knew some of the chaplains had spoken in direct terms to the men on the same subject, and he had no doubt that these appeals supporting each other had tended to produce such a happy effect.
– from page 8 of “The Brisbane Courier” of 29 December 1915.
