Family of Jack Cassidy treasures the penny he took to hell and back

MARSDEN PARK butcher’s labourer John “Jack” Cassidy kept with him a 1912 copper penny his sister, “Kit”, threw as a good luck charm onto a troop ship as he left for WWI. WATCH THE VIDEO

SOME say it’s a lucky penny from heaven. Others say it’s been to hell and back.

Marsden Park World War 1 digger Lance Corporal John “Jack” Cassidy managed to pick up the 1912 copper penny from the deck of his troop ship Aeneas, after his youngest sister Katie threw it up as a good-luck charm when he left for war.

“He loved his youngest sister and he managed to find the coin, in all that chaos, I don’t know how,” son Jim Cassidy, 84, of Oakville, said.

Jim Cassidy with the 1912 penny his father took with him to and brought back from the Western Front during World War I.

Part of the 4th Batallion, 13th Reinforcent deployment of December 1915, the 28-year-old butcher’s labourer was then shipped out to the Western Front and saw some of the most horrific war scenes ever witnessed in history.

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Through it all, from the battles at the Somme, in the hellhole of Pozieres, and the mud and trench warfare, Corporal Cassidy hung on to his Australian penny, keeping it in a special marble drawstring bag.

Official records show he was blasted in the face, almost lost an arm, suffered further wounds to his elbow and legs as well as concussion, and then lived with shrapnel buried under his skin for the rest of his life.

John “Jack” Cassidy rarely spoke about his service in World War 1.

His family believed the penny from heaven may well have worked its good luck charm, for, despite being injured on five separate occasions requiring hospitalisation, Corporal Cassidy returned home alive and went on to marry and build a family at Riverstone.

“It was an appalling terrible thing, the war,” Mr Cassidy said. “And I don’t really think you could say there was any luck about going there.

“The mud in the trenches was hell on earth. It really affected him, but he rarely spoke about it.”

As a child, Mr Cassidy was allowed to occasionally touch the penny, which has become almost black with age.

Now he treasures the coin, which features the image of the sovereign King George V, along with a Belgium coin his father also brought back from Europe, and his war medals.

This Saturday, on Anzac Day, Mr Cassidy, who suffers from frail health, will watch the special centenary commemoration on TV at home.

“I think war is an horrific thing, but it’s important to know about it,” he said. “It’s only lately we realised how much he had gone through.”

“He was very bruised after the war. He just didn’t speak of it. I have to say the war didn’t lend itself to good things, he became an alcoholic.”

As for the troop ship Aeneas, it wasn’t as lucky as Corp Cassidy; German bombs sank the steam carrier during World War 11.

Official war documents for Corporal John "Jack" Cassidy, of Marsden Park