Brothers in harm’s way: Nothing can match the horrors of the Western Front

My great-great-uncle Ernest was left a psychological wreck. He would have been appalled at the growing glamour and jingoism surrounding World War I and Anzac Day.

Australian soldiers cross a duckboard track winding through devastated Chateau Wood in the Ypres sector of France in 1917, during World War I. Picture: The Australian War Memorial

When I was growing up in Sydney, I was fortunate to have my great-grandmother living with us. Every afternoon I saw her saying her prayers on a little rosary of only 10 beads with a little cross – a soldier’s rosary. It had been given to her by one of her brothers who had carried it during World War I. It was not until much later that I found their records at the War Memorial in Canberra and was able to piece together the truth – and falsehoods – of the family stories about those brothers.

Both great-gran’s younger brothers Ernest Harris Ray and Frederick Joseph Ray fought in World War I. The brothers were very different characters and consequently had very different wars. They neither looked nor behaved alike. Ern was quieter than the younger, bolder Fred. Six-foot Fred was a bookkeeper aged 21. Short, dapper Ern was a tailor, aged 23. Although they lived in Stanmore in inner Sydney, they had both been in the Light Horse cadets from the age of 10. However, why they joined the army is unclear. They never spoke about their reasons. Perhaps Fred joined because his older brother did. Perhaps for both it was a mixture of bravado, peer pressure from their friends, especially the cadets, and another common reason, the desire to get out of Australia and “see the world” – and there was always the famous hats.

Whatever their reasons, the whole family tried to talk them out of it. My family were fiercely nationalistic Australians who regarded the war as a European (and British) folly which had nothing to do with post-Federation Australia. Later, they all campaigned vigorously against conscription. What is more, the boys’ father was incapacitated and their mother virtually a widow. But deaf to her pleas Ern joined on New Year’s Day 1915 and Fred followed.

Australian troops walk towards Ypres, Belgium, on the Western Front in 1917.

Originally, Ern was in the Light Horse, but was transferred to the 13th infantry battalion. He left for Egypt early in February 1915 as reinforcement for the battalion which was destined for Egypt, the Dardanelles and the catastrophic Gallipoli campaign. What actually happened to him during his time in Egypt and later is difficult to piece together. However, after reaching his destination, he was transferred again, this time into a medical unit where he saw at first hand some of the most disastrous consequences of that misconceived venture in the sheer number of wasted human lives. But that was not to be the end of it for Ern.

After the evacuation of Gallipoli, to his alarm, he found himself transferred back to the infantry bound for the Western Front. By 1916, things became really ghastly for Ern. Any hopes he had of “seeing the world”, becoming a “somebody”, or anything else were dashed in the mud of France. By 1917, he was transferred again back into the medical corps as he already had experience, but it was terrible.

The worst of it, he once told my mother, was later during Ypres. It was simply horrific, and consisted mainly of picking up the wounded, the dead and pieces of dead from no man’s land and, later, trying to dress the wounds of those who could be, and would be, sent back. For Ern, the war had turned into a psychological nightmare, and was fast turning him into a psychological wreck.

Meanwhile, Fred was made company quarter master sergeant, for which as a bookkeeper he was a perfect fit. After a spell in Egypt, he was sent straight to France. However, unlike his older brother, he had more mental resilience and was less averse to the horrific results of warfare. He was at the battle for Fromelles, and by the end of July 1916 Fred had already begun to distinguish himself as a soldier, and he was mentioned in dispatches. However, he was gassed in November 1917 during the third battle of Ypres and evacuated to England to recuperate, and, as was the case in World War I, sent back again only two weeks later.

Australian soldiers wearing gas masks in trench on Western Front at Garter Point near Ypres.

Then in August 1918, Fred suffered the second and worst of two wounds. He earlier had a small wound which was dressed, but in that August he was wounded in action, probably at Amiens. It is recorded that this wound was the second and that it was severe. In fact, the wound took off his knee, and he was then evacuated to England. Once there, his entire leg was amputated.

Meanwhile, as a medic Ern was trying to cope with the results of this slaughter. Nothing had prepared him mentally or physically for the situation after the Somme and the battle of Ypres in November 1917. Nevertheless, he kept doing his job as best he could. He had a good record, and his only failing was overstaying a leave, when he lost a day’s pay. Then during the winter of 1917, he simply started to break down, physically and mentally. By 1918 he was struggling although he managed to keep going during some of the fighting in Amiens. Then he collapsed. After the earlier campaigns in Pozieres and especially, Ypres Ern had had enough – and told them so. Photos of the wounded after those battles show the full horror of the results: men with no faces, arms and legs missing and every kind disfigurement.

The full horror for a medic must have been the helplessness in the face of rampant infection. However, after his collapse, his record shows he was not cashiered or some other punishment, but was sent to hospital, where for the last part of 1918 he remained until the armistice. He was sent home and finally demobbed in 1919.

Fred lived for the rest of his life with the results of his war service, but he was naturally optimistic, worked hard, married, had a son and rose to be the chief accounts manager at General Electric. Later, after the death of Fred’s wife, Fred and Ern went to live together in Stanmore where they became quite prosperous, and Ern as a member of the AJC spent a lot of his time at the races, mysteriously always “in funds”.

Of the two brothers, despite Fred’s infirmities, it was Ern who was more affected by the war. He had gone into the war with an adventurous spirit, the do or die mentality that characterised many Australians in 1914. However, the war almost broke that spirit. The psychological scars showed on Ern. The gung-ho spirit of his photograph, complete with foot-long cigar and swagger stick disappeared after the war. He became markedly disillusioned about the “Anzac spirit”. He rarely spoke of his experiences, never joined the RSL nor wore his medals, and he never went into an Anzac Day march. He was not against private remembrance, but Ernest knew about the reality of war. He would have been appalled at the growing glamour and jingoism surrounding World War I and ­indeed, Anzac Day.