By Julie Power
Help wanted. On the eve of the 108th Anzac Day, Powerhouse curator Anni Turnbull wants public assistance to identify World War I soldiers in photos taken from April 1915 to January 1917 before they left for war. Many never returned.
Basil James Ryan was believed to have enlisted under an alias, Basil De Courcy. That was probably because he didn’t have his mother’s permission to enlist and could have been too young. Credit: Powerhouse Collection
“It is not a new thing for people to go missing from history,” Turnbull said.
And it’s not only century-old images that are providing a mystery – more recent photographs of Australian soldiers remain unidentified.
To mark Anzac Day on Tuesday, an exhibition at the Australian War Memorial will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the deployment of 1000 Australian Defence Force personnel to Somalia in 1993. At the time, it was the ADF’s largest deployment since the Vietnam War.
They served under Governor-General David Hurley, who was then the commander of the battalion group. He will march with the veterans of Somalia on Anzac Day.
Putting names to the faces in the Somalia exhibition has proved challenging. The image of veteran Dr Bob Worswick looms large. Now a general practitioner, he can remember the day of the photo, March 22, 1993; the location, the town of Baidoa; and the situation, “No different from any other day.”
Veteran Dr Bob Worswick points at a photo of himself in Somalia. An exhibition at the Australian War Memorial marks the 30th anniversary of the deployment of peacekeeping troops. Credit: David Whittaker
Conditions were dangerous and difficult. But after two months in Somalia, Baidoa had been largely secured, and the peacekeeping forces – later praised as exemplary – had been effective.
But Worswick is still trying to identify the man next to him in the photo. He’s close, though. He has been using social media to confirm his hunch and identify others. “Memory dims with age: photos like these, and written accounts, help bring back the past to the present.”
The conflict was part of Australia’s modern military history so recording it was “absolutely” necessary.
“For each of these photos, there is a requirement to put a name to the face,” Worswick said. “Our deployment to Somalia was only 30 years ago, yet there are many photos in the War Memorial’s collection where the soldiers are nameless. We owe it to them, and their families, to fix this.”
In Sydney, Turnbull has been working to identify the soldiers captured in a collection of 100-year-old glass plate negatives from the Tyrrell Collection. These portraits appear to be the first taken of Australian soldiers before they went to war.
Only about 100 of the 404 digitised WWI soldier portraits have been identified. The photos reveal each subject’s face and uniform as clearly as if they were under the microscope, showing details of military clothing such as great coats, plumed hats and riding crops.
“They also reveal the personalities of the sitters,” Turnbull said.
Discovering the identities had been a difficult and tedious process, partly because of the use of aliases or previous indiscretions. Historians believe as many as 15,000 members (or about 3.5 per cent) of the Australian Imperial Force served under an alias.
It was often a sign of a past indiscretion or deceit.
Among those identified is Basil James Ryan, who enlisted under the alias Basil De Courcy, which Turnbull suspects was because he lacked his mother’s permission.
He looks too young to enlist, and may have been underage when he donned the slouch hat with emu plumes. He survived World War I, served again in World War II, and lived to the age of 80.
A portrait of soldier Wane Cherrie with wife Elizabeth and son Neil in Marrickville in April 1916. Cherrie was killed in Belgium in September 1917 when his dugout was hit by a shell. His son, Neil, served in World War II and was taken as a prisoner of war, but survived. Credit: Powerhouse Collection
Less fortunate was Wane Cherrie, who was photographed at The Warren, a mansion in Marrickville Sydney, in April 1916 with his wife Elizabeth and son Neil. In September 1917, his dugout was bombed, and he was killed and buried in Belgium. His son, Neil, served in World War II and was taken as a prisoner of war, but survived.
Turnbull encouraged the public to add comments in the field below each soldier’s photo where the museum is asking for help or clues to the identity of the soldier.
Worswick, who also served in Timor-Leste, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, will march with Hurley and other veterans of the Somalia deployment in Canberra’s Anzac Day parade.
Marching on Anzac Day and putting names and details to photos was important to every generation, he said.
This week the federal government announced some ADF units that deployed to Somalia would receive the Meritorious Unit Citation to recognise their service, contribution and sacrifice.
Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh encouraged people to “acknowledge and pay tribute to all our service personnel who have engaged in conflict, peacekeeping or humanitarian operations, they each embody the spirit of the Anzac”.
The soldier portraits can be seen at collection.maas.museum/set/8305
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