ANZACs in Arkhangel Read online

  Sullivan left England before receiving his VC. It was eventually conferred at Government House, Adelaide, in July 1920 by the Prince of Wales (later, briefly, King Edward VIII), who was on a world tour. Presented the same day were 11 Military Medals, six Distinguished Conduct Medals, three Military Crosses and an Air Force Cross. Sullivan is pictured at left with a recipient of one of the MMs. (AWM A05540)

  During World War I a recommendation for the VC needed to be made by an officer supported by three corroborating witnesses. In the British Army, Form W3121 had to be completed and sent up the chain of command. Sullivan’s award would have originated with his English captain, Harry Heaton, and must have been approved in turn by Colonel Davies, Brigadier Sadleir-Jackson and then Ironside or Rawlinson. Churchill would have had the final say before the recommendation reached the King.

  In contrast to Sullivan, Corporal Sam Pearse was a battle-hardened veteran. A rabbit-trapper by occupation, he had signed up just before he turned eighteen in July 1915. He is said to have persuaded his reluctant parents to give their permission, but the handwriting in their letter of consent on his army file looks uncommonly like his own. Pearse reached Gallipoli shortly before its evacuation and spent two weeks in the line there.

  In Belgium in September 1917 he won the Military Medal for single–handedly raiding a German machine-gun post. His recommendation added: ‘Normally this man is a runner … and throughout [he] showed an utter disregard of danger in carrying messages, guiding parties and in bringing in wounded men on every return run’.5 At his presentation in the field General Birdwood, who commanded the Australian Corps, ran out of medals and could offer Pearse only a strip of medal ribbon.6

  Pearse had been born in Penarth, Wales, and migrated to Australia as a boy. At one time a member of a Salvation Army band, he was apparently still a teetotaller when he joined up. The army changed that. His later letters allude to a fondness for beer and, like many others, he spent time in the VD hospital. His army record shows he was no angel; it includes entries for neglect of duty, absence from guard and disobedience to orders. Offhand about discipline and formality, he was nevertheless a good soldier; he was promoted to corporal in the AIF and sergeant in the Relief Force.

  On leave in England in January 1918, Pearse caught the eye of a feisty young Englishwoman who overheard him taking the mickey out of some Americans. She was Kitty Knox, an ambulance driver serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. The two fell for each other and announced their engagement in May.

  For a studio portrait, this one of Sam Pearse is unusually casual. He is said to have posed for it in France after coming straight from the front line. It shows one advantage of the Australian uniform: the pockets of the tunic could hold more grenades than its British equivalent. (Courtesy Elwyn Williams)

  Later that month Pearse returned to France and was wounded in the right foot. He was invalided to England and during his convalescence spent every available moment with Kitty. Indeed, he spent more time than was available: in August he was formally court-martialled for going absent without leave, docked a month’s pay and reduced to the ranks. Back in France after the Armistice, he was so keen to get back to see Kitty he had a mate smash his foot with a hammer. One of his toes had to be amputated but the injury achieved his object and got him sent back to England.

  Pearse’s plan was to marry Kitty, then take her to Australia to meet his family and see how she liked the country. The shortage of shipping at the time meant the two would have had to travel separately. Instead they decided to bide their time till they could travel together.

  It was during the wait that Pearse was attracted by the prospect of a short tour of duty in North Russia. Both Kitty and her parents were against it, but he signed on anyway—and married Kitty a week later. As mentioned earlier, his timing circumvented the AIF ban on married men joining the Relief Force. The two spent only weeks together as a married couple.

  Pearse was still in camp in England when Kitty wrote to tell him she was pregnant. Once he was in Russia, though, he received no more news. On 8 August he wrote: ‘I have not heard from you since I left England … I am dying to get a letter from you to see how you are’.7 Kitty’s replies never reached him; they were all returned to her undelivered after he died.

  In turn, Kitty was slow to learn of Pearse’s death. In early September she answered some callers at her parents’ home near Durham. Five Diggers stood at the door, holding their slouch hats in their hands. Apparently they had heard the news on the bush telegraph and, thinking Kitty already knew, were there to pay their respects. She could tell at once from their expressions that Pearse would not be coming back.

  The official telegram arrived two days later, followed by a letter of condolence signed personally by King George V. There was a series of Anzac visitors, including Captain Newbould, who delivered a pair of binoculars Pearse had souvenired from a Bolshevik officer. When Pearse’s VC was announced, Newbould sent a telegram: ‘Never in this war was one more earned. A fitting tribute to the bravest man I have ever seen. I salute him.’8

  Six months after her husband’s death, Kitty gave birth to a daughter. Named Victoria Catherine (VC) Sarah Pearse, she was just a month old when her mother took her to a private investiture at Buckingham Palace. Queen Mary cradled the baby in her arms while the King presented Kitty with Pearse’s VC.

  Kitty corresponded with the Pearse family and decided to keep to the original plan of coming to Australia. In May 1920 she sailed aboard a transport carrying war brides, children, a few civilians and the last stragglers of the AIF. One of the stragglers was Albert Rose, a bushman from near Deniliquin, New South Wales. Before the war Rose had been a shearer and itinerant farm labourer. Now, on the voyage home, he took a shine to the twenty-year-old widow.9

  When the ship berthed at Port Melbourne, Kitty was met by Pearse’s parents. They took her and the baby to Mildura where both were feted at a civic reception and made welcome by Pearse’s extended family. But when Albert Rose appeared on the scene the Pearses were disapproving.

  They would have been aghast had they known more of Rose’s background. Twelve years Kitty’s senior, Rose had suffered VD several times, including syphilis. His army record was poor with a history of going absent without leave. After one lengthy absence he had been arrested, only to escape and spend another two months on the run. While at large on that occasion, he had committed a robbery with violence and been convicted at the Old Bailey. His sentence of fifteen months’ hard labour was partially remitted on condition he return to Australia. He had just been released from gaol when he boarded the ship home.

  In spite of all this, the relationship blossomed. Kitty married Rose at the Sydney Registry Office in October 1920. The Pearse family severed all contact with her.

  Rose bought a horse-drawn covered wagon and resumed his pre-war life as a shearer. The family moved around the Riverina and as far north as Dubbo. Kitty took her new husband’s surname and Vicky grew up believing Rose was her natural father. When Rose and Kitty started a family of their own, Vicky was first boarded out with distant relatives in Melbourne, then sent to a succession of boarding schools. She lived with her mother and stepfather only off and on.

  Vicky knew her father had won the VC but to her that meant Rose had won it. (Rose had no medals; the last entry on his military record forfeited his entitlement to service medals.) One Anzac Day at school near Hay, NSW, Vicky announced proudly to her class that her father had won the VC and promised to take the medal to school. Her mother refused to let her because Pearse’s name was engraved on the back. At school Vicky was branded a show-off and a liar.

  During the Depression the family did it tough. They fled several country towns to escape creditors, and when Vicky won a bursary to Sydney Girls High School she had to turn it down because her mother couldn’t afford the uniform. Vicky was twelve before she secretly went through her mother’s chest of valuables, and learned the truth. The medal and her own birth certificate explained why she
had always been treated differently from her siblings. She later declared: ‘I hated that medal. I had a medal instead of a father.’10

  Sullivan was spared such hardships.11 After Russia, he returned to a secure position with the National Bank. He did come down with malaria and had trouble persuading the Repatriation Department that he had caught it in Russia. Otherwise, life treated him well. He married and started a family and, by 1937, had worked his way up in the bank to be branch manager at Casino, New South Wales.

  King George V had died the year before and Edward VIII was due to be crowned in May of 1937. When Edward abdicated, the same date was kept for the new king, George VI. Australia was to be represented by the ‘Australian Coronation Contingent’ comprising 100 soldiers, 25 sailors and 25 airmen. Half the soldiers were to be serving troops and, in recognition of Australia’s contribution to the war, half were to be returned members of the AIF.

  Competition for the veterans’ positions was keen. Men lobbied on their own behalf, mothers pleaded for their sons and bosses for their employees. The authorities wanted the finest specimens of Australian manhood, so good looks and a strong physique were an advantage. Sullivan fitted the bill, and his VC must also have helped. As the only VC-winner in the group, he was something of a pin-up.

  The contingent went into camp under canvas for two weeks to be drilled. To keep them on a close rein, the ex-Diggers were required to formally re-enlist, thereby becoming subject again to full military discipline. Whatever rank they had once held, all of them officially became ordinary gunners in the Royal Australian Artillery. A smart new uniform was issued, resembling that of the Australian Light Horse, complete with riding breeches and slouch hats with emu plumes.

  The contingent travelled as third-class passengers on the liner Oronsay, though Sullivan and one other were upgraded to first class. Although a bank manager, Sullivan did have a larrikin streak. He got into hot water for missing one ship-board parade and was fined 10 shillings for:

  Conduct prejudicial of good order and military discipline in that he at the termination of an interview in [the] Orderly Room and after being refused permission to speak, said ‘Thanks very much, Sir, I had some things to say to you’ or words to that effect, in such a manner as to show disrespect to his commanding officer.12

  In London the Australians were billeted at Wellington Barracks where they found the meals so meagre they demanded their rations be increased. The press wrote them up as examples of hand-picked virility and the Aussies played up to the Anzac image. Scores of spectators used to crowd the railings to watch them come and go.

  The contingent was deluged with invitations to reunions and receptions and Sullivan was returning from one in the early evening of 9 April 1937. Opposite the barracks gate he stopped to sign autographs for a group of well-wishers. Then, intending to cross the road, he stepped off the kerb into the path of a cyclist. He was next seen lying face up and unconscious in the gutter. Rushed to hospital, Sullivan was dead on arrival from a fractured skull.

  An inquest was held at Westminster Coroner’s Court. An archaic legal rule required it to be conducted over the deceased’s remains, so Sullivan’s coffin was carried into the courtroom while the hearse waited in the yard. The inquest concluded Sullivan had slipped and fallen before the cyclist, a delivery boy, had hit him. The coroner returned a finding of accidental death.

  Sullivan’s coffin was taken to the chapel of Wellington Barracks where it lay in state. His medal, spurs, bayonet and plumed slouch hat rested beside it on a velvet cushion. Eighteen years earlier a memorial service had been held in the same chapel for Lord Settrington, the first man Sullivan had hauled from the Russian swamp.

  General Birdwood and a dozen British VC-winners attended the funeral. A former AIF chaplain gave a down-to-earth eulogy. A band of the Grenadier Guards led the funeral procession while six chestnut horses pulled the gun carriage bearing the coffin. Thousands lined the streets, watching in silence. A month later, a gap was deliberately left in the ranks of the Australian contingent as they marched in the coronation parade.

  The VCs weren’t the only decorations Australians won in North Russia. Eight Aussies received the Distinguished Conduct Medal, which at that time was second only to the VC. Five Australians also won the MM in Russia,13 while three were awarded bars to those they had won in the AIF.14

  Like the VC, the DCM also dates from the Crimean War and was created to recognise gallantry by other ranks and NCOs (officers got the Distinguished Service Order). Some spoke of it as a ‘near miss’ for the VC, but the respective rarity of the two decorations bears no comparison: 628 VCs were conferred during World War I and more than 25,000 DCMs.

  In fact, there was a general feeling among the British that medals were easy to win in North Russia. Some British pilots who had dodged flying in France, were resented as having come to Russia just to collect as many medals as they could. ‘Fellows get a Distinguished Flying Cross for shows which were considered as “all in a day’s work” in France.’15

  Among the Americans, the feeling about medals had been the reverse. American decorations had been very sparingly awarded and the men greatly resented that their feats were not properly acknowledged. Colonel Stewart was universally blamed for failing to make the necessary recommendations and for his indifference to the Russians, who were eager to bestow medals on the Americans as a show of appreciation.16

  General Ironside had wanted a campaign medal struck for service in North Russia, but it was never authorised.17 In fact, politically, it was out of the question. An unsuccessful, undeclared war was something best forgotten.

  One concession, though, was granted. Although the Great War had formally come to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, service in North Russia was deemed sufficient to qualify the men for the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. The British War Office, however, was responsible for issuing the medals to all members of the Relief Force. In the case of the Australians, this rule applied regardless of their previous AIF service and meant that the North Russia veterans had to wait on London for what other Diggers received by mail from Melbourne.

  Medals for the Aussies who served in North Russia were administered from London, irrespective of the men’s previous service in the AIF. Some North Russia Diggers had trouble getting their medals. Anthony Minkshlin, for example, didn’t receive all of his until 1934! (National Archives of Australia)

  A number of the Russian Diggers experienced delay and confusion in receiving their medals. Ivan Odliff, the man with incurable VD, encountered more problems than most. Having lost his discharge certificate, he had trouble getting a duplicate and then complained he had never been issued with his free civilian suit or returned serviceman’s badge. He must have thought he was getting the run-around. A note on his file in January 1922 reads: ‘This man called for his British War Medal and was informed it had not yet arrived. He used obscene language and was ordered to get out.’ A year later Odliff was still vainly writing letters.

  Several Australians were awarded Russian decorations. Harry Harcourt won the Order of St Stanislas, 2nd Class, with Swords (the swords denoted military rather than civil service). His official army record also refers to the Order of Vladimir, which seems unlikely as the order bestowed hereditary noble rank!

  Albert Bennett, Chilla Hill, Walter Jones and Charlie Oliver all won either the Medal or the Cross of St George, 4th Class—it isn’t clear which. The Cross was a silver medal for acts of distinction under arms, with a recipient going up one class for each succeeding act of bravery. The St George Medal for merit in combat (it also came in four classes) ranked below the Cross and over two million were awarded during World War I. Whichever it was, Oliver asked for his not to be gazetted as his sister was living in Russia at the time and he didn’t want her compromised.

  Some British troops—even some recipients—sneered at Russian medals, saying they could be bought in Arkhangel shops. One Briton with an Order of St Anne, 3rd Class,
conceded they were ‘handing them out by the dozen’.18 Russian awards might have been more highly prized had the traditional Russian practice been adopted whereby a certain number of medals was granted to a unit which had fought well, and the soldiers themselves allowed to vote on which of their number were the most deserving.

  By March 1922 Soviet power was firmly established and Captain Allan Brown of Elope had been dead for nearly three years. Yet his father received this letter from Base Records in Melbourne, passing on news from the British War Office.

  Dear Sir,

  I have much pleasure in informing you that the late Captain Allan Brown, 49th Battalion, was awarded the ‘Order of St Anne, with Swords, 3rd Class’ and the ‘Order of St. Stanislas, with Swords, 3rd Class’ for conspicuous services rendered while serving in Russia.

  It is desired to point out … [that] though the ribbons have been conferred, in very few instances have the actual insignia been forthcoming. If later, owing to the unsettled conditions existing in Russia, the decorations of the monarchy are abolished, the awards … will be cancelled automatically.19

  Since Russian Imperial decorations had already been abolished, the letter cannot have been much solace to Brown’s parents.

  17

  THAT WHICH

  REMAINS

  ONE evening in August 1919, Ironside and Rawlinson had been puzzled to see a long convoy of carts heading for Arkhangel’s wharves.1 Each cart carried a wooden box about 6 feet long and the generals were told they were coffins containing the bodies of American soldiers. The remains had just been disinterred from the military burial ground and were starting their long journey to the United States.

  The cemetery in Arkhangel was shared by all the Allies under the aegis of the ‘Allied Burial Board’ and Rawlinson had an aide go and check up on it. On being told the Americans had left the place in a mess, he immediately issued instructions for them to put things back in order.2 Both Rawlinson and Ironside thought the whole business of exhuming bodies grotesque.