Private Walter Rowland Marsh, 10th Battalion, AIF

My mother Joan spoke about her uncle Wally as a frail man who suffered ‘shell-shock’ after the first world war. No letters from Wally have survived and his war experiences were not discussed, however, some understanding of the place war service had in his life is possible.

A proud new recruit.
Ready to serve his State and his country.

Photos of a Wally in uniform prior to his embarkation show him as bright and confident, while those from the 1920s show a sombre though well-dressed man. ‘Shell-shock’ was his niece’s summary of how the experience changed him. It was a commonly used phrase of ‘consolation and legitimation’ as families tried to make some sense of the changes they saw in loved ones.

Serious and dapper: Wally about 1925, surrounded by Dorrie his youngest sister (left)
 sister-in-law Evelyn, sister Phil (seated) and nieces Margaret and Joan.

Walter was born in 1893 and when he joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in 1915, he was the fifth of the 8 surviving children of English migrants Henry and MaryMarsh and the middle boy, between Fred born in 1891 and Frank born in 1896.

Wally grew up in Adelaide where his father had a candle factory and made a comfortable life for his family. His eldest brother Henry died after an epileptic seizure while on his way to the factory in 1899. The death had a profound effect; three of Wally’s sisters became nurses and his father’s interest in business waned. Henry senior moved to remote Coomandook to take up wheat farming, with misplaced idealism, but Wally stayed on as a clerk in the factory.

The farm soil was poor and after the first-year productivity sank. Fred and Wally joined the farm in 1908 and Frank in 1911. Soon after, Fred left for India. Wally was ‘not naturally suited to outdoor or manual labour’ according to his brother Frank, but presumably felt some obligation to help his parents.

After war was declared, Fred joined the Indian Army. Wally’s sister Elsie joined the 2nd Australian General Hospital, Nursing Staff and in December 1914 embarked for Egypt while he was helping complete the wheat harvest.

In April and May 1915, South Australian papers carried dozens of stories of Gallipoli and the prominent role of the State-based 10^th battalion. Wally’s mother had encouraged Fred to leave the unproductive farm and later would say the same thing to Frank so may have had a similar conversation with Wally.

Wally signed up on 27 May 1915 and was assigned to the 8^th reinforcements for the 10^th Battalion. Another sister Philippa (Phil) signed up in July and was assigned to the 3rd Australian General Hospital and Reinforcements embarking for Lemnos, a Greek island and a staging point for Gallipoli, in August. A month later, Wally also embarked for Lemnos and in October he was ‘taken on strength’ with the 10th Battalion after their evacuation to Lemnos in November 1915. He was now part of a legendary battalion and shared something of the experience with Phil.

Wally would be co-located twice more in similar locations to his sisters, in Egypt and France, and while this would have given them at least some broadly shared memories there is no direct evidence of their meeting.

Whatever excitement Wally felt was jolted after he landed in Alexandria Egypt in late December. He was hospitalised at the No 2 Australian General Hospital in the Ghezireh Palace in Cairo with ‘extreme’ jaundice but ‘cured’ by 16 January. He was admitted to the Red Cross Convalescent Hospital, in Montazah Palace, Alexandria for a week in March with the same complaint.

Jaundice first broke out in 1915 among troops in Egypt, spreading rapidly to Gallipoli and Lemnos and more prevalent amongst men who had not been exposed to it in their youth.

After Gallipoli, most of the AIF was sent to the war’s main theatre, the Western Front in France and Belgium. The 10^th Battalion landed in Marseilles, arriving in Godewaersvelde, by train on 5 April 1916 and commenced regular training.

On 19 May the Battalion’s billets were under ‘heavy bombardment’ with three killed and seven wounded. It was Wally’s first experience of being near death on the battlefield. The Battalion Diary for May notes the continuing wet, regular skirmishes and one further death.  

Wally’s war experience took a more dramatic turn with his participation in the worst fighting of the war in the Battle for Pozières in July 1916. The Battalion suffered 58 deaths, 264 wounded and another 46 missing. 

Wally survived without physical injuries but memories of the deaths of many comrades and visions of once green fields and a busy town turned to lifeless quagmires must have filled his later dreams.

No place for a clerk. The main street of Pozieres, December 1916.
The town was destroyed in the fighting to save it.

The battalion was reorganised in August, a necessity after the loss of so many men, followed by regular training and successful attacks. In October 10 men were killed and another 70 wounded.

The harsh trench environment brought health risks which developed into large-scale medical problems. One was ‘trench foot’, an infection and swelling of feet exposed to long periods of cold dampness, sometimes leading to amputation.

In early November the Battalion undertook road making, coped with extensive mud and ‘trenches in [a] shocking state’. On 11 November, 150 were listed as ‘wounded’ mostly with foot trouble. Wally was admitted to the field hospital on 10 November and on the 28^th arrived at the Standing Hospital, Amiens, diagnosed with ‘trench feet’. On 2 December 1916, he embarked at Calais and was admitted to the 3^rd Australian General Hospital, Brighton, England, where his sister Phil had been relocated, for further treatment.

Australian ambulance men at Bernafay, France, carrying their comrades
suffering from trench feet to transport which will take them to hospital.

Wally was granted leave from 8-23 January 1917, perhaps spent with Phil, returning to hospital on 27 January where he presumably remained until 23 March when he joined the new 70th Battalion in Wareham remaining with them until it was disbanded in September then re-joined the 10^th Battalion in France mid-October.

On 10 February 1918 he was diagnosed with a highly contagious whitlow infection in the forefinger of his right hand presumably affecting his ability to shoot. He went to the ship hospital Boulogne and after convalesce re-joined the unit on 26 April.

From May to July the Unit Diary shows more detailed planning, training, regular church parades, successes in battle and low casualties. On 23 August, during a major advance at Bray Sur-Somme, Wally suffered a gunshot wound to the right forearm. The following day he was invalided to the General Hospital at Havre and two weeks later to the Sutton Veny Hospital in Wiltshire, taking leave from 25 September to 9 October. He re-joined the 10^th on 29 November 1918 where he would wait until his return to Australia. Several courses of study were offered at this time (including bookkeeping, dairy farming, French and wheat farming) and it is likely that he took part in some - though probably not wheat farming.

He returned to England and on 24 April boarded the Armagh for Australia. His only formal discipline occurred on this journey home when he was fined two weeks’ pay for failing to ‘attend the Guard Mounting’ in Durban on 3 May, ‘after being duly warned.’ Another soldier charged with the same offence on the same day was Private R. W. Ingleton also of the 10th Battalion. Perhaps the two were looking forward to a day in Durban together. He disembarked in Adelaide on 16 May and was discharged on 8 July 1919.

By the time the war ended the ‘fighting 10^th’ had taken a prominent part in the worst of the fighting at Gallipoli and Pozières, both iconic locations, and was the most decorated of the South Australian Units. It was something to be proud of.

It is no surprise that Wally did not apply for farming land through the Soldier Settlement Scheme; he had probably had enough of the outdoors.

In 1925 he married Catherine Gladys Saunders in a small ceremony at the Congregational Manse in Alberton, Port Adelaide. The two had had a long, quiet, apparently isolated and childless marriage. Wally and his wife visited Fred in India in 1926 with his sister Phil who later left him $600 in her will, suggesting that their shared experience strengthened their relationship and the same time as it distanced them both from the rest of their family.

Wally lived in the same house from his marriage until his death. Through that half-century, he worked as a ‘clerk’, the trade he learned in his father’s factory.

Adelaide Advertiser, 19 June 1973.

Wally died ‘suddenly’ on 17 June 1973 a month after his 80^th birthday and was buried in a private ceremony the following day. His life had been defined, but personally diminished, by his membership of the 10^th battalion.

References:

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Further reading,,,

To read about the life of Walter's parents, Henry and Mary Marsh, please look at the first of three articles Henry and Mary Marsh: Melbourne pioneers.