Today, Remembrance Day 2019, a new book was launched that suggested our two grandfathers were far from the only under-age boys who enlisted. In The Lost Boys: The Untold Stories of the Under-age Soldiers who Fought in the First World War, the author Paul Byrnes told their stories. I haven’t seen the book yet, so I have relied on The Sydney Morning Herald review.
In the 1914–18 Great War, the Australian Army's enlistment age was 21 years, or 18 years if there was parental consent. Boys under 18 could only enlist as buglers. In New Zealand, the government’s National Registration Scheme required men aged 17-60 to register with the government.
The book captured the incredible and previously untold stories of 40 boys and one girl from Australia and New Zealand who fought in the Great War, from Gallipoli (1915) to the Armistice (11th Nov 1918). Gallipoli was the most horrific war site, since 8700 Australians and 2700 New Zealanders died on that rocky beach.
A unique perspective on WW1, The Lost Boys was military history made deeply personal, a homage to youthful bravery and a poignant reminder of the horror of war. The Lost Boys was fully illustrated throughout featuring stunning portraits from the Australian National War Memorial archives, photography, exquisite writing and very moving stories.
In WW1 of 1914–1918, thousands of boys across Australia and New Zealand lied about their age, forged a parent’s signature and left to fight on the other side of the world. The book featured haunting images of the boys taken at training camps and behind the lines, telling tales that were both heart breaking and rousing, full of daring, ingenuity, recklessness, random horror and capricious luck. With this unique perspective on WW1, The Lost Boys made military history that was a deeply personal, a powerful homage to young bravery and to the sacrifice of war.
Les Shaw was the youngest known Anzac enlisted to go to Gallipoli, at 13.5! The former Kings School Parramatta student lied about his age and signed up when he was only 165 centimetres tall and weighed only 53.5 kilograms, to fight against the Germans. What was the Australian Army thinking?? Thankfully Shaw was discharged at 17 when it was discovered how young he had been. But after a few post-war exploits in Sydney, some prison stays and two childless marriages, he died a drunk in 1947 at 46.
William Jackson, a farm boy from the NSW plains near Hay, had never seen a train until he went to Sydney aged 16 to sign up in the Army. Jackson, who lost a hand in June 1916, still went back out into No Man’s Land to rescue mates with the severed hand tied up with string. Jackson was the youngest of the 100 Australians to be awarded a Victoria Cross for bravery. But he too had a horrible post-war life of drunkenness and police records, dying in 1959 at 61.
Now I want to know what the motive was, urging adolescents to leave home and join the army:
To serve their country in war-torn Europe?
To leave their rural home for the first time in their lives?
To earn a regular living, albeit a skimpy one?
To get away from a brutal father or an alcoholic mother?
To test their manhood?
To learn some employable skills?
Something else or some mixture of motives?
Author Paul Byrnes felt moved to write the book when he learnt some of the untold stories of the many young lads who left for battles abroad. The idea came to him while he was on a battlefield tour in Belgium and discovered 150 graves of under-age soldiers. So he began a two-year quest which took him through Belgium, France, Sydney's State Library and Canberra's War Memorial, RSL archives and ancestry.com, tracking families of under-age WW1 soldiers. Many had tragic stories. Even of those who did arrive home alive, many suffered shell shock, all forms of addictions, broken marriages, shattered family relationships and early deaths.
Let me repeat, what was the Australian Army thinking? What a waste of young lads' lives! It was no insult to the memory of the lost boys to say they should never have been there at war, and no justification to recognise that they fought well and bravely.
To serve their country in war-torn Europe?
To leave their rural home for the first time in their lives?
To earn a regular living, albeit a skimpy one?
To get away from a brutal father or an alcoholic mother?
To test their manhood?
To learn some employable skills?
Something else or some mixture of motives?
Author Paul Byrnes felt moved to write the book when he learnt some of the untold stories of the many young lads who left for battles abroad. The idea came to him while he was on a battlefield tour in Belgium and discovered 150 graves of under-age soldiers. So he began a two-year quest which took him through Belgium, France, Sydney's State Library and Canberra's War Memorial, RSL archives and ancestry.com, tracking families of under-age WW1 soldiers. Many had tragic stories. Even of those who did arrive home alive, many suffered shell shock, all forms of addictions, broken marriages, shattered family relationships and early deaths.
Let me repeat, what was the Australian Army thinking? What a waste of young lads' lives! It was no insult to the memory of the lost boys to say they should never have been there at war, and no justification to recognise that they fought well and bravely.
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16 comments:
I wonder if those youngsters were looking for adventure and dreaming they would return as heroes. There were a number of youngsters in the UK who lied about their age and enlisted during WW1.
Fun60
that is so true. If a 15 year old boy had never seen life beyond his farm or village, the most exciting thing he did would have been to milk the cows or muck out the pig sty. But there was no radio in the homes until the late 1920s and no tv until the 1950s, so village boys would have to have read the big city newspapers for (censored) news from the War Front.
It was unlikely that they would have had the faintest idea what their adventure might have led to.
Didn't the army know to look for fuzz on the boy's face, a deeper voice, a growth spurt and sweaty armpits?
Deb
Although boys always matured at different ages, I agree that any parent of a teenager could tell the difference between a short, cute 13 year old with smooth cheeks to a hairy, elongated, smelly 19 year old. Ditto any army recruiting officer.
Does that suggest that the army recruiting officers _knowingly_ accepted young lads to enlist?
Hello Hels, I am sure that all of your listed reasons were factors for young soldiers enlisting. As for the high number of immigrants, since they had just fled bad conditions in their old country, perhaps they realized more than most people what principles were worth fighting for.
--Jim
Parnassus
and I also think that the principles worth fighting for probably included national sovereignty. After years of debate, Federation finally arrived 1/1/1901! People were delighted, especially because most of the population had arrived from many other struggling countries (as you said) and shared a vision for the future.
But 15 year olds have a vision that MAYBE lasts until next Saturday night :(
Hi again, Perhaps we shouldn't underestimate 15 year olds. Many teenagers have left their homes to work in cities or go to sea, certainly a hard, dangerous and monotonous life. We also have the classic example of Joan of Arc. --Jim
I've never held any doubt that the army knew so many recruits were underage. As long as everything looked bona fide, they were accepted. Gosh, 13 is terribly young. Yet even now 13 year olds are fighting in Asian and Middle Eastern wars when they should be doing what normal 13 year olds do, mucking around. I think I might go for a sense of adventure for many of them. They were too young to know they were just cannon fodder. A great and thought provoking post Hels on this 11 day of our 11 month. Thank you.
This post about a 'memorial' near to where I live may interest you.
http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2014/05/26/shot-at-dawn/
Parnassus
absolutely true. My grandfather (10) and his younger brother (8) were put into a factory, in the year both their parents died.
Traditionally children had to leave school and work, as soon as they physically and legally could. And although going into a coal mine, on board a fishing boat or picking cotton had serious dangers attached, the young lads were never put into those jobs to die or to kill others. Being sent into an active war zone, on the other hand, was simply brutal.
Andrew
agreed.. cannon fodder :(
In 1914 and 1915, the army had enough recruits to fill all its commitments. But by the end of 1915, they were desperate for more boots on the ground. Advertising intensified, two conscription referenda were held and women handed out feathers-of-shame to males on the streets.
CherryPie
Thank you. How apt, and how tragic, is your information. c306 British and Commonwealth soldiers were shot for desertion or cowardice, having been sentenced after a quick trial. Several of them were under age when they volunteered and many of them were suffering from shell shock or post traumatic stress disorder.
I find that even more tragic than being killed by enemy gun fire.
We owe that generation a debt that we can never repay....
bazza
it breaks my heart, even now. When the young men first went away in August 1914, they believed they would be back by Christmas. Even had they been told of the real dangers, everyone wanted to Do Their Bit for king and country. King George V visited Australia a few times and was well respected.
In 1914 our Prime Minister Andrew Fisher vowed that Australia would "stand beside our own to help and defend Britain to the last man and the last shilling." Citizens took that vow very seriously.
Looking back at my own ancestors lately, I noticed that most of them only made anything of their extremely undistinguished lives when they took the step of joining the forces. They then got away from rising at 4.30 AM followed by a day of ploughing and bed at 8 PM in a cold damp cottage, or else 12 hours a day in a dangerous deafening factory breathing in poisonous fumes, or else crawling on hands and knees for five miles there and five miles back to get to the coalface and dig out coal by hand. I don't think most of us now have any idea how boring, cruel and hard ordinary lives could be at that time. I remember as a child talking to 2 of my then elderly relatives who joined up underage in WW1. One said she wasn't going to sit at home and housekeep for her domineering father one more minute. She secretly volunteered as a nurse and managed to get herself abroad (even though she was too young) and met her husband-to-be in France. She always looked back with pleasure on her time during the Great War, and on her later life in the Middle East - she ended up with a nice house, a nice life and felt she had made something of herself. An old fella spoke with nostalgia about how great it was to leave the mine where you worked like a dog, he felt he was doing something worthwhile in the war instead of slaving for rich bosses, and how exciting the battle was, and also what great lads he was with. I think he just enjoyed fighting, he was a combative old man. He was willing to talk about the war all day. He later became a music teacher, which I doubt he could have done if he had got married and had a family to support when he was a miner. Obviously not everyone felt it was worthwhile, particularly those who developed PTSD, or were particularly sensitive or vulnerable people, but I'm just putting this as a first hand antidote to the sad stories you have quoted here.
Jenny
Excellent response, thanks. Your relatives covered all the motives that would have led under-aged and legally-aged people to leave home as quickly as they could, from serving the nation with honour to avoiding misery at home. I may well have done the same; not carrying a gun, but nursing or perhaps preparing the meals for the soldiers.
The trouble was that all the soldiers had no idea that they were going into the War That Ended All Wars. The army knew - it was only a few years since the devastation of the two Boer Wars? How many very young men died in WW1 or returned to develop untreatable psychoses for the rest of their lives?
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