The War Diary Of Maurice Edward O’Neill
The War Diary of Maurice Edward O’Neill(26 August 1915 – 29 June 1916)
The War Diary of Maurice Edward O’NeillPrepared by Graham O’Neill with Melinda Haldon Graham O’Neill, 2013
ContentsForeword1Annotated Transcript of the Diary4Postscript23Bibliography25End Notes26
ForewordThis is a transcript of the diary carried by Maurice O’Neill, from his first entry on Augustth is a transcript of the diary carried by Maurice O’Neill from his first entry on AugustThis261915, made aboard the troop ship Anchises as he left Australia bound for the European26th1915, madeaboardthe troopshipAnchisesas threehe leftdaysAustraliafor theEuropeanwar, throughto hisfinal entrydatedJune26 1916,beforeboundhis deathduringa raid1916,threedaysbeforehisdeathduringa raidwar,throughtohisfinalentrydatedJune26on German trenches at Armentieres. In the weeks following Maurice’s death, his brotheron GermantrenchesArmentieres.weeks followingMaurice’sdeath,his brotherSimoncontinuedthe atdiary,initially asInhethemarchedwith his toPozieres’s Wood, and subsequently during his evacuation from France and convalescencePozieres’s Wood, and subsequently during his evacuation from France and convalescence inin Britain suffering from shell shock, having been buried in a bomb blast and what we nowBritain suffering from shell shock, having been buried in a bomb blast and what we nowknowhis experienceexperience ofof thethe carnagecarnage ofof trenchtrenchknow asas postpost traumatictraumatic stressstress syndromesyndrome followingfollowing hiswarfareat Pozieres.Pozieres.warfare atSimon, Maurice & Joseph O’Neill, 1915Simon, Maurice & Joseph O’Neill, 1915Maurice, Simon and Joseph O’Neill were the middle three of James and Mary Jane re hwereintheage,middleJamesandseparatingMary JaneSimon,O’Neill’seldest,from youngerbrotherwith inMauricetwo onlyyearsfoureitheryearsside ofeach of hisbrothers.ten children.The threemenJoseph,were closeage, withseparatingSimon,the11
The O’Neills were a typical working class country family, perhaps larger than most dueto their Irish Catholic heritage. The ten children grew up in South Gippsland, initially atLongford where their parents ran the local wine shop. James O’Neill died in 1906 leavingthirty-eight year old Mary Jane a widow with eight dependent children between the ages oftwo and sixteen. She subsequently married William Kerr and the family moved to nearbyWoodside. The formal education of the brothers, as with most country boys from a workingclass background, was limited to primary school, possibly attending through to the sixthgrade before leaving school to join the rural work force.The original intention of the brothers was to make the twenty-mile trip from Woodsideto Yarram, the closest town with an enlistment office, so they could join the AustralianImperial Force (AIF) together. All went well until the enlistment officer discovered thatJoseph was two months from his twenty-first birthday and therefore required the writtenpermission of a parent or guardian to enlist. This oversight led to Simon and Maurice beingassigned to the 24th Battalion 3rd Reinforcement Unit on June 24 while they were at theSeymour Camp, some 85 kilometres north of Melbourne, whereas Joseph was not formallyassigned to the Battalion and unit until August 6 when he was based at the BroadmeadowsCamp on the northern outskirts of Melbourne.At the time of their enlistment Simon was a member of the Sale Light Horse, a localdetachment of a national voluntary mounted militia with troops in many towns and citiesthroughout Australia. In In 1912, these local militia detachments were brought together toform the various Australian Light Horse regiments which fought in the first and secondworld wars. Simon and Maurice were also members of the Woodside Rifle club. As with theLight Horse detachments, local Rifle clubs throughout Australia had a similar militia-stylerole in that the rifles and ammunition were subsidised, if not supplied directly, by the federalgovernment as a means of training volunteers for homeland defence.The diary consists of a small lined writing pad fitted into a black leather case measuringapproximately 10 by 15 centimetres. The diary was included in a package containingMaurice’s personal effects as received and signed for by Mary Jane on February 5, 1917.Clearly stamped on the receipt for Maurice’s effects are the words ‘Consigned to meex Wiltshire.’ In 1916 The Wiltshire village of Suttony Veny and its surrounds was thelocation of the Number 1 Australian Army Command Depot and a major Australian Armyconvalescence center. The stamped notation on the receipt signed by Mary Jane suggeststhat Simon arranged for the diary to be included with his brother’s effects and sent to theirmother prior to his return to active service in January 1917. The diary was reclaimed bySimon on his return to Australia and, following his death in 1962, it was eventually passedto Graham O’Neill, the eldest of Simon’s grandchildren.In preparing this transcript, we have attempted to maintain the general layout and characterof the diary and the voices of Maurice and Simon as reflected in their respective entries.For example, the diary begins with a summary by Maurice of dates and locations of hiswar-time travels, commencing with his initial training at Seymour camp in June 1915,his departure from Australia on August 26 and then through Egypt to Gallipoli and finallyArmentieres where Simon notes Maurice’s death. Simon then continues the précis of datesand locations of his own war ordeal from Armentieres through to his evacuation from France2
to Britain following his involvement in the battle for Pozieres. It is difficult to know whythe diary starts with this summary preceding the more detailed entries: it is as if Mauricedeliberately left space at the front, perhaps for day-to-day notes. It is clear from the changein handwriting that Simon added to Maurice’s time-line summary when he took over thediary after Maurice’s death. Given the extraordinary intensity of the battle for Pozieres,Simon’s entries for that period were clearly made during convalescence in Britain.As would be expected, the writing throughout the diary is in pencil. Maurice’s handwritingis generally neater and easier to read although Simon’s entries tend to be more detailed anddescriptive than those of his brother. Where necessary, the spelling of towns, cities, vesselsand key figures such as Generals and politicians has been corrected to ensure consistencywith historic records. We did not edit the spelling or grammar of the entries (e.g. riffel forrifle and berried for buried). Diary entries generally consist of brief phrases or a few wordsand there is little formal punctuation.There are pages missing from the writing pad and impressions on the remaining blankpages indicating that the missing pages were used to make notes and then torn out. In laterlife, Simon gained a reputation as a ‘bush poet’ and the diary contains early examples ofhis poetry, particularly a lament for his dead brother, a poem for his mother, and an ode tohis beloved fiancé Eily: other poems appear to be more in the form of works in progressand are difficult to transcribe due to unfinished themes and lines crossed out. The poetry ispresented against a shaded background and positioned within the transcript similar to wherethey occur in the diary. At some stage, probably during early training, Maurice wrote a listof the Morse code characters for each letter of the alphabet and a list of simple Germansentences. Judging from the German translations, the German phrases were dictated andthus written phonetically (e.g. (Come with me is written as Commen zee mit mear and notin the formal German Sie kommen mit mir). The Morse code characters and German phrasesare not included in the transcript.Given the brevity of the entries made by both Maurice and Simon, additional notes areincluded to give a background context and detail to various entries, particularly those thatlocate either Maurice or Simon as directly involved in significant events (e.g. Lone Pinefront trenches at Gallipoli, the accident at the bomb school and Simon’s action at PozieresWood). These notes, presented on the right of the relevant diary entry, aim to give the readera more thorough appreciation of what Maurice and Simon were experiencing at that time.The references used for these explanatory notes are listed at the end of the transcript.Simon’s children, and those of his brothers and sisters, all knew the story of Maurice’sdiary, his death at Armentieres and that Simon continued the diary after his brother waskilled. The story has become less well known with each subsequent O’Neill generation. Theinitial purpose in preparing this transcript was to share the contents of the diary with theyounger generation of descendants of James and Mary Jane O’Neill, particularly those bornfrom the nineteen sixties and onwards. However, given the historic value of the personalaccounts of trench warfare at Lone Pine and Pozieres, it was always the intention that, oncetranscribed, the diary would be offered to a museum for safekeeping. Given the O’Neillfamily roots in South Gippsland date back to the 1860s, the city of Sale Armed ForcesMuseum was seen as the logical place to preserve this near century old record.3Graham O’Neill, September 2013
Annotated Transcript of the DiaryMaurice Edward O’NeillWoodsideSouth GippslandVictoriaAustraliaPvt. 1960. M. E. O’NeillA Coy.24th Battalion6th Brigade2nd DivisionAust. Imp. Exp. ForcesSeymour Camp June 24 to July 17 1915July August 26 Broadmeadows CampZeitoun CampEgyptSept. 26 - Nov 4Lone Pine TrenchesAnzacNov. 10 - Dec.18Mudros CampLemnos IslandDec. 18 Jan.5 1916 Tel-El-Kebir CampJan 11th Feb. 2ndSphinx CampCanal ZoneFeb 4 March 7Moascar CampCanal ZoneMarch 8 March 19Rebecq Village4
FranceMarch 30 April 7FleurbaixApril 10 April 29L’HallobeauApril 29 May 28ErquinghemMay 28 June 11ArmentieresMaurice was killed hereJune 11 continued by Simon July 4BailleulJuly 5 July 8StrezeeleJuly 8 July 9WardrecquesJuly 10 July 11AmiensSt SaveurJuly 12 July 16RainsvilleJuly 16 July 18ToutencourtJuly 18 July 20Varans July 20 July 24July 24 Albert July 24July 25 holding Pozieres Wood July 26July 27 in Clearing Station Hosp July 28July 28 in Hosp at Camiers July 30August 1 in Hosp Calais August 23rd in Hospital at Sheffield England7th Convalescent Home Doncaster5
2626August 1915August dleftThe threebrotherswere arkedembarked TSTSShipTroopAnchisesits firsttheShip onAnchiseson voyageits first bourne330000Australian Australiantroops to Egypt.The AnchiseswasTheonecarryingtroopsto Egypt.24242626of five ships forming this tenth convoy of troopsTough trip sick etcAnchiseswas one of five ships forming thisTough trip sick etcfrom Australia to the war zone.tenthconvoyof troops from Australia to theCalled at Freemantle. Troopswarzone.Called at Freemantle. TroopsWestbury. Hot weather, .smooth trip.CarnivalWestbury. Hot weather, .smooth trip.CarnivalSeptember 1915September 1915Zeitoun and Heliopolis were outlying thethebaybaydistricts of Cairo and Shoubra was a MilitaryInfectiousMaurice’sthree-weekstayZeitoun andHospital.Heliopoliswere eddistricts of Cairo and Shoubra was a Militarymuch of theBattalion’sintensetrainingstayat talmeans Nonetheless,that he would havemissedmuchofAnzac base.he didhavetimethetrainingtoathisthe mentionAnzac base.for ess, he did have time for ing to his mention of the zoo and ere is a sense of Maurice’s wide-eyed countrythisstrangelandinhisbriefdescriptionofaboy wonder at this strange land in his briefdescriptionof a pyramidtowardthe endof thepyramid towardthe end ofthe diary:Pyrimidsdiary:Egypte30 yearsbuild,feetEgyptePyrimids30 yearsto build,400 tofeethigh4003,600high 3,600 men to build it and covers 3 acres.men to build it and covers 3 acres.disembarked train to Zeitoundisembarked train to Zeitountop train. Crops etc four days camptopShoubratrain. Cropsetc fourdays campSickHospital.3 weeksCompanyAnzacHospital.base detailsSick Shoubra3 weekszoo, pyramids, HeliopolisCompany Anzac base detailszoo, pyramids, HeliopolisFrom November 1914 the desert outskirts of Cairo,From November1914thea desertoutskirtsincludingZeitoun, hadbecomehuge ted by a combination of vendors, such rsand newspapersellers ofof vendors, suchas hairdressers,souvenirs.worryingfrom a militarydisciplinevendors, Moretailors,tobacconists,photographersand health perspective was Bean’s description ofandsellersofsouvenirs.MoreworryingfromCairo and its ‘bright, teeming, streets, andaamusementsmilitary disciplineandhealthperspectivedescending to any degree of filth,was Bean’sdescriptionof Cairoandshortits ‘bright,whichbeckonedto the troopsin theirleisure1hours’.teeming,streets, and amusements descendingto any degree of filth, which beckoned to thetroops in their short leisure hours’.1Maurice and Simon, probably taken near Zeitoun BaseMaurice and Simon,probably taken near ZeitounSeptember-November1915.September-November 1915.Base86
November 19154left Zeitoun camp 4:30 am train toAlexandria. crops, fishing, embarkedMinnewaska5sailed 6 00 am7arrived Lemnos 10 am boats, escort, mandown hold10trans shipped to Princess Ena left 4 pmlanded Anzac 10 pm13firing line20sick doctor, exempt, light duties28Snow, cold29Turkish bombardmentIn this entry, Maurice does not identify whichfiring line he was in after landing at AnzacCove; however, the time-line summary at thecommencement of the diary has him at theLone Pine Trenches from November 10 to hisevacuation on December 18.Harvey’s history of the 24th Battaliondescribes the 28th and 29th of November as‘dark days’ for the front line troops in the LonePine trenches. ‘A cold snap set in on the 27theventually turning into a blizzard and bringinga thick covering of snow. Many of the troopslacked nourishment and suitable clothing forthe dramatic change in weather: weaker menand men in poor health collapsed’.2Adding further to the physical pain causedby the weather, at 9:00 in the morning of the29th the Turks began a concentrated howitzerbombardment of the Lone Pine trenches thatcontinued for some three hours. Pte TimothyAhern described the bombardment in hisdiary: ‘The front line at Lone Pine was heavilyshelled by the Turks as the 24th Battalion (Vic)was moving to relieve the 23rd (Vic) Battalion.It lasted 3 hours with all kinds of shell. Theyburied a lot of our men alive. 364 casualties inall, we were digging them out for three days. Ihope I never have the same experience again.’3December 19154frozen feet, doctor, leave trenchesExempt5toes frozen feet leave trenchesExempt7
8SJ arrived went to trenches afternoon10SJ left Anzac18evacuation A2 party 3:30 am‘SJ’ refers to Maurice’s brother Simon. Simonand Maurice arrived at Anzac Cove togetherbut Simon did not initially serve in the LonePine trenches. Simon’s movement to LonePine was most likely to reinforce the troopnumbers following the loss of troops in theTurkish bombardment.The dates given by Maurice indicate thatSimon left Gallipoli eight days before theformal evacuation of troops commenced.Maurice’s group, the second last to leave,departed in the early morning of December18; the remaining troops, some 10,000 in all,left on the night of the nineteenth.IHMS Russell landedLemnos march to camp.According to Bean’s official account, holdingthe 11 miles of ANZAC front for the eightmonths from the first landing on April 25 tothe final evacuation on December 19 claimedthe lives of 7,600 Australians and nearly 2,500New Zealanders killed or mortally woundedand 24,000 (19,000 Australians and 5,000New Zealanders) wounded.4January 19166left camp for embarkationHarvey describes the troops as being in a‘shabby condition’: ‘Many of them werelean and worn, numbers in bad health, andall reduced in weight and strength, a strikingcontrast to the imposing body of men that leftAustralia eight months earlier.’5Disappointed camp6embarked Minnewaska8sailed for Alexandria10arrived Alexandria and came by train toTel- el -Kebir campArriving at 9 00 next morning8The Battalion spent the Christmas of 1915recuperating at the Mudros Camp on LemnosIsland.
February 19162left Tel- el-Kebir camp train to Ismaliamarched to staging camp3fatigue in morning left at 11 amMarched 5 miles4Marched to Sphinx arrived dead beat ACoy outpost20Inspection by General LeggeAccording to Bean, it was originally intendedthat the Second Division, which included the24th Battalion, would be part of the Australianforce defending the Suez Canal. However,after a month of defence preparations anddesert marches, the Australian Divisionsreceived news that they were going to Franceand their role was taken over by the NewZealand Mounted Rifles.March 19161field drill2patrol march3musketry4left Sphinx Camp arrived staging campabout 10 pm8exchange of rifels arrived at Moascarcamp at 21309inoculation13Fumigation and sa inspection 14swimming parade18inspection by prince of Wales , GeneralBirdwood and staff19left Moascar at 12 o’clock arriving atAlex at 8 00 next morning21left Alex by the Magdalina23Minneapolis torpedoed27arrived Marseilles and left by train sameevening28train29train30arrived at our destination and left thetrain at 4 am marched to Rebecq9This early part of March spent at Moascarwas devoted to preparing for the Battalion’sdeparture to France and the Western Front.Apart from being a normal military stagingcamp, Moascar was also a station where soldierswere screened for illnesses and diseases, hencethe references to “inoculation fumigationand ‘sa’ (short arm) inspection.On the voyage from Moascar to Marseilles, theMagdalina passed the sinking Minneapolis,which had been torpedoed by a Germansubmarine hours earlier.
April 19167left Rebecq and had a full days march8another full day’s march9-10 spell until night then went into thereserves until the 15th then went into thetrenches until the 21st.Came from the trenches back toFleurbaix into billetsThe front firing line trenches at Rebecq weredescribed as occupied with rats ‘numerousenough and big enough to defend the positionwithout the aid of men. Ravenously hungry,the rats were more annoying than the Huns,for while the men slept in the sandbag sheltersthe vermin raced over their faces and evenstayed to nibble noses and fingers’.622-23 spell24back to bomb school27accident at bomb school28bath at Armentieres29left Fleurbaix billets at 9 o clock andcame to L’Hallobeau30spell church paradeCaptain HC Buckley from the 22nd Battalionwas instructing a party of men in the use ofhand grenades when a grenade went off in hishand. The captain and one of the men werekilled and nine others wounded.7At the end of April the 24th Battalion wasbilleted at L’Hallobeau for four weeksand for much of this time the troops wereoccupied in day and night fatigue partiesworking to improve defences in the area.This work included digging trenches, layingcommunication cables, building gun screensand barbed wire entanglements. It was hardwork and extremely hazardous. Carryingpicks, shovels and an assortment of othertools, as well as full fighting equipment, thetroops were required to march several miles towork each night
This is a transcript of the diary carried by Maurice O’Neill, from his firstentry on August 26th 1915, made aboard the troop ship Anchises as he left Australia bound for the European war, through to his finalentry dated June 26 1916, three days before his death during a raid on German trenches at Armentieres.
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