The ANZAC spirit is a powerful phenomenon that I've been strongly impacted by ever since I arrived in Australia, ever since my first (and so far only) attendance at the Sydney Dawn Service. While the dead from the two World Wars obviously tore apart so many communities and families in Britain, there is something strange and mystical about those people who took part from these distant and removed shores. This year, as I find myself researching the family tree, I have discovered I have personal connections to that legend.
How I became one of those strange, and fairly boring, genealogy nerds I still haven't quite figured out. Nevertheless, I have now established a tree of more than 140 people. Some of those people are nothing more than a small twig, maybe only a birth or death year to their name, and their connection to the flow of lineage. Some others however are more like a branch with census records, marriage certificates and more. Some have become actual stories that reflect the times in which they lived and on both sides of the family, English and Welsh, are the Veterans impacted by the two violent cataclysms. Some survived, like my great Grandfather Morgan Llewellyn who went to war in 1914, and returned home after an honorable discharge injured, gassed in Belgium so the story goes. Then there's his son - my grandfather - an engineer who had to cut his dead friends from planes shot down in the Battle of Britain so he could salvage the parts. And there's my 2nd great uncle John Henry Foster on my mother's side who went to war in 1914 later to be joined by his son in 1917. John returned in 1920; there's no record of his son James ever did.
But now I have found, with somewhat sketchy information, men on both sides of the family who fought in these horrible disasters wearing the ANZAC badge. There's a Private Herbert James Haslam (pictured above, right) on my mother's side who I have yet to trace in the tree who's only legacy is an intriguing photo in the family archive of "a Kangaroo Hunt in the bush" and his grave stone in the cemetery at Pheasant Wood just on the Belgium/France border. It was here that hundreds of Australians met an heroic end in a famous and brave encounter during the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916. While I have been unable to learn more about his exploits or the manner of his death, I can imagine. It is a formulaic tale unfortunately. A long and initially exciting adventure to the other side of the world. A smart uniform, exotic locations and mateship but ultimately a muddy trench, horror and death.
On the other side of the family, the Welsh side, an even more inconclusive yarn, but one that couldn't be more patriotically Australian. Family legend has it that a distant relative designed the Australian Flag! Ivor Evans was second generation Australian we think, son of Evan Evans - founder of Evan Evans Pty Ltd, initially a tent manufacturing company that made canvas equipment for the British and Australian armies in WW1. Ivor at 14 was one of the team that won a competition to design the flag, (a fact it seems he never let anyone forget). Coincidentally, Ivor died on ANZAC Day in 1960.
Sadly I have discovered that his first son, Thomas Guy, at 23 was shot down off the coast of Timor in January 1945 by the Japanese.
This year I understand the theme of ANZAC day is to recognize those poignant local monuments to ANZAC sacrifice erected in every town and village and community by grieving relatives to honor the War dead, because so many have graves so far away or not even. As both those relatives I speak of are buried far away - one in a field in Belgium and the other apparently in Northern Territory somewhere - I'll take some time today to think of them both at the cenotaph in Balmain.
I have written about complete strangers on ANZAC Day before, and so while I am not even clear how I am related to either of these men, I know they are both kin and that they made the ultimate sacrifice and so today I'll say to each of them: "good on ya mate...you Legend."
(By way of a footnote, as the Chaplain of St George's Chapel, Ypres, my father (who himself served in the RAF) will today be holding the ANZAC ceremonies at the Menin Gate - commemorating the sometimes forgotten Australian efforts on the Western Front.)
Lest we forget.
Private Herbert James Haslam (1890-1916)
Flight Lieutenant Thomas Guy Evans (1922-1945)
