Percy from the Pews

“He never knew fear, as his record shows.” So wrote a proud Mary Wickins of her son Rupert. She was writing of a son she would never see again.

Private Rupert George Wickins, aged 25, died in France on April 8, 1917. He was one of Holy Trinity Church’s 101 parishioners who gave their lives in World War One. He was also among the church’s eight sets of brothers who perished. With Remembrance Day this coming Sunday, it is yet a further reminder of Lest We Forget – and how their memorial window in the church must be protected.

(This is, moreover, a story of heroes, including a Tasmanian-born Victoria Cross winner as well as another Australian VC winner with Tasmanian links who were both in the same action as Rupert, as you will see).

Lance-Corporal Vernon John Wickins, aged 29, was killed in action at Gallipoli on August 8, 1915. A railway porter, and married, he had joined up with reinforcements. He is commemorated at the Lone Pine Memorial. Brother Rupert also served at Gallipoli and survived, only to die on the French battlefields.

For Mary Wickins, a widow, the war must have been a painful ordeal. Her five sons all enlisted (health then prevented one from going, but two others who did survived).

Rupert, born in Hobart on the Glebe, and a pupil at Trinity Hill School, followed by work as a clerk in civilian life, was among the first Tasmanians to enlist when he joined up on August 17, 1914. His mother wrote of his love of sport, at athletics excelling in the cross-country, of his war service and how hard it was for her to write on this, being concerned about doing full justice to the seven months he was at Gallipoli, that he never complained and was a favourite of his comrades and officers.

On that fateful Easter Sunday of 1917 he was in desperate fighting at Baupaume-Cambrai Road near Boursies. It was fighting that led to Rupert’s leader, Captain James Ernest Newland, winning the Victoria Cross, and at 35 (another report said he was 37) the oldest member of the Australian Imperial Force to be awarded it.

Born in Geelong, he was a Boer War veteran and a career army man. Before World War One he was stationed in Tasmania, was wounded at Gallipoli shortly after the landing, was wounded again in France, won his medal, and was later wounded again.

Rupert’s mother wrote of her son being killed while holding a position won by A Company of the 12th Battalion under Capt Newland. The official report said that between April 7 and 9 the captain “organised and led a bombing attack on an important objective, rallying his company which had suffered heavy casualties. The next night the enemy launched a counter attack, which Capt Newland was able to disperse and regain the position.”

It was in the same three days of action that Sergeant John Woods Whittle, born on Huon Island near Gordon in Tasmania, won his VC, on April 9. The record said he was “in command of a platoon when the enemy, under cover of an intense artillery barrage, attacked the small trench he was holding and, owing to their numbers, succeeded in entering it. Sergeant Whittle collected his men, charged the enemy and regained the position. On a second occasion, when the enemy broke through our line and tried to bring up a machine-gun to enfilade the position, Sergeant Whittle rushed across the fire-swept ground and attacked the enemy with bombs, killing all of them and capturing the gun.”

Like Capt Newland, he was a Boer War veteran, at 33 a very experienced soldier, and again like his captain was wounded three times in France.

It would have been some solace to his mother to hear that both VC winners spoke highly of Rupert’s courage.

There is also the story of the brothers Terry from Holy Trinity who were war victims, in contrasting circumstances – one from the struggle for Gallipoli, the other a prisoner of war in Germany. Private Edward Churchill Terry, aged 24, died in Alexandria, Egypt, on August 14, 1915, after being seriously wounded at Gallipoli. Lance-Corporal Guy Winston Terry, aged 23, died on May 22, 1917, in a German hospital and was buried in a Hamburg cemetery. Edward had been a railway worker, Guy a draughtsman.

The Red Cross files at the Australian War Memorial reveal an optimistic note after Guy’s capture that was soon dashed. He was interned after being listed as missing on April 11 that year. In a postcard he told of being taken prisoner when wounded, asked for his parents in Moonah to be cabled on his whereabouts and for food parcels to be sent.

In another postcard he said he was “progressing favourably”, but a subsequent letter from another soldier said he had been in the same hospital ward with Guy and that he had died after an operation. He had been shot in the hip and it had been an effort to find the bullet.

The war toll on Australia – 60,000 killed, 156,000 wounded, gassed or taken prisoner.