2017-10-17
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) (10:02:08) — On the walls of the Caulfield RSL, where my paternal grandfather was a founding member and my dad was also a member for many years, is a series of photos from the First World War. I always look at these photos. It is amazing how clear they are, and you can look into the faces of the people in them. One of those photos has always struck me. It is a famous one of five men walking on wooden planks across a flooded moonscape of mud and leafless tree trunks, taken at Chateau Wood, Ypres, in October 1917 at the Third Battle of Ypres, otherwise known as the Battle of Passchendaele.
On 18 October 1916 my maternal grandfather, Walter Edward — Ted — Reid passed his medical at Victoria Barracks, Sydney, and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) field engineers. Like thousands of other Australians, he boarded a troop carrier in May 1917, arrived at Plymouth on 23 July 1917 and was deployed to the Western Front where he found himself embroiled in the horrors of the battles of Passchendaele. Who knows what he saw and experienced in those terrible months that stayed with him all his life.
The battle was emblematic of the cruel, pointless and tragic slaughter that characterised World War I. It ran from July 1914 to November 1917, with total casualties estimated at up to half a million; 38 000 of those were Australians, including 12 000 dead. For Australia, 1917 was the worst year of the war, and October 1917 was the worst month, with 6000 Australians killed.
My grandfather died when I was very young, but I remember feeling safe and happy around him. My mother, Margaret, says he was a quiet and loving family man.
The Battle of Passchendaele, 100 years ago, should remind us all in these days of escalating brinkmanship and provocation of the horror and folly of going to war.