‘Tomorrow we will be in action, perhaps tonight’ writes North East boy Henry Honeychurch, not long before he paid the ultimate price of war. His name is just one of 62,000 that Australia will remember, writes ELIZA ADAMTHWAITE.
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TOMORROW, at 2.16am, the name of Hector George Honeychurch will be projected onto the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial.
His name will appear for just 30 seconds and he is just one of 62,000 Australians to be commemorated in this way during the next four years.
But Hector’s name represents the price Australian families paid during the Great War, for “freedom and honour”.
Hector grew up at Wandiligong, one of six children to Isabelle and Frederick Honeychurch.
Hector’s grandfather, a Cornish tin miner, had come to the North East in 1868 to mine for gold, bringing his wife and son out in 1871.
Hector, who still had relatives in the Old Country, responded to the Empire’s call for volunteers when he enlisted on February 23, 1916, at Wangaratta, aged 20.
By June 5, he was leaving Melbourne on HMAT Persic A34 as a Private with the 5th Infantry Battalion, bound for France.
At this stage he had already lost his older brother, Henry, at Gallipoli on April 27, 1915.
England had declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914 and only five weeks later, Henry, a 21-year-old butcher, enlisted at Bright.
He left Melbourne on December 22, 1914, aboard HMAT Ulysses A38, with the 14th Australian Infantry Battalion.
Henry’s diary reveals the horror of the days leading up to his death, just four months later.
He wrote of arriving at the peninsula, of the battleships shelling the Turkish forts and the anticipation of the fight ahead of them.
“We are all on deck watching the shells bursting,” Henry recorded.
“The thunder of the huge guns are terrific.
“Tomorrow we will be in action, perhaps tonight.
“It is a strange feeling comes over one when the real time comes and in spite of all good spirits come the thoughts of home and loved ones.
“Sunday evening just a lot of wounded Australians brought on board our ship. Our lot ready to leave.”
On the 26th, he wrote, “landed on the beach”; on the 27th, “advanced under fire, now in trenches”.
Henry was killed in action later that day.
"Try and stop him leaving Australia if you can as two out of one family is quite enough to be in this war,” Hector wrote.
He was buried at Courtney’s Post, Gallipoli Peninsula, the following day.
Henry’s service will be commemorated in the projection of his name on the Hall of Memory on Sunday, October 5.
About three years after Henry’s death, Hector, in a letter to his parents, urged them not to let his younger brother William leave home.
He had read in a newspaper that “young Bill” had enlisted.
“He will be sorry. But try and stop him leaving Australia if you can as two out of one family is quite enough to be in this war,” Hector wrote.
It was too late — William, 18, was already on his way.
He had enlisted at Wangaratta on May 4, 1917, and left Sydney aboard HMAT Wiltshire A18 on February 2, 1918.
William, a printer, served with the Light Horse Regiment.
His son, Bill, says the army wanted the country kids for the Light Horse, “because they didn’t have to teach them to ride”.
The brothers found each other later in 1918 and went on leave together to spend time with Scottish relatives.
Bill says that’s the reason for the boys’ keenness to be a part of the conflict.
“That’s why we were in the war — it was the home country,” he says. “They were still English. Actually, they were very English.”
However, Hector met his end on August 23 in France and was buried in Heath Cemetery, north of Harbonnieres.
He is one of 1860 Commonwealth servicemen to be buried or commemorated in this cemetery.
Hector had been wounded a number of times since arriving on the Western Front.
According to his casualty record, he suffered from shell shock, trench foot, bullet wounds, shell abrasions and a contusion wound before being killed in action in France, just a week after returning from leave.
William received a letter from his mother in December 1918, informing him of his brother’s death.
His words in reply express the incredible pain of losing a second brother.
“Oh dear mum, I know how you feel at home,” he wrote, on December 19, 1918.
“You can just imagine how it broke me up for you can’t imagine how fond we had grown of each other here.
“I can’t imagine that I will never see dear old Hec again.
“Mum, do not worry about me as I am alright and now the war is over it won’t be long before I am home with you again.
“I will never leave you again mum.”
In reality, it took William close to 12 months, once the war was over, to get home to Bright.
According to Bill, there was no time for grieving or counselling: “There was no such thing as depression, you just got on with it.”
William eventually came back to Bright to work for the forestry commission and, in 1930, married Bright school teacher Daphne Morrison at Myrtleford. They had two sons, Bill and Norman.
William’s parents received war medals, commemorative scrolls and two “Dead Man’s Pennies” in recognition of Henry and Hector’s sacrifice.
The pennies were bronze memorial plaques with the name of the serviceman and the words, “He died for freedom and honour”.
They were presented to the next of kin.
The scrolls featured the British coat of arms, the name of the serviceman, words describing their sacrifice and this reminder: “Let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten.”
Bill agrees with such a sentiment.
“I’m pretty keen for people to hear about (these stories),” he says. “I’d hate to see that interest die.
“This story is not about me, it’s about them.”
"It was a defeat, there were no two ways about it,"
- BILL HONEYCHURCH
He says losing two uncles in such a devastating conflict is sobering. When Bill reads his uncle Henry’s diary, he is struck by the knowledge of what transpired at Gallipoli.
“So much for those who were running it, it was a defeat, there were no two ways about it,” Bill says.
Of the 62,000 Australians who died during the Great War, 8709 died at Gallipoli.
War continued to have a profound effect on the Honeychurch family. Isabelle Honeychurch was a founding member of the Bright Women’s Auxillary.
William Honeychurch served in Australian training camps during World War II as a member of the Australian Defence Corps as a sergeant major — at Shepparton, Seymour, Darley and Cowra.
In fact, he was at Cowra during the break-out of the Japanese prisoners of war.
“Dad was away for three years, all in Australia, but we still didn’t see much of him,” Bill recalls.
“But we were no different from any other family; in a country town, most of the men were enlisting or were conscripted. The worst part of his job was, at the end of their training period, he would put all these kids on a train and he knew a lot of them wouldn’t come home.”
Bill says his father became very active in the Bright branches of the Returned and Services League and Legacy.
“They called him Mr RSL in Bright, he was president for 20 years,” he says.
And yet Bill says his father rarely talked about his time in the trenches nor losing Henry and Hector.
“Dad never mentioned much about his brothers,” Bill says. “They were only kids.”