Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/229/1 - December 1918 - February 1919 - Part 1

AWM38

Official History,

1914-18 War: Records of C E W Bean,

Official Historian.

Diaries and Notebooks

Item number: 3DRL606/229/1

Title: Diary, December 1918 - February 1919

Includes references to the Australian Historical

Mission and Lt L D McCarthy VC.
AWM38-3DRL606/229/1

[*McCarthy's VC - site of fight
Australian Historical Mission
Book I.*]

[*MacCarthy's V.C. - Lt. Padfield and the Americans at Goucy:
Casey & Germans in
Cologne -
why A.I.F.
didnt go (his
a/c) (I.*]

Gallipoli Revisited

Aust Hist. Mission Diary. I.
Jan 18 - 26th Feb.

(also Dec 1918 - early Jan. 1919

STRICTLY PRIVATE and CONFIDENTIAL.

AWM38     3DRL 606 ITEM 229 [1]

DIARIES AND NOTES OF C. E. W. BEAN

CONCERNING THE WAR OF 1914 - 1918    229

THE use of these diaries and notes is subject to conditions laid down in the terms
of gift to the Australian War Memorial.  But, apart from those terms, I wish the
following circumstances and considerations to be brought to the notice of every
reader and writer who may use them.

These writings represent only what at the moment of making them I believed to be
true.  The diaries were jotted down almost daily with the object of recording what
was then in the writer's mind.  Often he wrote them when very tired and half asleep;
also, not infrequently, what he believed to be true was not so - but it does not
follow that he always discovered this, or remembered to correct the mistakes when
discovered.  Indeed, he could not always remember that he had written them.

These records should, therefore, be used with great caution, as relating only what
their author, at the time of writing, believed.  Further, he cannot, of course, vouch
for the accuracy of statements made to him by others and here recorded.  But he
did try to ensure such accuracy by consulting, as far as possible, those who had
seen or otherwise taken part in the events.  The constant falsity of second-hand
evidence (on which a large proportion of war stories are founded) was impressed
upon him by the second or third day of the Gallipoli campaign, notwithstanding that
those who passed on such stories usually themselves believed them to be true.  All
second-hand evidence herein should be read with this in mind.

16 Sept., 1946.     C. E. W. BEAN.
AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL
ACCESS STATUS
OPEN

1
Diagram - see original document
Sari Bair from Chanak.  6/2/19

2
Ak Bashi Liman
wrecks of 2 steamers off the piers.
Diagram - see original document
From memory.
16^th Turk. Divn and part of 2nd T. Divn made the
attack at Anzac on May 19. 1915.  16 Divn. lost 6000
men.  It was a 9000? number Infantry Divn. & at full strength
The 2nd Divn had just? been made up to strength by /
inclusion of 4 Bns of Gendarmerie in bright
Cornflour Blue uniforms.
16 Divn ws later completely cut up in Palestine.

Jan 18th.  After When the armistice became
practically certain I left France for
England to ^settle the question of the artists if possible & arrange for my return to Australia visiting Gallipoli en route
in order to do what we had all many
of us promised ourselves - visit
the Turkish lines at Anzac &
see for ourselves the trenches &
country behind their lines.

I x returned to France &
visited every infantry battalion,
going through them at the rate of about
1½ per day, & obtaining from the
eyewitnesses very full accounts of
all the fighting after xx from Aug 8 till the
end of the war.  I visited most of
the battalions about Avesnes -
Solre-le-Chateau, Sivry, Grands
Fayts, Doullers, & Sains; then to
3

3rd Divn at Oisemont, Ramurelles
& that country near Abbeville;
there I spent Christmas - old
Fullwood joined me here. x
As Boxing Day was no good
for work I went up to Amiens
that day & spent the next looking
over the old positions at Lihons,
Peronne & Clery & Mt St
Quentin.  We found It was
a vile day - blowing bitterly
& raining, often heavily.  However
we drove the car up close to
the hospital between Crepy Wood &
Auger Wood - the old beds &
mattresses in the hospital
huts were still there, & the
duckboards that made the
hospital paths.  Madame
Wood - which I had always
4

pictured as on high ground,
is on the flats N of the
hospital.  The road runs
past a big quarry to the
hospital; it reaches the crest
& runs past the hospital
across it - across the space
(if I remember right) between
Crepy Wood & Auger Wood.

Diagram - see original document

This is how it looked as far as I can
remember.
5

I took Joyce across to Madame
Wood along the edges of which were
a tangle of trenches, - old French ones;
beyond the NE corner of it we cd
see Faidherbe or Castlenau Alley
running:

Diagram - see original document

We followed this up; & just where
it joined the old front line, in a
greater tangle of trenches, we found
the trenches where McCarthy
of 16^th Bn had won his V.C.

You could see still the old
dugout timbers or barricade
through which the English sergt &
Tommy with him had tunnelled.
6

Diagram - see original document

The barricade was I think really
an old dugout or timbered
trench shelter.

Diagram - see original document

The men had got out into it as
shown above.  McCarthy & the
Australian Sergt as shown & the
British Sergt & Private into the end
of the Sap as above.  The latter
had tunnelled forward under
the dugout timbers & cut a
narrow trench backward (as
shown by dotted lines).
7

At Mt St Q I made
several sketches; showed
old Fullwood ^how Peronne was
attacked by 53 Bn; & made
a sketch of the Strong Pt E of
Clery - which stands up
most clearly.

I never realised before
the two pronounced - indeed
steep - gullies ^& knuckles which there were East
of Clery before Mt St Q.

We pushed on tt night to
Le Cateau - George Boddy driving
exceedingly well - & camped
with a refugee family in
a house with several shell holes
in it.  They let us cook our
rations on their fire.  Old Fullwood
rose to the occasion this day
most splendidly - it must
8