WW1 Digger History Podcast

Well, who is the future famous star of stage and film that stole a soldier's heart before he went to war? Find out in this second episode on the life of Trooper Bluegum, Oliver Hogue!

Trooper Bluegum became a household name in Australia during The Great War, a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald he wrote numerous articles widely published in the press, turning these into 2 books after his semi-fictional "Love Letters of an Anzac". These letters were fake but his real love interest would become a Broadway Star and Oscar nominee. Follow him through Gallipoli and the Battles...

Billy Sing was arguably the greatest sniper ever produced by Australia but as a Chinese Australian he was nearly denied enlistment and after the war almost forgotten. Billy died almost a pauper and alone at the age of 57. Here is his story. The Ballad of Billy Sing is presented with the permission of Mr Jeff Brown.

The 7th and final part to the WW1 memoirs of Verdi Schwinghammer, who fought in the battles of Broodseinde and St Quentin Canal. There is no fighting in this one with Verdi sight seeing in Paris, Brussels, England and Ireland with some great observations of the immediate post era. Verdi returns home to his folks and we follow a little of his post war life. 

In this one, Verdi and 3rd Division take us through the Battle of St Quentin Canal with the Americans of the 27th & 30th Divisions, through Armistice and on to the early post war period. Of particular interest is the episode where Verdi treks through the old battlefields to find his cousin's grave and on his Aunt's request....

When some of our men went to bury the dead after the Battle of Mont St Quentin, when they were lifting up some of the dead bodies, bombs would explode and many of our men were killed this way. He laid these traps for us – placing a bomb under a dead soldier and when the body was lifted the catch from bomb would be released and the bomb exploded. That night enemy planes came over all night long dro...

The Australian 3rd Division Memorial sits above the town of Sailly-le-Sec for a good reason.... "We eventually arrived at Heilly. Passed a few stragglers – Tommies – the remnants of Gough's British Fifth Army, which had been overtaken by disaster. The citizens had evacuated Heilly before we arrived. Here we dumped our packs and belongings and got into battle order."

We were each given a tin of fruit and a tin of preserved sausages for our Christmas dinner. My pal and I were hungry, so we both opened our tins and ate half the contents for breakfast, putting the remainder in the tin on a shelf in our dugout – covering them with a board with a stone on it. The rats were very bad in the trenches and dugouts. As we were off duty, we went to sleep for a couple of h...

" Men do not go into battle sad and gloomy (as many civilian people wrongly imagine). They are quite the opposite, even though they know the dreadful things they have to face and that some of them are going to their death ," Verdi Schwinghammer describes the Battle of Broodseinde, part of 3rd Ypres in this, the second part of his memoirs.

An ANZAC Day Special .... well kind of! The first part of a 7 part series from the memoirs of Verdi Schwinghammer. Here is a taste of it, "That night a big air raid took place and we enjoyed watching our guns shooting at the German planes – which were caught and held in the searchlights – several close hits being secured. No bombs fell on us but one fell on the horse lines close by, killing and wo...

Simpson was the most famous 'Anzac' of all. On the second day of the Gallipoli Campaign, Jack found a small donkey, wrapped a red cross band around its forehead and started ferrying wounded men down to the beach. For three weeks he did this, slogging through the bullet and shrapnel wrapped gullies until finally... But who was John Simpson Kirkpatrick? Listen to his letters home and descriptions of...

This is a very short episode on the Glosters and their part at Fromelles. Short because? Well, unfortunately I can't find any written accounts of the battle by these boys. Famous war poet Ivor Gurney was in their sister battalion over to the right and one of his poems sounds just like Fromelles.

100 years after winning the Victoria Cross in North Russia, the remains of Welsh born Aussie soldier, Samuel George Pearse are thought to have been rediscovered in a scrap yard at Archangel. At the time of his death, recently married Pearse, was already a war hero with a Military Medal won at Glencorse Wood 2 years earlier.

Leon Gellert, a 23 year old Physical Education Teacher from Leabrook, South Australia is considered to be the best Great War poet from Australia. This episode focuses on his war experience and his poems. I watched the place where they had scaled the height, The height whereon they bled so bitterly Throughout each day and through each blistered night I sat there long, and listened - all things list...

To the right of the Australian 5th Division at Fromelles was the 61st Division of the BEF. These were second line territorial troops that had never seen action before. They had slightly different problems to the Australians but both Divisions suffered from bad generalship and primary among these bad generals was Lieutenant General Sir Richard Haking. We look at the men of the 184th British Brigade...

Pompey Elliott's Australian 15th Brigade attacked the unbreakable 'Sugarloaf' on 19 July 1916. This is the story of this disastrous attack. Teddy Roosevelt befriended one of the survivors. Hear T.R.'s words and hear his friends description of Fromelles. This is some of what he wrote: "I lay for half an hour with my arms around the neck of a boy within a few yards of a German "listening post," whil...

13 year, 11 month old Leonard Jackson was able to fool the enlistment officers and go overseas to Egypt but his father Joe wasn't fooled. It was impossible to find the lad among all the thousands of recruits in khaki so Joe enlisted and followed the boy. Instead of bringing Len home, Joe joined him in the 55th Battalion and both fought at Fromelles. Corporal Harold Roy Williams of the 56th Battali...

'The sergeant comes up shouting, "Hey! Haven't y' gone yet? Got cold feet?" "Cold feet yourself," Ted retorts. And then seeing Bert, who has been missing for some time, Ted produces a note-book and calls, "Here you are, Bert, write your next-of-kin's name and address." There is no farewell. They grasp their rifles, and Ted slings the phone over his shoulder. "You all set? Come on!" he calls, and a...

"A young sergeant led a section that passed in artillery formation, and I shall never forget that godlike youth while life shall last. To think of him now is an inspiration, for he was Australia, young, handsome, earnest, and grim. His eyes were lit with the flame of duty, and he never flinched beneath the swish of shrapnel that Fritz had now directed on our advancing troops. He led his brigade an...

Jim finishes his wartime recollections with descriptions of his time as a "guest" of the Ottoman Empire after his capture at Es Salt in May 1918. Jim describes the conditions in the prison camp, working on the Berlin Baghdad Railway, lice, poor food, bad clothing, other prisoners and the Turkish guards. He also recounts his repatriation, first to Alexandria, then England and then home to Adelaide.

In 1973 Keith Tidswell placed a microphone in front of his grandfather, cameleer, light horseman and field ambulanceman. Over an hour later Jim had recounted his training, the trip over, a little about Beersheba, Es Salt and... Well, that is as far as we get in this episode. It's a "ripper of a yarn" as Jim might have said but you'll have to wait for Part 2 to hear how Jim's war ends! Apologies fo...

In late October 1914, English born missionary, Reverend Cox was assaulted and flogged with a cane by several Germans and a Belgian on the island of New Ireland. What followed was one of the few blemishes on  the career of Major General William Holmes. The Germans went so far as to ask the US Ambassador to London enquire about the punishment without a trial. The SS Matinga visits Rabaul on one of h...

This one is action packed, Bill hides stores, watches the surrender of New Guinea, is present when the submarine AE1 went missing and heard first hand about the sinking of the SMS Emden by HMAS Sydney. We also look at the capture of the German vessels, Nusa and Komet and Tok Pisin!

Although a minuscule battle by WW1 standards, about 37 men were killed in the Battle of Pita Paka, the fight to take the German colony of New Guinea in September 1914. Bill Lane was amongst the fighting: "Owing to the thickness of the bush, a few of us got separated from the mob. With shooting go on all around, we not knowing whether it was the enemy or our own men. Us, not knowing the German unif...

Who were the first Australians to die in World War 1? They were British soldiers, "Old Contemptibles" actually, but what next? Gallipoli? No! Australia fought its first land battle at New Guinea.... "If your Ministers desire and feel themselves able to seize German wireless stations at Yap in Marshall Islands, Nauru on Pleasant Island, and New Guinea, we should feel that this was a great and urgen...