WW1 Digger History Podcast

In the final 50th episode of Percy Smythe's diary we interview his niece, WW2 WAAAF veteran, Margaret Clarke and great niece and creator of the Smythe Family History website, Jacqui Kennedy. We also hear Percy's daughter Betty's account of his and Dorrie's later years, read by another great niece, Vivienne Smythe. The last minute will leave you numb as Vivienne reads Percy's poem about the Battle...

At a concert on board the ship home a scene had a "map of Australia depicted by boxes placed together with lights in them. Behind was a tableau, a "digger" just arriving home, met by his mother and his grey-headed old father, the latter holding a little child in his arms. It was very touching, and brought a choking pain into one's throat and a dimness to one's eyes." Then, at Adelaide when the shi...

Percy contemplates the great peace celebrations at London in 1919, "It marked the end of the years of cruel warfare and dreary hardships. It meant a lot to me. Those gaudy cloths and things expressed the joyous relief and thankfulness of thousands and millions of my fellow beings that the war is over and Peace is signed. All the people were rejoicing with me, and it touched the deepest chords of e...

An English wedding... On again , off again. Finally after some deceitful behaviour from Dorrie's parents, the young couple have to go to Scotland to be married. A returned Chaplain from a Scottish Infantry Battalion handles the service and greatly helps the young lovers. This one covers the lead up to the wedding, the happy day and the honeymoon at Loch Lomond.

The aftermath of war..... "I saw something in the window of a house which caught my attention. It appeared to be a cut-out poster or picture of a hideous face like the cartoons one sees of mad Bolsheviks, thick grizzled beard and a mop of grizzled hair, and a horrible expression on the face. As I walked past looking at it in wonder at the very hideousness of it, the supposed picture suddenly start...

This one is wide and varied. Percy writes something that I have read over an over again in these diaries. To him, Armistice Day was a relief rather than a cause for merriment, and that is not just because Percy isn't a party animal, it was common among the majority of the soldiers. I love Percy's description of Christmas and the farewell dinners ....  At 6.30p.m. 54 officers sat down, and one glan...

In the last of the battle episodes, Percy is somewhat on the sidelines but we get his interesting insights into what is going on around him and around the world. Meuse-Argonne, Bellicourt, Montbrehain are all discussed in some detail and the 24th Battalion wins their one and only VC.

I have no doubt that this is the best from Percy Smythe, absolutely full on account of one of the main defeats of the Germans in 1918. Don't believe me? Here is an extract; "A heavy, probably a 9.2 inch, had evidently landed fair in the trench. The carnage was awful. Dead, wounded, and dying, all lay huddled and twisted together in grotesque little heaps, a mass of mangled flesh. At first all was...

Percy: "I ordered the men to get the Hun gun, but again nobody seemed willing to go forward. I decided to go over first to encourage them, and sprang up on to the earth block. As I did so, a man called out, "Don't go over! There's a bomb not gone off!" The words were immediately followed by an explosion three yards in front of me! It was one of our Mills grenades with those treacherous 7-second fu...

August 8th, 1918. Here is a some of what Percy saw, "Moving on from Villers Bretonneux, we passed the wrecked aerodrome that we could see from the Villers line at the time of the Hamel stunt, the former front line and the late No-man's-land, then the old German front line. A few dead Germans lay singly here and there along the way. A couple of supply tanks lumbered noisily across country returning...

Wait for Zero Hour in the Battle of Hamel. Percy experienced this one from the sidelines. Learn about camouflage counter battery work, tanks, new kinds of shells, sneezing gas, German prisoners and much more. Here is a bit of it: "Suddenly the captain sat up and exclaimed, "It's quarter of a minute past zero and the bombardment hasn't started!" We tumbled out of the dug-out in order to witness the...

Percy gets his commission on 1 June 1918, although he doesn't say a lot about it. This covers the final weeks up to departure and the trip through to Base Camp. Dorrie's Dad, Mr Jewel remains a gem, ha ha, and the two lovers bid a fond adieu. I found the best old WW1 song for our Perce, as you will hear.

Percy gets a letter from his old friend, Jack Elliott, and you can guess the response from the Episode title! Here is a bit of what Percy wrote back: "Jack, if you've got any manhood left in you, cut adrift from that miserable soulless lot of cowards and come over here and do your duty as a man and a true Australian, and as a Christian." Take that Jack! Percy finishes his officer training and prep...

Frustration and more frustration, bloaters again and more bloaters. Percy does something to Dorrie and is full of remorse, what it was, who knows? The engagement is on and off. Nonchalant brother Viv turns up .... Well, it's Viv's way, or.... Luckily, he didn't keep King George waiting! Finally, Percy passes and gets ready to go back to France.

In this episode, Percy continues officer training. He practices code, unfortunately no one seems to be able to break it. I guess that means he knew what he was doing. He spends his third Christmas away from home, this one much more pleasant than the first two... He is with his ummm, fiancee, Dorothy. Three of the Aussies are suspended from the Officer's Training School at Cambridge. Two for sleepi...

In this episode Percy is at Cambridge training to be an officer. He and Dorrie are busted by her Dad and have a lot of explaining to do. He visits his new sister-in-law, Mary near Londonderry in Ireland and is pleasantly surprised to spend a few days there also with brother, Vern. Okay, no fighting, except maybe with his would be father-in-law, but still an interesting look at life during the war,...

Once the sighing whine of a shell in flight ended with a savage hiss and an explosion just behind our dug-out, and I felt the sandbag wall heave in several inches. "That one nearly smashed our dug-out," I remarked, thinking it was a H.E., but the next moment a strong smell of gas rushed in. "Get your respirator on!" I yelled at Gus, making a grab for my own. I held my breath, but the powerful fume...

Percy has finally left Blighty, crosses the channel and ... "After crossing the ridge we left the duckboards and struck off to the right through the sloppy slippery mud, picking our way in and out between the shell-holes." Percy makes his way back to the trenches right into the tail end of the Battle of Passchendaele.

Wouldn't you know it, Percy found his soul mate and then gets whisked back to war. Nevermind, he wants that promotion so he can afford a house for his "little girl" when the war is over. The parting is sad, well isn't it always, and then he has to sit out for a few lonely days in Southampton. Brother Vern causes him a real scare but Percy finds out more about his brother's time at Passchendaele; V...

This one starts with Percy coming back from leave and within two days he looks up Dorothy, the jewel of a girl he met on the train. Not a slow worker, our Perce, they are engaged in less than a month! Okay, so there are no battles in this one, except of the father - suitor kind, but this is probably the most significant thing to happen to Percy in the war. Enjoy!

There were almost 13,000 war brides to diggers in WW1 according to the Australian War Memorial. Brother Vern found Mary in Ireland, but what about Percy? Well, our Casanova finally meets his "one and only," but does he know it yet? There is one problem, Percy is still in Blighty, but not for much longer!

"He felt no pain and knew nothing of the terror of approaching the brink!" So wrote one of the Smythe brothers to Percy. Which brother dies? Well, you'll have to listen. That letter is read in this episode by a real digger not me and that is another reason to listen. Percy is still in England and the anxiety over his brothers heighten. He loses one then doesn't hear so much from another. Then the...

Bickering soldiers, solving disputes, isolation for mumps, drunk soldiers, "F* the Ordinance Officer. Take me to the Ordinance Officer." This one covers a three month period in camp and looking around old Blighty. Meeting up with brothers Viv and Vern, but not Bert. Pictures from home and from Vern's new wife. Meanwhile the 24th Battalion does the Battle of Bullecourt and Viv and Bert almost cross...

Well, Percy is in Blighty at the 1st Southern General Hospital at Edgebaston when he hears disturbing news about an old mate from the 3rd Battalion who was killed in his sleep. He recovers fairly quickly at the 3rd Australian Auxillary Hospital and gets furlough, when he finally catches up with brother Bert and meets the alter-matriarch of the family, Mrs Morgan. Then there is Miss Tess, or is it...

Do you have queer ideas of warfare? Met young Burrows, and asked him had he seen any Germans while on post. "Yes," he, "had seen a few." One he observed was putting up barbed wire entanglements. "And did you shoot at him?" I asked. "No." "Why didn't you?" "Well, he was about three hundred yards away." I was staggered. Burrows, of course, was a new reinforcement, but it seemed incredible that anyon...