bloggie

Treppenwitz has written a series of posts about Australia's role in the battle against the Ottomans in the Middle East. If it wasn't for Australia, we might very well have all been speaking Arabic. Or we wouldn't be here at all.

Read the posts and any links in Trep's articles. Each one is worthy of study.

Sidney was assigned to the storied West Somerset Yeomanry, trained long and hard alongside men many years his senior, and upon completing training was sent with his unit to Egypt where he quietly celebrated his seventeenth birthday. As will soon be made clear, by this time his comrades and officers were certainly aware of his real age.

Once in Egypt, his unit was tapped to form the 12th battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry and officially became part of the 229th Infantry Brigade, 74th (Yeomanry) Division, XXI Corps. Palestine.

All around them war was raging. It was 1917, and although Sidney couldn't know it, the insanity that would later be called the first world war would end in just a few short months. In fact, it would end, in part, due to his unit's heroic efforts against the Turks defending the seam-line between British strongholds in Gaza and the heart of Ottoman Palestine; Jerusalem.

Of the 19 battalions raised under the banner of the Somerset Light Infantry during WWI, nearly 5000 men would be killed in battle, and countless more maimed for life. But to a seventeen-year-old, I'm sure the possibility of a tragic outcome was beyond consideration. I mean, what teenage boy isn't immune to danger... completely immortal... the center of the known universe? Surely he was slated for greatness after distinguishing himself in the war!

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I came upon the details of this small heroic tragedy thanks to someone doing a Google search stumbling across a couple of my posts about the importance of Commonwealth forces in defeating the Turks in Beer Sheva, and how that victory laid the foundation for the British Mandate... and on its heels, the formation of the Jewish State.

The reader who wrote to me was seeking information about a great uncle of his who had run away to join the army and who was buried in Beer Sheva. He wanted to know if I could visit the grave of this young man and find out a bit about his final resting place.

What a silly question.

It was both an honor and a privilege for me to be able to 'write home' on behalf of this young man... and in some small way, put his family's mind to rest as to his whereabouts

Sidney's grave is situated in the front, right-hand block of graves Row 'L' grave 85... very near the great stone monument upon which annual commemorations are conducted by various Commonwealth military societies that visit this far-flung corner of the former British Empire.
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i hope Treppenwitz doesn't mind hotlinking...