Thomas and John O'Brien's names lie on the family grave in the Catholic section of Dunedin's Southern Cemetery. They were two young men who went off to war, lived through hell and died in the hell of battle in the "Great War."
They did nothing to win renown. They were mere private soldiers in a big war. Their graves, if they have them, are not recorded. They represent all the sons who went away and whose names featured in newspaper lists to show that they would not return. They represent the reason why many families did not rejoice at the news of Armistice in 1918. Although their stories ended on foreign battlefields, the void their loss left behind would only die when those who loved them died.
Thomas O'Brien was working as a labourer for the Otago Jockey Club when he enlisted in the Otago Infantry Regiment in August 21, 1914, at Outram. He sailed for the war in October of that year and landed at Gallipoli in 1915. He shared his Regiment's victories and privations until the following August when the last big push against the defending Turkish army was made. Both sides knew that defeat meant total failure, and the fighting was desperate.
On August 9th, the Otagos and others were on the height of Chunuk Bair and the defenders threw all they could at them. The commanding general also knew that this could be a turning point - one way or the other - in the campaign and sent reinforcements to the now cut-off Otago and Wellington men. British troops tried to reach the height and failed. At the end of August 9, the men on Chunuk Bair had been fighting continually for three days and nights and relief or withdrawal were vital. The New Zealanders were finally relieved by 2am on the 10th. Private Thomas O'Brien did not leave with them.
At a subsequent Board of Enquiry it was concluded that Thomas died on Chunuk Bair. As far as is know, his body was never found. It was likely buried by Turkish forces as part of consolidating their positions.
The Dardanelles (excerpt)
ROLL OF HONOUR
ADDITIONAL CASUALTIES.
WELLINGTON, September 16. The following addition to Casualty List No. 179 was issued to-night:
Missing in Action
THOMAS O'BRIEN (Mrs Norah O'Brien, Janefield, Mosgiel; mother). -Southland Times, 17/9/1915.
John O'Brien joined the Army in late 1916 and left for Europe in February, 1917. He was posted to the front line in France in the middle of that year and by the time the Otagos were preparing for their part in the Passchendaele offensive he would have been well accustomed to life in the trenches.
The offensive had been launched, had progessed a little, then stalled in the three days before the Otagos attacked. At the Regiment's Official History describes it: "Arrangements were immediately made for a renewal of the offensive on October 12th. On this occasion the attack was launched between the Ypres-Roulers railway and Houthulst Forest. It progressed along the spurs and higher ground, but the valleys of the streams which ran westward from the main ridge, and which were overlooked by formidable enemy defences, proved impassable. It was in this operation that the Regiment was to become tragically involved.
When the 2nd Battalion of the Regiment (John's) proceeded to take over the line from the Ravebeek to Peter Pan on the night of the 10th, a desperate state of affairs revealed itself. The whole countryside, under the continuous rain and heavy shelling, was rapidly approaching the state of a deep morass through which the relieving troops blindly floundered in the darkness of night until they reached the position which was only nominally a front fine. There was overwhelming and gruesome evidence of the disastrous results of the British attack launched on the 9th. To say nothing of the dead, scores of men, wounded and near to death, still lay out over the country, unattended and without protection from the weather. The 148th Brigade, so heavy were its losses, had apparently found it impossible to cope with the task of clearing the wounded. At Waterloo Farm the congestion was such that many of the wounded were still lying above ground and in the open, and frequently enemy shells burst among or near them and put an end to their miseries. There were probably 200 stretcher cases lying over the area, and it was doubtful if any of them had been fed until our troops provided them with rations on the morning of the 11th. The urgent necessity of clearing these wounded and the large number of stretcher cases at Waterloo Farm, and elsewhere, was pointed out to Brigade by Lieut.-Colonel Smith (Commanding the 2nd Battalion of Otago), in view of possible congestion on the 12th, and at the same time it was strongly advised that a large number of stretcher relays be held in readiness in connection with our own impending attack. This, serious enough in itself, reveals only one phase of the situation."
The indomitable Dick Travis made a night reconnaisance of the area that the Otagos were expected to advance over. He found deep mud, shell-holes 3/4 full of water and intact German fortifications with uncut wire.
Behind the Otagos, the supporting artillery was also having problems. The shell-broken landscape and mud made it impossible to bring up the planned number of guns to support the attack. Those that were in place and opened fire to support the advance had their accuracy and rate of fire affected by the muddy ground, having to be repositioned after each round.
The opening of the Otagos' attach was a tragedy - "tragedy" is the word used by the official historian to describe the day, although he also uses the word "heroism." Intact German defences, deep mud and water-filled shellholes, and supporting artillery which killed friend and foe alike - although many of the foe were fighting behind concrete.
Having describe the futile advance, the Official History goes on the depict the aftermath: "The second phase of the tragedy now presented itself. Hundreds of badly wounded men lay out over the front and in No Man's Land, exposed to the added miseries of mud and weather. The stretcher service, extended though it had been, was unequal to the task of dealing with such abnormal losses under conditions of movement presenting tremendous difficulties. Over 200 cases which had been carried down to Waterloo Farm had remained there throughout the day awaiting evacuation under intermittent shell fire, and several were killed. Others who had vainly endeavoured to struggle down from the line sank into shell-holes, and, weighted down by the appalling mud and the burden of their wounds, many of them never arose again. Such was the state of the ground and the distance to be covered that six men, working in relays, were required to each stretcher. The task called for more, but the men could not be spared. Representations were made for an additional large number of men, and during the night stretcher parties came up from the 4th Brigade and worked strenuously at evacuating the wounded. Throughout the night of the 12th-13th, 1,200 men of the 4th Brigade were so employed; also all available men of the Divisional Artillery and the Army Service Corps. One Battalion of the 147th Brigade was also loaned to the Division for purposes of stretcher-bearing. The bearers of the Regiment, lurching and blundering with their burdens over this waste, had worked without the slightest regard for rest. But the task was by no means finished, and as darkness came down over the battlefield the stillness of the night was pierced by the agonised cries of the wounded, many of whom must have died before help could reach them. For them the Hell of Passchendaele was ended."
It is not known how or when John O'Brien died - whether cleanly in the attack or slowly afterwards; whether from a German bullet or a "friendly" shell. The Official History does not mention him.
John and Thomas' mother, Norah would have mourned their loss, as she had mourned that of their father, John, in 1911. Norah died in 1937.
Southern Cemetery, Dunedin.
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