Mornington Boys (and Others) in the War

Of the family lines I've researched, the Davenports stand out for their high representation in both World Wars. No fewer than 12 Davenports and their descendants signed up for the First World War, and 26 for the Second (including my own father of course!). Add in men who married into the family and these numbers rise to 18 and 45!

Four of these brave men would lose their lives in WW1 and two in WW2. Unfortunately, these came from just two family branches. I have already written about three of those six: brothers Charles and Ken Cowan, and their nephew Ken Clark, descendants of Joseph Cowan and Florence Davenport. The second family which suffered loss was that of George and Emily Stone, of Mornington, the subject of my previous post. You might remember that they had a large brood of 13 children! Four of their seven sons would go on to fight in the First World War (Ted, Clive, Roy and Hugh), Clive and Roy never to return. A fifth son (Les) was signing up just as the conflict came to an end, but he would get his turn in the Second World War, along with three of his nephews (all three sons of Hugh Stone: William, Jack and Ron). Sadly, this war would cost William his life. 

A wealth of information on the Stone brothers in WW1 has been captured in the Mornington & District Historical Society's excellent book, Our Boys at the Front 1914-18 The Mornington Peninsula at War. As I look at these soldiers in more detail, much of the information comes straight from its pages.

Roy Frank Stone

Fifth of the seven Stone boys, Roy was the first to sign up, aged 19, on 15 August 1914 (just days after recruitment commenced). He had previously been working as a gardener like his father. He was placed in the 7th Australian Infantry Battalion with his cousin Charles Cowan, and after training both embarked from Melbourne on 19 October on the troop ship Hororata.

All of the Australian troops were disembarked at Alexandria, most went to Mena Camp at the foot of the Pyramids. The Turkish army made a disastrous attempt to take the Suez Canal and recapture Egypt. Roy told his sister in a letter (published in The Post, 2 Apr 1915) that he had been away down the Suez waiting for the Turks to come, but the ‘dirty dogs seem to have “floated” for good’. He also refers to some of the larking around that went on while at camp, explaining why he had to stop writing at one point: ‘I have just knocked off for a minute to ‘chuck’ one chap outside. There were two of them wrestling in the tent and making a devil of a dust, and I couldn’t go on writing until they were stopped’.

 

Private Roy Stone

Roy Stone was among the first of the Peninsula volunteers to lose their lives. His death was published in The Post of 18 June 1915. Roy had been killed whilst trying to get ashore on the first day of the Gallipoli landing. He was just 20. His brother Clive wrote in a letter to his father (The Post, 18 June 1915): 

‘Dad, you can be proud of him, as he died game to the last. He was hit three times before he left the boat and it took three more to stop him. Their boat was one of the first to land and there was hardly a man got on shore without being wounded’

Official confirmation that Stone had been killed in action had been received by Rev. Sandiford, St Peters, Mornington, on 3 June. While he had been requested to inform Mr G Stone, of Tanti Creek, Mornington, of the sad news, perhaps it did not arrive, as George appears to suggest he only heard the news from Clive's letter which arrived on the 8th:

Letter sent by George Stone (from Roy Stone's war file, courtesy National Archives of Australia) 

Roy Stone was buried at the No, 2 Outpost Cemetery at Gallipoli.

Clive Charles Stone

Clive was the fourth eldest of the Stone boys, and the child born immediately before Roy. He too was working as a gardener at the outbreak of war. He enlisted about four weeks after Roy, on 11 September 1915, and went into the 5th Battalion. Also in the same battalion were his cousins Ken Cowan and Richard Davenport, all three embarking from Melbourne on the Orvieto on 21 October. 

Clive wrote of his own experience at Gallipoli: 

‘About half past seven in the morning when our company landed, we were under shrapnel fire and a few snipers hidden in the bushes in the hills. We managed to push about three miles under very heavy artillery fire. The country is very hilly and they could get at us from the hills. Our artillery could not land until the Sunday evening and it took warships some time to get on to the enemy’s artillery and they seemed to have any quantity of guns against us. Still I think we did what was expected of us. We forced a landing and held it although we had to fall back on to the ridge on Sunday evening.’

 
Clive was wounded in the foot and transferred to Malta. Having recovered he returned to Gallipoli, rejoining his battalion on 9 July. However on 6 August he was wounded again, in the left hand whilst ‘engaged with troops covering the advance of the famous Lone Pine charge’ (The Post, 5 Nov 1915). This time he was sent to Heliopolis (near Cairo) before returning home in October to have the bullet properly located and removed at the 5th Australian General Hospital. He was then given leave to recuperate and returned home to Mornington.

On 24 January 1916 Clive went back into camp and on 7 March embarked again for Egypt, on the Wiltshire as part of the 5th Battalion's 15th Reinforcements. Upon arrival in Egypt, all reinforcements were amalgamated with the veterans to create four new divisions. This was designed to help train up the new troops in the defence of Egypt and the Suez Canal. Clive was now part of the 57th Battalion, and in a letter to his mother, dated 25 April (The Post of 7 July), referred to this restructuring, saying, ‘I am in the company which has a lot of old Fifth boys that I know in it. The 15^th Brigade, which we belong to, is composed of a lot of the old Victorians, who have seen service and reinforcements that were intended for them.’ He was in Tel el Kebir camp and then went by train to Moascar from where they marched into the desert. ‘We are in trenches where there is a chance of being attacked at any minute.’

That same day, Brigadier John Monash had organized a celebration at Tel el Kebir to mark the first anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. At 6.45am the troops paraded with those who had been at the landing wearing red ribbons and all that had served on the campaign wearing blue ribbons. Clive wrote proudly, ‘We were issued with our Gallipoli ribbons today, red for landing and blue for the Peninsula. I have both.’ A service was held followed by cricket matches, a swimming carnival, an evening concert and dinners with the Prince of Wales in attendance. 

In June, these Australians were in France, in preparation to fight on the Western Front. A number of the Peninsula boys took part in the battle at Fromelles in July 1916. Clive Stone was there, however, his 57^th Battalion was not at the forefront of the battle. His letter home dated 11 August says nothing more than he was just out of the firing line and he had heard ‘our lads are doing some good work further down the line.’ He said he was back in ‘supports’ for a few days where it was relatively quiet. 

The battles at Pozieres began later that month. Now a Lance-Corporal, Clive Stone wrote on 20 August to say he had been to engineering school ‘where I have been learning to put up barbed wire entanglements, build trenches and blow them up and such like… well out of the road of Fritz.’ During the ‘quiet time’ at school, he observed French agriculture which, despite the horrors of the front, continued in its age old way in the country behind the lines. He wrote: ‘The farmers were just cutting their crops; some of them use binders, but others carry on in the old style, using an implement that is half scythe and half sickle. They use it with one hand; in the other is a hooked stick with which they draw the stuff into sheaves, and the girls come along behind and tie it up, and they knock down a fair lump of crop in a day.’ 

By the end of October, Clive had been promoted to Corporal and then on 7 February 1917 attained the rank of Sergeant, which he referenced in a letter to his parents written that day (The Post of 4 May): ‘We can’t get letters away from here too well; that is how it is, we often miss a couple of mails. I am going through orders as a sergeant to-night, so am coming on some, I think I have got parcels that you have sent. We only got our Christmas boxes a couple of days ago and they were very nice as we got them just a couple of days after we came out from the front.’ The letters from the soldiers always showed their appreciation for parcels received. 

The fighting on the Somme in early 1917 was limited by the appalling conditions as earlier rains turned to ice and snow. In that same letter of 7 February, Clive Stone gives his experiences of the wintry conditions: ‘We have had a real good covering of snow on the ground for several weeks now, and it freezes every night; it is terrible cold but that is better than the mud and the wet. When we go for water now, we take a pick and sandbag to get it. We have had a fair spell in the trenches this time, and I don’t know how much longer we have to do. A man can stand it better now that the ground is hard…’

 

On February 21: ‘Just a line to let you know that I am still well, although we have just had a bit of a stunt, but I managed to get through it alright. I am a sergeant now and got my platoon through it without a casualty. We are back at a sawmill at present bringing in the logs for making duck boards and so forth, so are not having too bad a time, although there is about three inches of water on top of the ice where we are working, but we have a good hut to sleep in and a fire to dry our clothes by, so we are alright, but I don’t think the job will last more than a week…’   

Many Peninsula boys participated in what transpired as the dreadful fiasco of Bullecourt on 11 April 1917 (this was the same battle in which my grandfather P S Phelan was taken prisoner-of-war). At this time Clive was attending Infantry School. However he was back for the second battle of Bullecourt which was launched on 3 May. It turned into another murderous engagement. The Australians showed extraordinary courage but suffered frightfully from German fire. Australian dead lay everywhere and those of the 1^st Division that came out of the battlefield were described as ‘dull-eyed, stumbling and half-crazed.’ The 5^th Division then took over, holding the breach head against seven counter attacks until the battle finally petered out. It was soon after engaging in this battle that Clive Stone of Mornington lost his life on 12 May. He had no known grave but his close mate, Cpl. French, wrote to his mother on 3 June:

‘Hoping you will not mind I am writing you a few lines on behalf of your son, Clive, who was a great friend of mine and who had the misfortune to be taken away from us. He and I were the best of mates for a long time, we were fortunate enough to get away to (training) school together, and while there we had photos taken. They were forwarded to me and I am sending them to you. Clive poor boy did not have the luck to see them but I think it is a very good one of him… Anyhow, I hope you will not be heart broken, for you know he died in a good cause and, more than that, he died doing his duty nobly; he was studying his men and not himself, and for the way he carried out his work he should be presented with a medal – he earned it if any a man did. He was a boy everyone liked and looked to in many ways, and I, as much as anyone, live to mourn his loss… He showed me your photo, in fact all his family.’

In expressing profound sympathy for his parents, the editor wrote in The Post of 8 June: ‘He might have said ‘Enough!’ (following repatriation) and none could have said ‘Nay’. But he was made of sterner stuff and not afraid and joined his comrades in France. Now to him remains the glory and immortality which is specially the proud honour of the true Anzac only.’ 

Clive Stone was 24 years old. He is remembered at the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial in France.

Sergeant Clive Stone

Edwin Richard (Ted) Stone

Ted Stone was the second oldest son of George and Emily, and unsurprisingly was also a gardener! He was 27 when he signed up for service on 20 July 1915 and allocated to the 98th Battalion based at Seymour. However in February 1916 his war record shows that he was sent to the military convalescent hospital at Osborne House in North Geelong. There's no reference in the file as to the medical reasons for this, though Our Boys at the Front records that he was suffering from meningitis, and he was discharged as 'medically unfit' without ever seeing any action, on 22 September 1916.

Hugh Davenport Stone

Hugh Stone was the sixth of the seven boys in the Stone family, but unlike his brothers above, his trade was listed as blacksmith when he enlisted on 30 September 1916. Aged 18, he was part of the 8th Reinforcements of the 6th Machine Gun Company, and embarked 16 December on the Medic. Arriving in Plymouth in February, Hugh would spend most of 1917 based in England, training at Belton Park, Grantham. On 5 December he finally embarked for France, where he was transferred to the 2nd Machine Gun Battalion.

During an engagement on 8 August 1918, Hugh suffered a gun shot wound to the shoulder, and was hospitalised first in Camiers then in England. The armistice in November didn't mean an end to Stone's suffering though. In December 1918 and again in February 1919 he was hospitalised with a mild form of 'dementia praecox' (premature demetia, now schizophrenia). Remarks in his war file note his condition as 'depressed insomnia': 'he is markedly nervous - at times sits for long periods and laughs & smiles for no apparent reason - his attention is difficult to hold - makes almost childish remarks. He is mostly depressed at present but often smiles & laughs to himself. He is difficult to examine as he will not answer many questions.' Eventually, on 1 July 1919, he embarked for home on the Karmala, arriving 17 August, where he was metby family and friends at the railway station and ‘the shire president (Mr L J Flanagan) was on hand as usual to extend a welcome on the arrival of the train.’

Leslie Amery Stone

Les Stone, the youngest son of George and Emily Stone was the fifth to be accepted for active service. The Post of 27 September (1918) reported that having just turned 18, Stone would not go into camp for another two months. As we know, peace was obtained on 11 November and therefore Les never had to be called into action. Though as mentioned earlier he would get his chance before too long.

While the Stone family of Mornington sent the most men to the War, several other Davenport cousins put up their hand to serve:  

Cecil Davenport Stone & Ernest Henry Froggatt Stone

These brothers (sons of Caroline Davenport and Henry Stone) both served in the 8th Field Artillery Brigade. Ernie was an engineer when he enlisted aged 18 on 27 July 1915, and was appointed Driver on 1 April 1916. Embarking from Melbourne on the Medic 20 May 1916, he spent time in England before serving in France from the start of 1917. Notable in his war file was an occasion in June 1917 when he was reprimanded for disobeying an order to 'wear his hat in a specific way'! He saw out the war in France and England and returned to Australia in June 1919 (Ernie you might remember would later be grandfather to Leigh Matthews).

Cecil was a gardener who in 1916 lost his first wife at the age of just 26, after only two years of marriage. Four months on, he was enlisting in the AIF (21 October 1916) and he too was appointed a Driver, in the 9th Reinforcements of the 8th FAB. On 11 May 1917 he embarked on the Shropshire for England. He served in France from October 1917 and returned to Australia in August 1919.

Alfred Davenport & Richard Arthur Davenport

Alfred and Richard were sons of Henry Froggatt Davenport and his wife Emily Alice Walton. Alfred was a farrier in Ascot Vale, but enlisted at Holsworthy in Sydney on 15 August 1915. He was part of reinforcements for the 1st Battalion and on 11 December embarked from Sydney on the Mooltan. After training in Egypt he arrived in France at the end of March 1916, but his period of service was marked by several stints in hospital: in August then November which saw him returned to England, and then for defective vision in June 1917 and conjunctivitis in January 1918. Also in that month Alfred was convicted in a civil court in Clerkenwell for wilful property damage, and fined 20/- with 20/- costs. His defective eyesight resulted in him being returned to Australia in April and discharged in August 1918. 

Richard Davenport, a blacksmith, was early to enlist, joining up on 7 Sep 1914 and as mentioned earlier was with cousins Ken Cowan and Clive Stone in the 5th Battalion and on the Orvieto. However he had barely arrived in Egypt before his ability to serve was under question. Notes in his war file are revealing: 

Mentally and physically a weakling. Quite unable to take care of his clothing and equipment. Continually deficient of kit, very untidy and dirty. Always trying to fall out on the march. Paraded several times on minor offences. Continually attending sick parades.
There appears to be little or no chance of this man...being of any use.

Service no longer required as not likely to prove an efficent soldier.

On 15 March he was sent home to Australia, arriving 12 April 1915. Over the following months, the terrible news of so many losses in Gallipoli reached Australia. Perhaps it was this, or merely his determination to prove his previous superiors wrong (or both), but on 12 November he enlisted again! On 7 March 1916 he embarked on the Wiltshire, and incredibly once again he was on the same ship as his cousin Clive Stone, who as mentioned earlier had returned to Australia to recuperate from injury. With the reconfiguration of Australia's forces in Egypt in April, Richard found himself in the 58th Battalion. In August, while in France, he was transferred to the 15th Machine Gun company. 

Whatever deficiencies Richard had the first time around, he must have worked on them, or they were prepared to be overlooked in the circumstances. Though he was still far from the model soldier, incurring several reprovals for misdemeanors, firstly at sea (going ashore without permission) in 1916 before reaching Egypt; and then in the early months of 1917 after returning to England from France: absent without leave for three days in January, and for one day in February; then using improper language to, and refusing to obey an order from, a superior office in April.     

In October 1917 he returned to serve in France again, and was moved once more, this time to the 60th Battalion on Christmas Eve. On 15 August 1918 he was wounded in the ankle and sent to England to recover in hospital, before racking up one more AWL offence in October. In December he was admitted to hospital for 'flat feet.' After the war was over, he returned to Australia in March 1919.

Richard Arthur Davenport

(courtesy Australian War Memorial)

Gordon Joseph Colin Davenport

Gordon was the son of Frank Davenport and Elizabeth Jane Allan, and a salesman by trade when he enlisted in the AIF on 6 June 1918, four days after turning 18. Spending time at Broadmeadows and Ascot Vale, he was slated for the 1st Battalion but the end of the War meant that his service was not required and was discharged on Christmas Eve. 

Family links to Davenport descendants who served in the 'Great War'.

World War Two

There is not enough room in this post to examine the service given by all the Stone and Davenport descendants in the Second World War (in any case, not all records are yet available online). However I want to at least make mention of the one who did not make it back home. 

William Edwin Stone

To recap, all three sons of First World War veteran Hugh Davenport Stone signed up when war broke out again. Jack and Ronald joined the Royal Australian Navy toward the end of the war in 1945, but elder brother William Edwin Stone joined the Royal Australian Air Force much earlier, on 18 September 1940. He was an electrical fitter's assistant and while in the RAAF he trained and was re-mustered as an electrician, and then an electrical fitter in August 1941. On the 27th of that month he embarked for Singapore, arriving on 19 September with the rank of Leading Aircraftman in the 8th Squadron. He was killed in action in a ground battle on 17 January 1942, a few weeks before the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. He was a month short of his 21st birthday.

George Annable Stone, son of George and Emily Stone's eldest son Arthur also served in the RAAF, enlisting in August 1940.

Sources:

World War 1 personnel files from National Archives 'Discovering Anzacs' https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/

World War 1 nominal and embarkation rolls from Australian War Memorial https://www.awm.gov.au/

Selected World War 2 personnel files available from National Archives https://naa.gov.au/

Our Boys at the Front: 1914-18 The Mornington Peninsula at War (from the pages of the Peninsula Post), Mornington & District Historical Society, 2011