MITCHELL, Laurie Gordon Smart (1899-1946)
'Laurie' Mitchell was born on the 21 May 1889, the son of George Mitchell and Mary nee Walsh. He commenced at Geelong College in 1903 with an entry address of Noble Street, Bareena (Newtown).
In 1915, he married Ruth Estelle Oke, daughter of Richard and Eliza Oke.
During World War I, he enlisted (No 6055) in the 14 Battalion, AIF on 12 April 1916. His attestation record stated that he had been employed by the printer, W H Thacker for seven years. 'Laurie' embarked on HMAT A28 Miltiades on 1 August 1916, arriving in England in October. He was wounded at First Bullecourt on 11 April 1917, and invalided to Birmingham Hospital.
On his recovery, he wrote to a friend from Belgium:
'Am now in a new part of the line. Came up by motor transport by road with the Brigade YMCA equipment, as I now have a job for a week or two with the YM in the canteen. It does me ‘tres bon’, as we can make ourselves far more comfortable than when with the battalion, and as we only have a small mess and our own cook the tucker stakes are alright. I do not know how you would get on in this weather, it is as cold as charity, alternating with rain, snow, frost and thaw, and then repeats the performance. I am wearing every stitch I possess and still cannot get warm enough. Did a perish on the trip up on the motor, but it was a very interesting trip as I saw the big towns. Where we are now the Brigade is much scattered, and I am about three kilos from my unit. . . . I would give almost anything just now for a sniff of the gum burning in a bush fire, or for a Saturday afternoon up the river after perch. I cannot understand just why the Referendum was turned down. To me it was a fair enough proposal, and I voted for it. It seemed to me that the proposal would only effect those who ought to be over here, and goodness knows they were needed badly enough after the last year’s big stunt. Well we who are here will just have to stay to the finish and put a smile on; for after all a man does not have a very good time over here if he does not look at things from an optimist’s point of view and make the best of things, although many times the best is far from being good. Still ‘apres le guerre’, as we say, things will be right and a fellow will have a lot of good times to make up for when we at last get home.'
In April 1917 the Geelong Advertiser published a lengthy letter that 'Laurie' Wrote entitled: 'HOW PTE. L. G. MITCHELL GOT TO 'BLIGHTY'. A SHELL SMASHED A DUGOUT AND EVERY MAN IN IT WAS KILLED OR WOUNDED.'
'Pte. Laurie G. Mitchell has been wounded, and is in a Birmingham War Hospital. He will be remembered as secretary of the Chilwell Methodist Sunday School, a son-in-law of Oke, and for ten years an employee of Mr. Thacker. A letter dated February 17th has just been received from him :—
By the time you receive this no doubt you will have heard that I have stopped a bit. I am over here in 'Blighty', and having a good time. I will try and give you some of my experiences, but everything has turned out so very different to what I expected that I hardly know whow to begin. We got up about five miles behind the line on January 9th, and stayed there till the 23rd, road-making. While there we had an exceptionally heavy fall of snow, which froze, and up to the time I left France it was still freezing, and at times the glass was 20 degrees below freezing. Ask Joe how he would like it. While at work we were always turning up souvenirs in the shape of shells, equipment, rifle cartridges, live bombs, rifles and all kinds of stuff. Delville Wood is just covered with dead Fritzes, Tommies, South Africans and Canadians. From there we went up into supports just near ——, and for four days we were digging a new reserve trench in ground frozen to a depth of 3ft. You would not believe until you actually saw for yourself how hard it is. A good day's work on the top of the trench would be a hole of about three square feet, and the jar on the arm muscles is horrible. In January we (C Company) went up into the front line, and here I got another eye-opener. Our sector was right on the toe of a horseshoe, and our line of about 400 yards was not a trench, but just a bank where an old road had once been, with a shallow dugout here and there. Our possie (six of us and a corporal) was 150 yards out in No-man's Land and 100 yards from Fritz, who was not supposed to know that we were there. Well, we got out there all right, although it was almost as bright as day, with the moonlight shining on the snow, and my heart went right down in my boots when I saw ihat our 'abode' for the next four days was nothing but an old galvanised iron shed in a bit of a hollow, evidently one time a small Fritz 2 f gun shelter. I can't understand it being there at all, as for miles and miles in every direction it is impossible to find 10 square yards that has not a shell hole in it. In size it was about 8ft x 10ft, and one side was quite open except for an old blanket stretched across. We only showed ourselves at night, when two of us were observing, and the other four digging a bombing sap running out from our possie to a shallow shell hole 30ft away.
WEATHER BITTER COLD.
For the first two days and first night all went well, and all we had to com-plain about was the cold, which was past belief. Everything was frozen — bread, cheese, bully, tobacco. All our water in our bottles and even the oil in a tin of sardines I had in my pocket. I got a thirst up and thought I would get some ice out of a large shell hole about 10ft deep with some 3ft of ice in it. I crawled out to it with a pick, but soon altered my mind in regard to drinking when I saw a dead Fritz sticking half out. There were six more about 10 yards away. I thought there might be some good souvenirs on them, but on getting close to them my stomach objected, as they were extremely dead. 'Nuff sed'. The second night, while out in the open, the two of us who were working at the far end of the sap were evidently spotted, as a stream of machine gun bullets came overhead, and it was 'Duck'. Fritz must have had a good suspicion that we were there, for we could not move without the ping of a sniper's bullet or the swish of a stream from a machine gun. He kept us lying there for about two hours in the little shell hole until one at a time we bolted and got down to our possie. All the next two mornings he shelled us with big 'gazumps' (high explosives), but the nearest he got to us was seven yards. I won't say that I wasn't scared ; no man alive can help being nervous. It is a rotten sensation just lying and listening for the next shell, which can be heard from six to eight seconds before it explodes, and not knowing what minute one may land on top of you. Well, we managed all right until the fourth night, when the Battalion, who were a quarter of a mile away on our right, were to 'hop over' and take a Fritz trench on a front of about 200 yards. Punctually at 7 our artillery opened a barrage, and in about two minutes hell - absolute hell - was let loose. Fritz concentrated all his artillery on to us to keep us from attacking, and as he was on three sides of us and our own stuff from behind was falling short you can see we were in a pretty bad way. Gazumps, minne-werfers, whiz-bangs of all sorts and sizes just came down like rain, and what with the noise of the bursting shells, the flashes, smoke and scream and whirr of shrapnel and broken pieces of shell, it was the nearest approach to Dante's description of hell I could have ever imagined.
SHELL COMES AT LAST.
We grabbed our rifles and just stood waiting for 'it', when just as I was lighting my pipe 'it' came clean through the roof. I remember the explosion, but can't recall being knocked over; but I picked myself up, still drawing at the stem of my pipe, which was all that was left of it. What made me think of having a smoke at such a time I cannot imagine, but it was very lucky, for it saved my face, as when on examining myself as well as I could among the smoke, broken timber and iron I found that I had a piece in the back of each hand and a piece of flesh taken out of the muscle of my left arm about the size of a 12-em lead and 3 picas and a hair-space deep. (Right-hand wound accounts for this copper-plate.) One chap was just dying in the place where the corner had been; another (since dead) had both arms broken, his face smashed about and a lump of the shell about the size of a duck's egg right through his groin; and another his bottom lip shot off, and the others, barring myself, not scratched. I made a bolt for it down to the stretcher-bearers' dugout, and after we got the badly wounded chap on a stretcher and tied up in a kind of fashion got first-aid myself; but we had to wait for about four hours till midnight before we could get down to the dressing station, as Fritz had our only track through the shell holes under a heavy shrapnel fire to keep our supports and reserves from coming up. Our supports were a mile and a half from the front line, and the reserves two miles further back. Well, about 11.45 three of us who could walk decided to make a bolt for it, and as long as I live I will never forget our scamper down the track as slippery as glass with frozen snow, dropping now and then when we heard a shell coming and the zip of a sniper's bullet following us all the way down. At the dressing station the doctor extracted the piece of shell from my right hand about three picas square and a long-primer thick. We had three more dressing stations to go through until we arrived at No 5 Casualty Clearing Station near Albert. Here I stayed for two nights, and was then taken on board a Red Cross train, and had a twelve hours' trip to Rouen. These trains are most luxurious—steam-heated, with very comfortable beds, kit-chen and all conveniences. While in No. 5 General Hospital at Rouen my left hand was X-rayed and operated on, and a piece the size of a pica quad was taken out from between the bones at the base of the middle finger. It was here that I had my first shave and wash for a fortnight. You would not have picked me out of the gutter if you had seen me, but it was a treat to feel a bit clean again. It was on this down trip that I saw the first bit of green tree for weeks; up near the line the desolation is indescribable: not a bit of green grass or tree is to be seen; just a few blackened stumps, where a wood once was, and shell holes for miles and miles. It was a relief to the eyes when the snow came and hid all the dreariness and horrible sights.
I stayed at Rouen until Friday, February 9th, and was taken on another Red Cross train to Le Havre, a five hour trip. The first hour of the journey was through a series of tunnels built by prisoners from the Bastille, the famous French prison; then over the Seine River, which was frozen over, providing fine skating for crowds of civies and convalescent soldiers. It was a great relief to at last get aboard the hospital ship en route for 'Blighty'. and know that I would be away from 'Sunny France' (I don't think) for a few months. My career there had been short, but mighty sharp, but I consider myself very lucky, as when I got hit my overcoat was ripped
to tatters, gas respirator blown to pieces off my side, and my steel helmet had a hole the size of a half-crown in it. I tried to hang on to it at the C.C.S., but they made me dump it. It would have made a good souvenir. Everything in my kit I lost, but managed to hang on to my personal stuff in my pockets, including my watch. The - arrived at Southampton at midday on Saturday, and after still another train ride at last we got settled down in our present quarters. I had a great surprise here. I had been carried in from the ambulance on a stretcher, and had just been laid on the bed when another patient was brought in and put on the bed next to me. I turned to look who it was, and judge my surprise to find that it was a pal of mine named Hugh Ross, who had been wounded two days after me, and was on the same trains and boat as I was without my knowing. It was just the thing, as there was not another soul whom I knew, and I was feeling rather lonesome. A nice hot bath was very acceptable, and now I am as comfortable as I could possibly be. Any amount of good food, nice warm beds, and splendid treatment. The sisters and nurses are splendid, and nothing is too much for them to do.
My knocks are doing splendidly, although it will be at least three months before I am fit. I only hope the war will be over before then, as I have had an ample sufficiency. My address now is: C Company, 14th Battalion, A.I.F., c/o Australian Base Headquarters, 730 Horseferry road, London. The only letter from the shop that I have had since leaving England was one from Mr. Berriman last month. Well, I think I will bring this to a close, as it has taken me two days already to write. I hope and trust that every- body at the shop is well, and that there is plenty of graft about. Kind regards to all, and hoping to soon receive a long newsy letter from someone at the shop. - I remain, your old workmate, Laurie.'
'Laurie' Mitchell returned to Australia, embarking on 2 June 1919 on HMT Beltana.
Pegasus reported his death in 1946:
'Laurie G. Mitchell died suddenly at Geelong on January 6. He was well known in this district, particularly to servicemen of the 1914-18 war; he was severely wounded while serving as a stretcher-bearer with the 14th Battalion AIF, of which the Rev F W Rolland was chaplain. He was a popular member of Geelong Legacy Club, took an active part in the Anglers' Club and the Town Planning Association, and worked keenly in the interests of servicemen in the recent war.'
Sources: Geelong Advertiser 21 April 1917 p9; Pegasus June 1946 p54; Geelong Collegians at the Great War compiled by James Affleck. pp 263-264 (citing Pegasus; National Archives).