Great Scot September 2018 Gt Scot_154_September_online | Page 17

ABOVE: FROM LEFT; ALLAN PERCY RUPERT EVANS (1904), RALPH OSWALD ELLINGWORTH (1912), WALTER BRUCE FYFE (1913), GEORGE ROBINSON JOHNSTON (1914), GEORGE RICHARD ROUSE (1902)
nearly 37 on enlistment. He served at Gallipoli,
where he did so well, partly as a ‘bomb maker’,
that only the fact that he contracted dysentery
kept him from promotion as an officer. Illness
dogged him for the rest of his life. After serving
in France, in July 1917 he was sent home
with colitis and discharged from the army. He
continued to suffer from dysentery and from
great mental anguish categorised as ‘shell
shock’. On 6 June 1918 Hilton took his own life.
The local RSL branch gave him a full military
funeral.
LORENZO JOHN LODGE (1911) served as
an artilleryman on the Western Front in 1917,
where he was evacuated in September with
tuberculosis. This was ascribed at the time
to ‘active service’, and it seems that he was
exposed to enemy poison gas shell explosions
at Ypres. He died at a Military Sanatorium in
Melbourne on 15 June, aged 23.
JOHN HOWARD CHERRY (1912) was just 20
on enlistment. He served as an infantry NCO
on the Western Front in 1917 and 1918. John
married a local girl in England in March 1918, but
returned to the front in time to fight at Villers-
Bretonneux in April. He was killed at Morlancourt
on 4 July.
ALAN MERVYN DAVIES (1910) was badly
wounded at Pozieres in 1916. After rejoining the
infantry in 1918, the 25 year old was killed by a
shell at Villers-Bretonneux on 17 July. His brother
Herbert had fallen in 1916.
ALEXANDER MAXWELL ROBERTSON (1907)
was a Prefect and a fine sportsman at Scotch.
He won a Military Cross as a captain in 1918.
A fellow officer described him as a ‘wonderful
Company Commander.’ Alexander was killed
during a ‘hopover’ on 29 July. General Hobbs,
Alexander’s divisional commander, called him
‘one of the finest characters I have ever met’.
After enlisting at 19, WALTER BRUCE (known
as Bruce) FYFE (1913) served on Gallipoli. He
was killed serving with the 57th Battalion when
they played a key role on 8 August 1918, ‘the
Black Day of the German Army’. An Old Wesley
Collegian said of Bruce: ‘He played the game
right through to the finish.’
LEONARD SADLER GILL (1912), who had
also enlisted at 19, died in the same battle. At
Harbonnieres, a German projectile detonated
a phosphorous grenade that he was carrying,
causing fatal burns. His commanding officer
wrote that had Leonard lived, he would have
been awarded a medal for his ‘gallantry & dash
during this fight.’
WILLIAM MINIFIE FIELD (1896) enlisted at
age 36 in 1917. He was mortally wounded by
machine-gun fire near Pozieres.
CHARLES REGINALD (known as Reg)
PERRIN’S (1892) military career was full of bad
luck. After enlisting at 38, he was hospitalised
successively with a sprained ankle, a sore throat,
trench fever, a severe gunshot wound, and burns.
His luck ran out entirely on 9 August, when a
shell fragment killed the former schoolteacher.
LORIMER JAMES (known as Laurie) VIAL
(1907) first fought in 1916 at Pozieres, where he
was promoted to second lieutenant. He became
a full lieutenant after Ypres in 1917. Laurie was
killed by a sniper on 9 August after leading a
successful flanking action. A subordinate called
him ‘one of the finest fellows the battalion ever had.’
ALLAN PERCY RUPERT EVANS (1904) was
wounded in the head in 1917 and was later
the sole survivor of an explosion on a post in
which he was sheltering. In June 1918 he was
wounded in the hand. Shortly after returning to
the front, the 30 year old was shot dead during
an advance on 10 August. Allan’s mother wrote
to the Red Cross, seeking to learn how her ‘dear
boy’ died. It was, she said, ‘so simple to write
but so hard to be resigned.’
HERBERT FRASER (known as Mac)
MORRISON (1908) originally served as a private
with other Scotch boys in the 5th Battalion’s
Public Schools Company. He was in the Gallipoli
landing, in which he was wounded. After
returning he was made an officer in August 1915.
A year later, on the Western Front, a gunshot
wound necessitated the removal of his left eye.
Mac applied repeatedly for permission to return
to the front and did so in May 1917. At Ypres
that year he earned a Military Cross. After a
third wound in May 1918, on 10 August he was
mortally wounded at Lihons.
HARRY INNOTT NAYLOR (1890) claimed to
be 36 on enlistment, but was in fact 41, and the
Principal of Rosalie Primary School in Western
Australia. He rose from private to lieutenant and
was wounded in April 1917. On 10 August 1918
he was one of seven officers in his battalion killed
in close-range fighting at Lihons.
With the end of the war in sight, another 28
Scotch Collegians were to die before year’s end.
More details about all other Scotch Collegians
killed in World War I can be found on the Scotch
website, under ‘WWI Commemorative Website’
on the lower right of the home page.
DR MARK JOHNSTON — HEAD OF HISTORY
www.scotch.vic.edu.au Great Scot
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