Battles between ANZACs and Turks raged in the passes, ridges and gullies of Gallipoli for days after the historic landing on April 25, 1915. An eyewitness, fighting in the hills eight days later, reported:
“Dawn. Oh God, only 250 of our battalion left – there has been a ceaseless stream of wounded, many cases have died on the way down, until in most places the narrow pass is so cumbered with dead and badly wounded that it is becoming impassable –it’s horrible.”
Somewhere, sometime, during ferocious fighting on May 3, Busselton-born, Private Vernon Bovell, a machine gunner with the WA 11th battalion, was shot in the wrist; a survivable wound that may have been in answer to a hometown prayer.
Bovell was born in Busselton to Clara and William and educated at the local Christian Brothers’ College.
At enlistment, Bovell said he had previously served with the 88th (Perth) Infantry Regiment, he was single, aged 20 years and was employed as a clerk with the West Australian Bank, Perth.
Bovell enlisted on 18 September, 1914, as a private with the 11th Bn, Machine Gun Company. A comrade was Pte Dudley Anderson whose story was told in last week’s Busselton Dunsborough Mail.
The local community honoured these two young men before they departed for foreign shores. At Busselton’s Weld Hall, people gathered to farewell Anderson and Bovell.
The mayor said: “Just as they were obedient footballers in years past, we knew they would prove valuable soldiers. The wish, or perhaps the prayer, of the people of Busselton was that God would protect her boys, and bring them safely home again covered with glory.”
Pte Bovell embarked with the 1st Convoy on 2 November, 1914, onboard HMAT Ascanius. He arrived in Egypt for further training before he embarked on HMT Suffolk for the Gallipoli landing.
As part of the 11th Bn, Pte Bovell would have been among the first to land and to be plunged into the early, deadly ongoing battles.
Pte Bovell’s wound was serious enough for him to be evacuated to Heloian in Egypt and it was a further month before he was returned to duty. He did not return to Gallipoli. Pte Bovell was transferred to the newly-raised 13th Field Artillery Brigade.
Several months later, Gunner Bovell was sent to the Western Front where the brigade was involved in many of the significant battles of WW1. Bovell was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the period leading up to the third battle of Ypres, Belgium, that began in July 1917.
The guns of the AIF were brought into action to the north and south of the Menin Road in support of the massive opening bombardment of the new offensive. Over ten days around 3,000 guns fired some 4,250,000 shells at the German lines. The noise was heard in London 190km away; An eyewitness reported:
“The concussion is simply awful. No one could ever imagine it unless they had actually experienced it. Nothing but great spurts of flame, screaming and sizzling of shells, and banging and crashing of big guns.
At times it becomes so terrific . . . it is simply one great throbbing, pulsating, jolting, roaring inferno.”
Many Australian artillerymen were killed by German counter–shelling. 2nd Lt Bovell was killed on 15 September, 1917. He has no known grave but is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), Belgium.
2Lt Bovell’s brothers, Cecil and Roy, also served in WW1 and both returned to Australia.
Acknowledgements and thanks:
Local resident, Joy Dalgleish, who researched the names on the Busselton Cenotaph.
Busselton Public Library for its help and access to records.
