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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Telegram Home


Ozzie

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Has anyone come across instances of soldiers sending a telegram from Palestine to their families in cases of urgent need?

Cheers

Kim

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Guest daddendave

Yes

Family heirloom is wire from Cairo. No Mon No Fun Your Son.

Reply form is appended and says. Too bad So Sad Your Dad

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Yes

Family heirloom is wire from Cairo. No Mon No Fun Your Son.

Reply form is appended and says. Too bad So Sad Your Dad

and the time honoured, Dear mum sell the pig, buy me out. Dear Son, pig dead, soldier on.

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Dear Kim,

A touch off topic but one of the Australian prisoners of war captured at Gallipoli I did some research on, a Lieutenant L. H. Luscombe of the 1th Bn, captured on 8 August, managed to get a telegram home soon after being taken POW.

Listed as killed in action, Luscombe was taken to Istanbul and held in the building that housed the Ottoman War Ministry. Much to the amusement of his fellow officer POWs, Luscombe wrote a three word message, PRISONER, AM WELL, signed it and asked the Turks to send it to his mother. The telegram was delivered 11 days later to his home in Melbourne.

However, having been listed as KIA, after a court of inquiry, the officials in Australia refused to accept the telegram, labelling it a hoax. It took some time, and a lot of back checking, to prove the authenticity of the telegram and that Luscombe was indeed in the land of the living.

As I said, a bit off topic.

Cheers

Bill

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Just a quick note all, that should have been 14th battalion, not 1th as it appeared.

Luscombe survived captivity, as did all but one of the Australian officers captured by the Ottomans, the ORs not faring so well, with up to 50 percent of those captured at Gallipoli dying in captivity, though most were wounded when taken POW.

Bill

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Kim,

according to Luscombe's own account, when the dread clergyman came around to break the sad news of her son's death, Luscombe's mother said "My son is not dead. He is still living".

Luscombe put this conviction on his mother's part to the fact that the two had a close bond.

I wonder how many mother's in this war and others said the same thing when told of the loss of a loved one and how few were proved right?

Cheers

Bill

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The worst would have beeen the missing, not confirmed dead. Waiting for the war to end to see if they returned.

Kim

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