Wale Philip George

[Guest gumbirsingpun]

hi guys,

here is a letter i thought you might be interested to read

'Dear Sergt Garlick, I have just received your note re Phil Wale.

I am afraid all I can tell you about him, will be all the news you are likely to get. I may be mistaken, I hope that I am, for I have been away from the front for two months, and some news may have come through in my absence, let us hope that there has; but I will tell you all that I know about him. On the 25th April, three platoons of our company landed at a place called Fisherman's Hut, to draw the fire of the enemy, which we did; 26 was all that were able to fix bayonets. I will leave you to imagine the rest. Phil got a bullet through the heel, but refused to go back with the wounded. He got his commission three days after. On the 5th May our Brigade was ordered down to Cape Helles, & we arrived there the next day and went into bivouac. Our orders being that we were to be in reserve to the British Troops. At noon on the 8th May, we got orders to go teo miles inland and dig in for the night; we had everything comfortable for the night by 5 P.M. A few minutes after 5 we got orders to move to an attack on a hill called Achi Baba. At 5/30p.m, just before we started, Phil came up and shook hands-- 'Good bye old chap, there will be plenty of promotion after this" - Those are the last words he spoke to me. We got into artillery formation, our company were the first to go.

Phil was directing two sections where to go, I could see him all the time, he was limping pretty badly through the wound that he got on the landing, but that did not stop him from keeping up with his men, who were getting blown out on all sides. We had gone about half a mile through the concentrated shrapnel fire, losing section after section with it, when all of a sudden we tumbled into some trenches which proved to be the British front line. That is the last I saw of Phil Wale. You have probably read about the charge that we made from those trenches, so it is not much use telling you about it; all I can say is that we lost 1700 in the Brigade -- killed & wounded, and the company that Phil was in had only (19) nineteen left when I counted them the next morning.

You can now picture that battlefield, as flat as a table, and judge for yourself the great difficulty it was to identify anyone; dozens and dozens of our lads bodies helped to make the paradoses and parapets of the trench that we dug. Certainly as many discs as possible were collected off the dead, but in many cases it was certain death to try and get the discs off some of them. I don't think that this was Phil's fate, because he was not seen by anybody that I questioned in the charge. The chances are that if he was killed, he was killed getting into Tommie's trenches, and the silly block-heads have buried him without taking his effects off him. --

There is one thing certain, and that is, he is not a prisoner; because not one man went beyond where we dug in. The question is a puzzler because not a man that I questioned, saw him after we got into the Tommie's trenches. I am inclined to think that his fate was what I said before, that is, the Tommie's have buried him with his disc. If he was alive when he got into the trench, he would have most certainly been in the charge, because he was a chap that would not funk it. I think that is all the news there is about him at present, but I never give up hope, because some of our chaps have turned up just lately that have been away since the first day, that we thought were dead. I will write to Phil's father--------- (signed) Hector E. Basin. Lt.' (Letter dated 25th October 1915, Hotel Al Hayet, Helouan, Egypt).

'WALE - On the 8th May, 1915, died of wounds at Cape Helles, Gallipoli (previously reported wounded and missing), Second-Lieutenant Phillip George Wale, late of Colonial Bank of Australasia, Loch, and beloved eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. G. E. Wale. Euroa, aged 20 years.' (The Argus 21 Jan 1916 p1).

altough i have been looking into as many maps as possible, none o them has given me a clue as to the position of Tommies' Trench at helles,

tuna