World War I, Family Hero- Harold Ernest Vidler

Harold Ernest Vidler, born 1891, near Goulburn in southern New South Wales, was the eldest child and son of George Angel James and Matilda Vidler (nee Law). He along with the rest of the family moved to northern New South Wales early in the 20th Century. By the outbreak of the First World War they had moved to Zillmere in Queensland.

When war broke out his brother Kenneth George quickly enlisted and soon encouraged his older brother to join him on the great adventure.

Harold Ernest Vidler enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces in Brisbane on the 4 May 1915. After several weeks of training he embarked on 20 August 1915 for Egypt on board the military transport Shropshire.[ Also on board was Cecil Vidler another ‘cousin’, the eldest son of George Stephen and Eliza Vidler (nee Harris), who was a van driver at Lismore when he enlisted.]

 On disembarking at Alexandria, Egypt it was found Harold Ernest Vidler had mumps and was admitted to hospital. He was discharged to his AIF unit on 9 November 1915 and sailed for Moudros on Lemnos Island heading for Gallipoli. He was looking forward to catching up with his younger brother, Kenneth George Vidler. He didn’t know at the time, but Kenneth George Vidler had been injured on Gallipoli on 21 August and had been medically evacuated to England. There was to be no grand reunion for the Vidler brothers after all.

 In early December it was decided to abandon the Gallipoli Peninsula and the Australia troops were taken off during the nights of 18 to 20 December 1915.

 Here is a link to a photograph of part of the evacuation through William’s Pier, North Head, on the Gallipoli Peninsular.

http://www.gallipoli.gov.au/north-beach-and-the-sari-bair-range/evacuation-of-anzac.php

Harold Ernest Vidler returned to Alexandria in Egypt on 4 January 1916 on board the transport ‘Grampian.’

After the Gallipoli campaigns most of the Australian Infantry departed for the Western Front in Europe. However many in the Australian Light Horse as well as some Australia infantry remained in Egypt as part of the ANZAC Mounted Division that took part in British Offenses pushing Turks and their allies across Palestine and Syria. These Australian and New Zealand mounted troops conducted long range reconnaissance patrols and raids deep into the desert.

Camel Corps were formed, as camels could achieve much more than horses in the dry dessert terrain

On the 5th February 1916 Harold Ernest Vidler was transferred to the Camel Corps and after minimal training he was taken on strength at Sollum. He took ill and was admitted to hospital and transferred to Alexandria by the Rasheed. After spending some time in the hospital, he returned to his unit on 18 November1916.

 Military conflicts took place in North Africa from 1914. The Senussi of Libya sided with the Ottoman Empire against the British. On 14 November 1914, the Ottoman Sultan proclaimed war and sought to create a diversion to draw British troops from the Sinai and Palestine campaigns. The Senussi Campaign took place in north Africa, from 23 November 1915 – February 1917.

In the summer of 1915, the Ottoman Empire persuaded the Grand Senussi, Ahmed Sharif, to attack British-occupied Egypt from the west, and encouraged insurrection in support of an Ottoman offensive against the Suez Canal from the east. The Senussi crossed the Libyan–Egyptian border at the coast in November 1915. British Empire forces withdrew at first and then defeated the Senussi in several engagements, including the Action of Agagia.

In January 1917 the victory of the Desert Column at the Battle of Rafa completed the capture of the Sinai Peninsula and brought the Egyptian Expeditionary Forces within striking distance of Gaza.

On 28 January 1917 Harold Ernest Vidler was transferred to No 2 Company of the 1st Australian Battalion of the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade as part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Forces, under Brigadier General Smith.

[Ref:From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_operations_in_North_Africa_during_World_War_I

The First Battle of Gaza was fought on 26 March 1917, during the first attempt by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force to take the territory around Gaza. Fighting took place all day and late in the afternoon, on the verge of capturing Gaza, the troops were withdrawn due to concerns about the approaching darkness and large Ottoman reinforcements. This defeat was followed a few weeks later by the even more emphatic defeat of the British Forces at the Second Battle of Gaza.

The Second Battle of Gaza was fought between 17 and 19th April 1917. In the three weeks between the two battles of Gaza, the Ottoman strengthened entrenchments and fortifications at Gaza which proved unassailable and disasterous with the British frontal attack. It was estimated the casualty rate for the Egyptian Expeditionary Forces approached fifty per cent, for very slight gains in this battle. Officially there were 6444 casualties with the Camel Brigade some 345 of these. -509 killed,4359 wounded and 1534 missing including 272 prisoners of war.

[Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Gaza]

 Harold Ernest Vidler was one of these. It was reported on 22 April 1917 that Harold Ernest Vidler had been wounded near Gaza during the battle on 19 April, but it was some time before his true fate was known.

The Australian Red Cross Society of Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau in London received a communique on 19 May 1917 from the Ottoman Red Crescent Society, dated 10 May, that Harold Ernest Vidler was a prisoner of war in Turkey. He had been admitted to the hospital at Zeyne Kiamil, Istanbul suffering a gunshot wound to the right knee. He had then been transferred to the Prisoner of War Camp at Psamatia. This camp was on the western outskirts of Istanbul and was formed around the Armenian Church of the Virgin Mary

We have no other information on Harold Ernest Vidler’s time as a prisoner of the Turks. It was many months before his family knew what had happened to him and he appeared in the official lists. However other prisoners told harrowing stories of forced labour and starvation.

Many Australian prisoners were assigned to work parties in the Taurus and Amanos Mountains and spent up to twelve hours a day quarrying, drilling tunnels, felling timber, laying track and blacksmithing on the Baghdad to Istanbul section of the Berlin- Istanbul Railway. Almost all were subjected to the same harsh living conditions and very limited supplies as their Ottoman captors. Feeding and clothing prisoners in the far reaches of the Ottoman Empire proved woefully inadequate owing to the logistical problem of sending Red Cross parcels from London, so many prisoners fell victim to sickness, hard labour and prolonged effects of malnutrition.

The personal effects of Harold Ernest Vidler, which remained at camp when he went into battle, were sent home to his parents in January 1918 by the ‘Wiltshire‘.

On the victory of the allied forces in the Middle East he was released on 6 November 1918 and repatriated to Alexandria in Egypt, along with many other surviving Australian prisoners. He embarked on the troop ship ‘Leicestershire’ on 23 December 1918 and headed home.

He was discharged on 19 March 1919 in Brisbane and returned to his parents farm at Chillingham.

This soldier was a first cousin of my paternal grandmother, Olive Pearl Vidler. However there was another personal link for my family history. My grandmother had married an Irishman in 1910 and settled on a dairy farm at Jackson’s Creek near Chillingham on the north arm of the Tweed River.

 Several Vidler families had migrated from southern New South Wales in the early 1900’s including my Great-Grandparents, Thomas Nathanial and Margaret Jane Vidler (nee Goodwin), and also Thomas’ younger brother, George Angel James Vidler and his family. However, by the beginning of World War I these families had moved to Queensland. George Angel James Vidler’s family settled at Zillmere in Brisbane, where two of the sons enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces in 1914 and 1915. In 1916, George Angel James Vidler, uncle to my grandmother returned to Chillingham and purchased the successful dairy from my grandparents, William and Olive Growcock (nee Vidler), who then moved to Tygalgah near Murwillumbah.

 

Other Vidler World War I Family Heroes blog posts include-

Frederick Cecil Vidler posted 25 April 2015

Harold Frederick Vidler posted 11 November 2015

Frederick Grenville Vidler posted 11 November 2015

Edward Herbert Vidler posted 14 November 2015

Sydney Vincent Vidler posted 27 November 2015

Kenneth George Vidler posted 10 February 2017

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World War I Family Hero – Edward Herbert Vidler

Edward Herbert Vidler, born 1883, was the second son and the third child of Thomas Nathaniel and Margaret Jane Vidler (nee Goodwin). In the family he was known as ‘Bert’.

He had grown up in the Shoalhaven area and migrated with the family when they moved north to settle on the north arm of the Tweeds River. The family took up land at Chillingham.

He enlisted in Brisbane on 27 October 1916, along with his younger brother Sydney Vincent, and went into Ennogera Camp. Their cousin Frederick Cecil Vidler, known as ‘Fred’ and also of Chillingham, enlisted the following month.

An article in the local newspaper the Tweed Daily, stated

“SEEING IT THROUGH

The following names are those, of local and district- boys, who, preferring the “wents” to the “sents,” have after ‘attestation; voluntarily enlisted’ for active service abroad” …. H. Vidler, S. V. Vidler, …. F. C. Vidler… and are now in the A;I.F.”

After several weeks of training Bert Vidler was attached to the 47 Battalion and embarked on the troopship Ayrshire on 14 January 1917, for England. When he arrived on 12 April he was sent to Codfield, on the Wiltshire plain for further training, before being sent to France on 16 July, along with his cousin ‘Fred’.

Within three weeks they were sent to Belguim and were engaged in the trenches in the lower ground west of the Passchendaele Ridge. Three months of constant shelling had made this flat landscape a crater filled no-mansland. On the night of 4^th October it began to rain which made the whole area a quagmire, and movement of men and equipment nearly impossible, although the German defences continued to shell constantly.

Bert Vidler was severely wounded in the left hand and was evacuated through Ypers to the coast. He embarked on the Peter de Conick for the 3^rd Auxilary Hospital at Dartford in England. He was later sent to Weymouth Convalence Camp No 2 to recover before being sent to Sutton Vesy No 1 Australian Command where there was a hutted military hospital of more than 1200 beds.

Appauling wet weather set in and he hadn’t been there long, when he became ill with a sore throat and cold, which turned into bronical pneumonia. He didn’t recover in the cold damp English weather and it was decided he was to return to Australia for a warm dry climate.

Bert Vidler embarked on the Suevic on 25 April 1918. On arrival in Australia he was discharged as medically unfit for any further service.

It is particularly sad that more than a hundred Australian men and women who had survived the terrible conditions and slaughter of the battlefield were to die at Sutton Veny of sickness, many on their way home.They are buried in the Sutton Veny Australian War Cemetery, which is administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

World War I, Family Hero – Sidney Vincent Vidler

Another blog in my series of family heroes.

Just as everyone’s challenges and experiences in life are different, so are the stories of our soldiers. Some died on the battlefield; some drowned in the water-filled trenches and shell- holes; and others survived the terrible carnage, and came back to their families horribly ‘broken’; although few families realized how ‘broken’, as they still had all their limbs. However, they may have been ‘gassed’; or had been prisoners of war and been starved and beaten, or they may have been so traumatized by years of ‘soldiering’ that they could no longer live in the ‘ordinary’ world as their minds would not allow them that peace.

Few ever considered the lives of those young men, who didn’t want to go to war. They were branded as cowards by both friends and family and were often sent ‘white feathers’, most anonymously. They felt coerced or compelled to ‘volunteer’ especially as the war dragged on for yet another year. Some were so desperate they injured themselves, so they would not be accepted into the military.

Then there were others who ‘volunteered’ and genuinely met with an accident whilst training. They were ‘injured’, so they were not accepted into service, and were sent home as medically unfit. Sadly these men were often treated with suspicion and were accused of ‘ducking’ military service, and they were unfairly targeted. Although I do not know for sure, I believe we had such a case in our family.

Sidney Vincent Vidler was born in 1885, the third son, and fourth child, of Thomas Nathaniel and Margaret Jane Vidler (nee Goodwin). He spent his early childhood on the South Coast of New South Wales near Kiama and migrated north with the family to northern New South Wales in the early 1890s. The family settled at Chillingham on the North Arm of the Tweed River.

‘Sid’ as he was known in the family, started assisting on the farm at an early age and didn’t return to school after the family moved north. He continued to work on the family farm, until his father sold and moved to Queensland in 1916.

Sidney Vincent Vidler enlisted on 27 October 1916, along with his brother, Bert, (Edward Herbert Vidler). Their younger brother, Harold Frederick Vidler, had enlisted more than twelve months before, and their first cousin, Ashley Haydon Vidler, who lived nearby, had also enlisted the previous year. Ashley’s younger brother, Frederick Cecil Vidler enlisted in November 1916.

See former blogs World War Family Heroes, Harold Frederick, and Edward Herbert Vidler posted on 11^th and 14^th November 2015, respectively, and Frederick Cecil Vidler, posted 25 April 2015.

Many war tales had reached Bert and Sid Vidler, by the time they signed on as volunteers in Brisbane, October 1916.

Military training was going well at the Enoggera Army Camp, when there was an accident at the rifle range on the 18^th December, and Sidney Vincent Vidler was shot in the foot. He was admitted to hospital, where it was found that a bullet had entered his left foot and lodged in the bone. The wound healed in a couple of weeks, and he returned to Enoggera, where his brother, Bert, and cousin, Fred,(Frederick Cecil Vidler), had nearly completed their basic training and were preparing to leave by troop-ship for England.

However when Sid resumed training it was found he couldn’t march or undertake further training due to pain in the foot, and he was returned to the hospital. It was suggested he undergo surgery for removal of the bullet, but it was explained that it was a very risky procedure at the time, as chloroform could be lethal, and there was no real guarantee that they could extract the bullet anyway. He declined to have the surgery. He was a patient in the hospital for over three months with little progress with his injury, as he still couldn’t walk properly, only limp. By this time his brother, Bert, and cousin Fred Vidler had already sailed for overseas service.

There was a military inquiry in early February 1917, but I have been unable to ascertain any further details of this accident. As he was not dishonorably discharged it certainly was not a self- inflicted wound, and his army records are notated with the comment- “Good Character”, so the mystery remains.

[Ref: Personel File of Sidney Vincent Vidler, Australian Archives, website at http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/NameSearch/Interface/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=8398220&isAv=N ]

He was discharged from the Australian Army on 24 April 1917, as medically unfit for duty, and returned home.

Sydney Vincent Vidler married Pearl Hayes later that year. They had several children. Their second son, Vincent Noel, enlisted in the Second World War. He died on 14 September 1944 and is memorialized on the Labuan Memorial in Malaysia.

Although, Sidney Vincent Vidler’s military story is a very brief one compared to that of his brothers’ and cousins’, I believe he should be included in the list of World War I family heroes just the same.

World War I,Family Hero- Edward Herbert Vidler

I continue to blog to honour our family members and their story as ‘volunteers’ in the Australian Imperial Forces in World War I.

Today I am writing about another of my paternal grandmother’s brothers, Edward Herbert Vidler.

Edward Herbert Vidler, born 1883, was the second son and the third child of Thomas Nathaniel and Margaret Jane Vidler (nee Goodwin). In the family, he was known as ‘Bert’.

He had grown up in the Shoalhaven area and migrated with the family when they moved north to settle on the north arm of the Tweed River. The family took up land at Chillingham.

He enlisted in Brisbane on 27 October 1916, along with his younger brother Sydney Vincent, and went into Ennogera Camp. Their cousin Frederick Cecil Vidler, known as ‘Fred’, and also of Chillingham enlisted the following month.

An article in the local newspaper, the Tweed Daily, stated

“SEEING IT THROUGH

The following names are those, of local and district- boys, who, preferring the “wents” to the “sents,” have after ‘attestation; voluntarily enlisted’ for active service abroad” …E. H. Vidler, S. V. Vidler,  F. C. Vidler… are now in the A.I.F.”

From his enlistment, much of his story can be found in his personnel file at the Australian Archives website at http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/.

After several weeks of training, Bert Vidler was attached to the 47 Battalion and embarked on the troopship Ayrshire on 14 January 1917, for England. His cousin, Frederick Cecil Vidler was also on board. When they arrived on 12 April they were sent to Codfield, on the Wiltshire plain for further training. They were transferred to France on 16 July..

We can follow the day to day action in the military diary for their unit in the 47^th Battalion through the Australian War Memorial website at https://www.awm.gov.au/

Soon after landing in France the 47^th was sent to Belgium and were engaged in the trenches in the lower ground west of the Passchendaele Ridge. Three months of constant shelling had made this flat landscape a crater filled no-mans land, but still, it was under heavy bombardment from the German trenches.

The allied attack on the Passchendaele Ridge was an attempt to break through to the Flanders coast so the German submarine ‘pens’ could be destroyed.

On July 18^th, 1917, a heavy artillery barrage was launched at the German line. This lasted for ten days. The wet weather was a problem, but the allied infantry forces inched forward with artillery cover. Fortunately, a change in the weather brought better conditions and on 20 September the ‘Battle of Menin Road’, was a small victory for the allied forces, amid the great loss of life.

The Australians were slowly moving forward towards the remnants of Polygon Wood, not far from Zonnebeke.

The 4th and 5^th Australian divisions were brought in on 26 September. This was the ‘baptism of fire’ for both the young Vidler cousins. The fighting was bloody as the German concrete pillboxes were in the path of the Australians and many thousands of men fell under the heavy shelling and machine-gun fire.

Bert Vidler was severely wounded in the left hand on 30 September and was sent to a field hospital. On the night of 4^th October it began to rain which made the whole area a quagmire, and movement of men and equipment nearly impossible, although the German defenses continued to shell constantly. The movement of casualties was also very difficult in the mud and wet weather, but Bert Vidler finally embarked on the Peter de Connick for England on 6 October, leaving his cousin ‘Fred’ behind. Sadly, ‘Fred’ was killed a few days later, although the family was not to know his fate for many months.

The story of Frederick Cecil Vidler was told in a former blog posted on 25 April 2015.

On his arrival in England, Herbert Edward Vidler was admitted to Edmonton Military Hospital in London. This was one of several hospitals in England given over to the care of wounded soldiers during the First World War. It was a special surgical hospital for orthopedic cases.

Although there are no military diaries to follow the story of a soldier for his surgery and recovery, we can gain much information from his personnel file. Further information and photographs from various websites, give us some idea of his experience.

Edmonton Military Hospital was in Silver Street, Edmonton and had two large red crosses on the front gates. Today it is the North Middlesex Hospital. Its wartime history can be found on the following website.

http://www.1900s.org.uk/1914-18-ww1-edm-military-hosp.htm

After he recovered from surgery Bert was sent firstly to Weymouth Convalescent Camp No 2 – (http://weymouthanzacs.moonfruit.com/the-camps/4575540279 ) before being sent to Sutton Veny No 1 Australian Command, where there was a hutted military hospital of more than 1200 beds. (http://www.suttonveny.co.uk/1st-world-war.html )

Appalling wet weather set in and Bert hadn’t been there long when he became ill with a sore throat and cold, which turned into bronchial pneumonia. He spent several months in the hospital there, but could not recover his health in the cold damp English weather.  It was decided he needed to return to Australia, to a warm dry climate.

Bert Vidler embarked on the Suevic on 25 April 1918. On arrival in Australia, he was discharged as medically unfit for any further service.

It is particularly sad that more than a hundred Australian men and women who had survived the terrible conditions and slaughter on the battlefield were to die at Sutton Veny of sickness, many on their way home. They were buried in the Sutton Veny Australian War Cemetery, which is administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

https://suttonveny.co.uk/war-cemetery.html 

Two photographs from the above website

World War I Family Hero- Frederick Cecil Vidler

Frederick Cecil Vidler, known as Fred, was born in 1892, the second son and fourth child of Frederick Ashley and Jane Vidler (nee Haydon), of the Berry area, in southern New South Wales. In the late 1890’s the family moved north to Chillingham, on the Tweed River, in northern New South Wales. He was also the first cousin of my paternal grandmother, Olive Pearl Vidler, whose family also moved from Kiama to Chillingham in the 1890’s.

In World War I, Frederick Cecil Vidler followed his older brother, Ashley Haydon Vidler, and several Vidler first cousins, into the Australian Imperial Forces.

He enlisted in Brisbane on 23 November 1916, soon after the defeat of the 1^st Australian referendum on ‘military conscription’, in October 1916.

Fred went into training at Enoggera Camp in north-western Brisbane, and on 21 January 1917 he embarked on the troop ship ‘Ayrshire’, as part of the 47^th Battalion. After several weeks at sea, he disembarked at Devonport in England, and was sent to the Australian camp at Codford on the Wiltshire plains, to undergo further training.

In early July 1917, he proceeded with his battalion to the port of Le Harve in France, and marched into the nearby camp of Rouelles. A few days later the 47^th was moved to Ypres, Belgium, where the Battle of Passchendaele was raging on the Western Front.

The Battle of Passchendaele fought from July to November 1917 is sometimes called the Third Battle of Ypres. Those that were there, later referred to it as the Battle of Mud.

The attack on Passchendaele was an attempt to break through to the Flanders coast so the German submarine ‘pens’ could be destroyed.

On July 18^th 1917, a heavy artillery barrage was launched at the German line. This lasted for ten days.The wet weather was a problem, but the infantry forces inched forward with artillery cover. Fortunately a change in the weather brought better conditions and on 20 September the ‘Battle of Menin Road’, was a small victory for the allied forces, amid great loss of life..

The Australians were slowly moving forward towards the remnants of Polygon Wood, not far from Zonnebeke.

The 4th and 5^th Australian divisions were brought in on 26 September.This was the ‘baptism of fire’ for young Vidler.The fighting was bloody as the German concrete pillboxes were in the path of the Australians and many thousands of men fell under the heavy shelling and machine gun fire.

Finally with artillery support, the Australian’s captured the Broodseinde Ridge on 4^th October. This was a most welcome and vital victory.

However, heavy rain began to fall making the area, which had been so heavily shelled in the weeks before, a deep quigmire, and both men and beast found it impossible to move forward leading to further heavy casualities.

On the night of 12^th October the Australians (and New Zealanders) launched another attack against Passchendaele, which was atop the main ridge, and heavily fortified by German troops. By now the fighting on the Eastern Front had crumbled and most of those German troops had been moved to the Western Front, particularly re-enforcing the Passchendaele Ridge.

Because of the water filled craters, deep mud and no cover, the Australian troops struggled to keep up with their artillery barrage. Ground was taken, but could not be held, and there was total carnage. Conditions were so devastating the attack was called off next day.

Frederick Cecil Vidler moved out with his Company on the night of the 12^th October moving toward the front line, but they came under heavy German artillery fire. Next day he was reported wounded, but with no further details. He appeared on the gazetted list for his unit and his father was advised accordingly on 6 December, some seven weeks later..

On the 10 December his father wrote to Australian Army Headquarters, enquirying how his son was wounded and what hospital he was in. By this time Fred’s older brother, Ashley Haydon Vidler, who had been badly wounded earlier in the year was recruperating in England.

An Australian Army Headquarters officer advised that there had been no further information, so it was probable that his son Private F C Vidler was progressing well, but he would enquire further to his whereabouts and health.

At this time no further information had come to light on the fate of Private Frederick Cecil Vidler and he was listed as ‘ missing in action’.

A Red Cross Wounded and Missing enquiry was launched and a number of soldiers were questioned about their knowledge of Private Frederick Cecil Vidler.

‘Private J B Finger of the 47^th was interviewed on a hospital ship some months later, on 17 April 1918 and said-

“ He was in C Company. I saw Vidler wounded at Passchendaele on Oct 13^th the night we came out. He came with us to Ypres and he was evacuated from there- as I know. Vidler was a big chap, fair- we called him ‘Fred’.

The Red Cross continued their enquiries . Another soldier of the 47^th W P Filand, reported,

“ There were two Vidlers in the Battalion (47^th), both in C company, who were cousins. About 1 January I was told by another Vidler who was the brother of one and the cousin of the other and is, I think, in the 49^th AIF, that F C Vidler was in hospital, wounded and doing very well. The news came from the cousins in C Company,  both were about 25 years and about 5 feet 11, but F C Vidler whose name was Fred had most of his front teeth out. My informant, Vidler was a very small man, 5, 2 or 3. He gave me the information about Jan 1 in camp near Cambrai.”

However, no further information could be found until his Battalion burial records were searched and it was found that ‘F C Vidler had been killed in action on 12 October 1917’ and had been buried ‘1000 yards SW Passchendaele, and 1000 yards NE Zonnebeke’.

A military inquest conducted by the 47^th Commanding Officer on 22 March 1918 found that- ‘F C Vidler had been killed in action on 12 October 1917- and his family were informed accordingly. His personal effects- listed as ‘four photos’- were packed ready for shipment back to his family. They were placed in ‘crate No 112’ aboard the cargo ship Barunga on 21 June 1918.

This cargo ship was made ready to return to Australia and left port in early July. However, it was torpedoed by a German submarine, as it left the English Channel on 15 July. Although all those on board were rescued, the cargo was lost.

For the rest of the war his family didn’t know what had happened to him. Only that he had been killed.

With the War Graves Commission’s work after the war all those lone graves and groups of the soldiers around Zonnebeke were exhumed and the remains brought in and buried in the Buttes New British Cemetery, in Polygon Wood. The largest percentage of these soldier remains could not be identified and have unnamed headstones.

However in September 1920, the War Graves Commission notified Private Frederick Cecil Vidler’s parents that his remains had been identified and buried in the Buttes New British Cemetery, and asked if they had any wishes concerning wording and symbols on his headstone. The following year they received from the Commission photographs of his grave.

Frederick Cecil Vidler

(This photograph was supplied by the family for the publication, “Australia’s Fighting Sons of the Empire”, p.136, 1918).

Last year we undertook a pilgrimage to the World War I Battlefields of the Western Front, and visited many cemeteries and memorials, where we honoured family members, many of whom had lost their lives in that terrible conflict. I blogged about some of our experiences as well as the stories of our family heroes.

World War I Family Hero- Gunner L A Bell – Passchendaele, posted 20 October 2014, and Australian World War I Battlefield Tour- Polygon Wood, posted 27 October 2014 are two postings that should be read with this post, as they give more information about these places.

This year I have continued family research, including identifying and researching more family heroes, who went to World War I. This included the above Private Frederick Cecil Vidler, who was a first cousin of my grandmother. As his story unfolded we realized we had visited the Butte New British Cemetery, where he is now buried. Although a little disappointed that we didn’t know it at the time, we have now pulled out all our photos and maps of that cemetery, and are able to identify just where he rests in peace.

Here I stand at the end of the row where Private F.C. Vidler is buried . His headstone is just off my left shoulder.