Frank Creese McCoubrie

BA history & Politics: Dip. Professional Writing & Editing

Frank Creese McCoubrie was born in 1895 and lived at 5 Droop Street, Footscray. In 1898 his Father Alfred died at the age of 31 and his mother Maud remained a widow until she died in 1952 at the age of 83.

In 1911 Frank turned sixteen and went into the army reserve. His record shows that he weighed 92lb and had good eyesight. By 1914, still in the reserve, he’d put on another 28lb but his eyesight was shown as defective and he was working as a grocer.

However, among the other young men in Droop Street, there was an electrician, a linesman and an electrical wireman who may have been Frank’s mates and who may have influenced his thinking, because he gave up being a grocer to take up an electrical apprenticeship with H Rowe & Co, Electrical Engineers of 507 Flinders Street Melbourne. He also became a member of the Electrical Trades Union.

But at this time, posters around town were calling for men to come forward to represent their country in a time of war, and some were also asking if those who didn’t come forward were cowards. Maybe they fed Frank’s sense of pride and adventure because in April 1916, with a letter of support from his employer, he went up to Trades Hall to enlist in the Australian Infantry Force.

Frank’s letter from his Employer; National Archives of Australia

An irony that may have been lost on Frank was that, at Trades Hall, the unions were orgnanising their condemnation of the Government’s intent on conscription while at the same time providing a place for working men and women, like Frank, to go and sign up to fight.

Mrs McCoubrie’s son wanted to go to war. How did she feel about that? Did she know of the grief of Mrs Adams at number 58, whose son Billy had gone to Gallipolli and wouldn’t be coming home? Had she heard her sobbing? Did Mrs McCoubrie try to influence Frank’s decision at a time when the threat of a white feather hung heavy over any young man who could fight yet wasn’t in uniform?

Weighing in at 180lb and no mention of a defective eyesight, Frank was accepted into the AIF 58th Battalion of the 5th division on 1 May 1916.  And it would be fair to say his mum would have had an ache in heart as she saw her son go off for basic training.

Keen to be a good soldier Frank wrote things to remember in his little leather notebook: how to advance in formation and how that formation differed between night and day. He noted how to use his bayonet when coming face to face with his enemy. “The bayonet no good without training… Points: long points, short point jab. Consider distance; long point from 4to 5 feet from him and drilled at opponent’s throat. Short point about 3 feet at opponent’s heart or thigh; jab 1or 2 feet. How to get bayonet out: it may seem easy from a bag of straw; the bayonet is supposed to go in about 3 to 4 inches.”

As her son learnt how to kill a bag of straw, did his mum comfort other mothers in Droop Street mourning their boys who wouldn’t be coming back?  Of the 32 soldiers from Droop Street who went to war, four would never come back.

Frank’s training notebook; McCoubrie Family

Maud said of her son that he gave up his stripes gained at Officer’s School at Geelong to sail with the reinforcements as a signaler. And so it was that on 26 September 1916 Frank boarded the HMAT A9 Shropshire bound for England.

 Hurdcott Camp in Wiltshire   The Australian War Memorial

 Medicals at Hurdcott Camp

The Australian War Memorial

He disembarked in Plymouth on 11 November and by 21st November was in training at the Hurdcott camp in Wiltshire where he stayed for close on four months. Maybe it was there that he met Ethel. But who was she; a girlfriend maybe? The McCoubrie family would never know. Whoever Ethel was she sent Frank off to war knowing she would be waiting:

Dear Frank, Just a card saying how sorry I am you cannot see me before you go away. I would very much like to say goodbye the same as I did at Waterloo. They are not supposed to send you out until you are 19. Well Frank, I am 19 and 4 months. I will have a nice photo taken to send to you and I shall always look forward to letters and your coming home. I will write a letter later. Yours Ethel. xxx

Training at Hurdcott Camp; The Australian War Memorial

On 19 March 1917 Frank left England from the port of Folkestone, to join his 58th battalion on the battlefields of France just as the battles for the Hindenburg line were beginning. The AIF 4th division moved into the Bullecourt Sector for the first battle of Bullecourt on April 10, but two thirds of the division were slaughtered at it was withdrawn from front. New strategies were planned and a second battle in May saw gains made. On May 12 Frank’s 58th battalion moved into position to defend those gains. Frank, with a company telephone, was by the side of the road that runs between Bullecourt and Reincourt, and close to the village of Bullecourt. What happened next is best described by soldiers who were there:

Driver, Crawford Hocking, was Frank’s mate; ‘I was alongside him when he was killed by a shell during the hop over at Bullecourt. He was badly knocked about. He was buried where he fell. We were neighbours in civilian life and were particular friends. He came from Footscray, Australia.’

Signaller, Reg Mead, of the 58th battalion was in sight of Frank and the other soldiers; ‘I saw him go into a dugout at Bullecourt; there were 6 of them in it and a shell lodged there about 10/15 minutes after I saw him go in. I saw it burst. I don’t know who the others were; they were all killed. I don’t think he was buried at all, the fighting was too hot then and we were relieved the next day.’

Private, Tom Maroney saw it from another vantage point; ‘McCoubrie and some other men were in a deep shaft with the company telephone… I saw a shell fall on top of the shaft and blow it completely in. There was no hope of getting these men out and I’m quite sure that McCoubrie and his companions were buried alive.’

Diggers at play: Frank is front right, lying down. McCoubrie Family.

The field service report dated 18 May 1917 said:

“McCoubrie, Frank, Creese; In the Field; Killed in Action… Particulars not yet to hand.” But that information still had to be conveyed to those back in Australia.

How Maud McCoubrie was told of her son’s death is not known but she must have taken comfort from Reverend Goble, a friend who wrote to her from London as soon as he heard. She kept his letter for the rest of her life:

2nd page of Reverend Goble’s letter to Mrs McCoubrie; Mcoubrie Family

Dear Mrs McCoubrie, It is with deep regret that I read of your bereavement. It brings this war nearer to us when those we love are taken. I looked back across the seas to your place in Droops St and thought of Frank when a little lad whom Roy and I used to play with… How proud you must be of him and the memory of him… You can take your own stand side by side with the Commonwealth’s mothers who have paid the price. Still I can well understand that the grief of your loss well outweighs the honour and, though your heart is sore, it is well to remember that the Word says “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend.” …May God comfort and bless you in your sorrow… I remain yours sincerely, S.B. Goble.

Like many others at the butchery of Bullecourt, Frank’s body was never found. And to this day, along with many others, he still lies somewhere beneath the soil of the Bullecourt farmlands.

References:

The McCoubrie Family

Red Cross files: The Australian War Memorial, Canberra
The AIF Project, UNSW@ADFA, Canberra 2003-2011
National Archives of Australia, Canberra

Books:

Blair, Dale; Dinkum Diggers: An Australian Battalion at War; Melbourne University Press; Carlton South, 2010
Gammage, Bill; The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War; Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 2001

Photos:

The McCoubrie Family
The Australian War Memorial