Trish Skehan is a longstanding member of the City of Canada Bay Heritage Society and has a keen interest in history. She has authored a number of books including the “Walkers of Yaralla” and “Frontline of the Pandemic: Australia 1919” that are for sale at the Museum.
Trish’s latest book “The Secrets of ANZAC Ridge: In Flanders Fields” reveals personal accounts and stories about the Anzac experience on the Western Front during World War I, particularly focusing on Anzac Ridge in Flanders, Belgium. Trish uses diaries and letters from individuals like James Armitage and General Sir John Monash to paint a picture of the human cost of war, interweaving their experiences with those of other soldiers, doctors, nurses, and more.
The following article was used in the Secrets of ANZAC Ridge: In Flanders Fields.
Silent Memories – from Joanne McCarthy. Newcastle Herald, November 1999.
The following article, reprinted with permission from the Newcastle Herald, recalls the life of Jim Armitage, one of eight classmates from Sydney Grammar School, who enlisted in May 1917. Assigned to an Artillery Field Brigade, against all odds, eight boys survived the war. Their names appear on the school’s Honour Board or their Returned Soldiers’ board.
Jim’s previously un-published diary, written over two years when they were in training, in transit to Flanders, surviving on the battlefields, and then returning home, form the basis of a book being published by Hachette, for Anzac Day 2025. Titled The Secrets of Anzac Ridge: In Flanders Fields, by Patricia Skehan, we follow the life of Jim and his boys, as they survive famous battlefields; Ypres, Perrone, Amiens, Villers-Bretonneux, Montbrehain.
Life, in and out of the trenches, is vividly described by the young teenager, often sounding more like a mature, battle-hardened soldier. The book is set mainly around a small town called Steenwerck, containing the 2nd Australian Casualty Clearing Station near Anzac Ridge in Flanders, a base for the secret headquarters of Sir John Monash, head of the 5 Australian divisions in Flanders. Monash’s relatives have given permission for Sir John’s diary entries that coincide with, or corroborate, Jim’s memories, to be included in the manuscript.
Filled with wartime drama, pathos, and humour, additional Anzac stories are sourced from letters written by soldiers of several divisions. As the Field Artillery used horses to haul the heavy limbers – waggons moving artillery guns around the battlefield – there is much text about their interaction with the brave horses, many of whom were also killed in the battles.
After the war, and then surviving Spanish ‘flu, Jim became a guinea-pig for testing government-produced vaccines. Joanne’s article follows:
‘War veterans tend to settle into one of two camps. The smaller camp is of men who are willing to talk to their families, friends, and the occasional journalist about their war years.
‘The larger camp, by far, includes men such as World War I veteran James (Jim) Armitage of Kincumber, who won’t talk about it.’
Joanne recalled, ‘Out of politeness, Jim told me about how his money belt, filled with the proceeds from two-up games, came between him and an exploding shell. He even laughed when I joked that two-up saved his life. He said that he got the job of selling the infantry’s horses in France after the war because he was about the only Australian who could speak French. But he would never speak about the horrors he saw and experienced in the French Villers-Bretonneux area, the details of which are kept in the diary that he wrote in 1918.’
Jim explained that people who had not lived through the war could not really understand it. ‘I don’t know how many people have quoted me the line that war is 90 per cent boredom and 10 per cent excitement. That is not boredom. It is something else that only someone who has been there can relate to. How can you describe sitting in the trenches for long periods of time as sheer boredom when you know that, at any second, you could be dead?’
Jim said that he has never been keen on Anzac Day services, feeling notorious as one of the few surviving WWI veterans. He never liked that label but appreciated the fuss that was being made for his 100th birthday when, surrounded by family, friends and acquaintances, Jim was awarded the Chevallier Medal of Honour by Australia’s French Consul-General.
Jim quipped, “About eighty years too late!”
Trish Skehan
