Time for some Newman Nostalgia and today, on Remembrance Day, we remember 110th Howitzer Battery Driver John ‘Jack’ Drew who was born in Northampton, Western Australia, in 1896. He was the second child and oldest son of Thomas, the editor of the Geraldton Express newspaper, and his wife Susan, of Marine Terrace, Geraldton.
Jack was a founding student at St Ildephonsus College (SIC), New Norcia, the earliest of Newman College’s antecedent schools, and attended from its first year in 1913, to 1914.
Jack was working as a farmhand when he enlisted in January 1916, aged 19. He was assigned to the Artillery.
The 1917 SIC Yearbook reported Jack "received his artillery training in Maribyrnong (Victoria) and Salisbury Plains (England), leaving for the front in January of this year. He had been in the firing line from then … without sustaining even a scratch, although he took part in all the big engagements in which heavy guns were employed.”
Apart from several hospitalisations with various illnesses which kept him safely out of action for some time, he had a particularly narrow escape on 14 June 1917 when, "during a brief interval while he was engaged in special work to which he had been detailed - the ammunition dump, near which he would otherwise have been - was blown up by a German shell.”
Shockingly, 19 of his comrades were killed.
It was a devastating loss and shortly after that, on 30 June 1917, Jack made out his will in favour of his mother.
Nearly four months later, on 13 October 1917, at Poperinge, Belgium, Jack was in action when he received shrapnel wounds to the abdomen. He was admitted to the 14th Casualty Clearing Section where he died the next day.
Jack, our second SIC Old Boy to die at war, was buried at Nine Elms British Cemetery just south of Poperinge, the same day.
The Geraldton Guardian of 5 January 1918 reproduced a letter Jack’s parents received from Sister Sippard, the nurse who looked after Jack in his last hours. She wrote from France on 15 October 1917, two days his death that Jack had been admitted to her hospital suffering from severe abdominal wounds.
"We were able to make his last hours comfortable, but his wounds were too severe for us to do anything for him and he died at 11:20 pm on Sunday, 14th Oct. The RC Chaplain saw him several times before he died. He will be buried in the cemetery here, and his grave will be marked with a cross. You will be able to get the names of this place from the address appended, as I am not allowed to tell you.”
There was probably little else she could say, but she closed kindly with, “your son was too ill to dictate a letter, but sent his love to you and all his friends.”
Jack was 21 when he died. In time, his effects were sent to his grieving parents, including Jack’s Rosary, a silver chain, letters, a gold cufflink, a badge, wallet, coins, and a religious medallion. They also received his British War and Victory Medals.
Lest We Forget.
