My father and two of his brothers were Light Horsemen who
took part in the world's last great cavalry charge at 
Beersheba
during World War One.
They were three of the 11 sons of John and Margaret Dwyer of Galong
Vale, a sheep station at Beanbri near Walgett. The twins, Pierce
Ignatius and William Augustus and their younger brother Fonce -
Vicent Alphonsus - joined the First AIF on the same day and took
their best stockhorses with them to the 12th Light Horse Regiment.
The three left Beanbri railway siding with a send-off dutifully
reported by Walgett town's newspaper which recorded that landholders
and their families from miles around took part. In those days brothers
could be in the same platoon of the same battalion of the same regiment.
The practice, after the losses in the First World War, was abolished
early in World War Two.
The Twelfth Light Horse trained in Egypt and in the Middle East
took part in the battles of Katia, Romani and the famous charge
for the watering wells at the biblical Beersheba. Fortunately the
three brothers survived, especially the vital victory of Beersheba,
so graphically described, in his book on the Light Horse, by author
Ian Idriess.
Military historians say the regiment played a vital role in turning
the battle from a stalemate to a conquest that enabled the men to
rest and the horses to water (there was no other). It was also a
vitla stage in the final victory in Palestine.
Pierce, Will and Fonce were all close to the action at Beersheba.
Will had the heel of his boot shot off, Pierce took a shrapnel graze
and Fonce suffered a flesh wound to the arm.
They were repatriated to Australia where eache, after demobbing,
returned to grazing. Fonce went to Quilpie in Queensland where he
called his property Romani, after the battle he took part in. Pierce
did the same with land he held near the opal mining settlement of
Grawin. Will also went to Quilpie but didn't name his property after
their shared battle.
I, Norma Scull of Bensville, am the only child of Pierce. Fonce's
son Noel lives in Brisbane. Will never married.
My mother's brother, James O'Brien of Come-By-Chance in north west
New South Wales, also served as an infantryman in the Great War
and took part in the battle of the Somme.
FROM A NEWSCLIPPING
SUPPLIED BY NORMA & KEN SCULLY
