Born
Tea Tree Gully, South Australia, August 14, 1899.
Died Barmera, South Australia, July 26, aged 102.
With the death of Albert Whitmore, Australia loses its last
living link to the legendary Light Horse that captured Beersheba
in World War 1.
This was history's last great cavalry charge, where Australia's
General Harry Chauvel's horsemen captured on October 31, 1917, a
strategic water-rich desert town held by Turkish and German forces.
Although considered an impossible mission by Britain's commander-in-chief
Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, country-born Australian riders succeeded
by reaching Beersheba before enemy artillery could be lowered sufficiently
to stop them.
Chauvel's daughter Elyne Mitchell (auther of Silver Brumby) reported
that when a humbled Allenby saw wide trenches surrounding Beersheba
and asked Chauvel how is horsemen had negotiated these obstacles,
the straight-talking bushman replied: "We jumped the bloody
things!" Chauvel's brother Charles immortalised the stunning
victory in his romantic 1940 film, Forty Thousand Horsemen.
This was also the Light Horse recruited by Lawrence of Arabia, who
mustered 20,000 Allied horsemen to liberate Damascus in October
1918, when Chauvel's riders helped capture 4000 prisoners, effectively
ending the war in Palestine. The Light Horse had burst through enemy
lines at Sarona, advanced at breakneck speed, fighting enemy couterattacks
day and night for two weeks before joining Lawrence of Arabia and
the Emir Feisal, who led the Arab Norther Army into Damascus along
with the Australians. Australian historians claim Australia's 10th
Light Horse reached Damascus first, despite official reports by
T. E. Lawrence that he and Fiesal arrived first. Surprised by their
cavalier approach to fighting, Lawrence later wrote: "Nobody
enjoyed this action more than the light-hearted Australians, who
approached it like a game of point to point."
By birth, upbringing and training, Whitmore fitted into this mould
perfectly. Born, as he said, "way out in the bush" in
the then hamlet of Tea Tree Gully, 20km north of Adelaide, he was
put in the saddle before he could walk. His first job on leaving
primary school was mustering sheep on horseback. The 17-year-old
was still riding to and from his Adelaide Hills job as an apprentice
baker when he enlisted on March 5, 1917, putting his age up and
passing the riding test at first go. Trained in Mitcham in South
Australia and in Seymour, Victoria, he joined the 9th Light Horse
Regiment and sailed for Prot Suez. He was taught desert warfare
before joining the campaign at Gaza, just west of Beersheba, which
his countrymen had just captured. The 9th Light Horse then liberated
Gaza from Turkish and German occupation to open the way to Jerusalem.
Whitmore rode into the fray for the successful third battle for
Gaza.
Riding north along the Mediterranean coast, they occupied Jaffa,
Bethlehem and finally Jerusalem. "It was like riding through
the Bible," Whitmore said. He then served in the Jordan Valley
with the 9th, and "rode off at a gallop" on the famous
Es Salt Raid in April 1918 to help Allied Light Horse advance from
the east towards enemy positions in Palestine still held by enemy
forces. In this operation, led on the ground by Brigadier William
Grant, they rode over the high plateau at Moab to the River Jordan,
helping to gain and then guard an Allied crossing despite enemy
fire at Es Salt. When enemy forces couterattacked from the west
over the river, cutting off the easier of two escape routes, they
had to retreat. With casualties and disease, they had only 800 effective
rifles remaining. "As soon as our meagre rations were consumed,"
Whitmore recalled, "we decided to try and ride our way out
of the trap." They climbed over "terrible limestone cliffs
and crags like mountain goats" to get away. Many horses fell
hundreds of metres to their death. But, like the evacuation at Gallipoli,
their successful retreat passed into textbooks as one of history's
most epic retreats.
Whitmore's adventures were cut short when he contracted malaria
during a record-breaking Jordan Valley heat wave. "When one
of our chaps saw me, he said: 'We'll never see Whit again' - but
they carted me off to hospital and I pulled through," he said.
On recovery, Whitmore served as army camp quartermaster at Ezbekieh
Gardens, Cairo, before setting sail for Australia in August 1919,
having served two years.
Farewelling the Australian Light Horse, Allenby thanked them for
helping "conquer Palestine and Syria". He said, "the
Australian light horseman combines a splendid physique and restless
activity of mind, rendering him somewhat impatient of rigid and
formal discipline, but giving him the gift of adaptability mounted
or on foot. Eager in advance and staunch in defence, the Australian
light horseman has proved himself equal to the world's best, earning
the gratitude of the Empire and admiration of the world".
Back in Adelaide, Whitmore returned to Tea Tree Gully by horse and
buggy before setting off again on horseback with a government surveying
party to pioneer the Riverland, founding the town of Barmera. He
helped build the town, becoming the local butcher for most of his
life. He married Kathleen Whitehead in 1931 and fathered two children,
Murray and Shirley. He also served with the Engineers in World War
2 as staff sergeant and was presented with the 80th Anniversary
Armistace Remembrance Medal in 1999. Whitmore leaves two children,
eight grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
With his death there are 13 veterans remaining from World War 1.
JONATHAN KING, HISTORY WRITER FOR
THE AUSTRALIAN, ACKNOWLEDGES THE ASSISTANCE OF LINDSAY BALY, AUTHOR
OF "HORSEMAN PASS BY: HISTORY OF THE LIGHT HORSE IN WORLD WAR"
