“FEW of us here today can ever begin to imagine the feelings likely to have weighed on these men as they waited.”
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Semi-trailers thundered through the centre of Muswellbrook at 4pm on Tuesday as hundreds gathered for the unveiling of a statue to mark the 100th anniversary of the World War I Battle of Beersheba. But Anglican Reverend Scott Dulley’s words resonated through the crowd.
What did Hunter men like Lieutenant Colonel Donald Cameron of Rouchel, or Bloomfield brothers Guy and Barney Haydon think as they waited at 4.30pm on October 31, 1917, for the command to charge 4000 Turks with machine guns at Beersheba?
“Every one of them could be forgiven for thinking, ‘Am I going to survive this day?”’ Reverend Dulley said.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and politicians, including Hunter One Nation Senator Brian Burston, were at Beersheba in Israel to commemorate the centenary with a recreation of the famous charge and victory by 800 members of the 4th and 12th Light Horsemen.
But in the Hunter hundreds gathered at commemoration events at Murrurundi on Saturday, and at Rouchel and Muswellbrook on Tuesday, to mark the region’s unique association with the World War I victory that’s been overshadowed until recently by the defeat at Gallipoli.
At Rouchel members of the 12th Light Horse Murrurundi Troop carried Australian flags to the small cemetery of Rouchel in the Upper Hunter where a hero of Beersheba, Donald Cameron, is buried in a grave near other members of the extended Cameron family.
His grandson Dick Cameron asked about 100 people at the commemoration to pass around a pair of binoculars carried by his grandfather for the four years of the war.
“You’ll see where the enamel has worn off because he used those glasses every day,” Mr Cameron said.
He invited people to imagine looking through the glasses as the Australian mainland receded from view, and wondering if you would ever see your home again as you headed to war.
Donald Cameron’s grand daughter Miriam Officer and daughter-in-law Peg Cameron held the binoculars for minutes. Mrs Officer said her grandfather was “just called the Colonel” when he returned from the war, and was enormously respected as a decent, unassuming man.
It was a source of pride to the family that his heroism, and that of his men, was being acknowledged in the Hunter, and by the nation, she said.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did something that people gathered to commemorate 100 years later?” she said.
In Muswellbrook hundreds gathered in the centre of town for the unveiling of Brett Garling’s dramatic statue of an Australian Light Horseman on his sturdy Waler. The unveiling and commemoration of the centenary recognised Muswellbrook’s role as the marshalling area for the thousands of horses transported to war, and the men who served.
Four mayors of Muswellbrook attended – John Jobling (1974-86), Ian Seymour (1989-1999), John Colvin (1999-2008) and Martin Rush (2008-the present).
John Colvin told the crowd the Battle of Beersheba, known as one of the last great cavalry-style charges in modern warfare, was followed just three weeks later by the first tank battle, where British tanks broke the Hindenberg line.
Hunter schoolgirl Kate Lloyd read the story of Bloomfield man Guy Haydon and his mare Midnight, who went to war together. The horse was born at midnight on October 31, 1905, Miss Lloyd said.
Mare and rider beat the British in the “Desert Olympics” between Australians and Brits in the period before Beersheba. Midnight died after she was shot during the Beersheba battle. The bullet also injured Mr Haydon, who survived.
At Murrurundi on Saturday the 12th Light Horse Troop took part in the biggest commemoration in the town for more than two decades.
“We’ve been holding events to mark the anniversary for the past 23 years. It’s taken a lot of people a long time to wake up to how significant the Battle of Beersheba was to Australia and the rest of the world,” Troop secretary Del Ross said.
Troop member John Cleal, 83, rode in the Murrurundi, Rouchel and Muswellbrook ceremonies, on Jacko, 15. Age did not weary them.