No. 12 Company 3rd Battalion
Imperial Camel Corps
Neil Hamilton McBride was born on Wednesday, October 12, 1892, in Hungerford, in far south-west Queensland near the New South Wales (NSW) border. He was the seventh child of Alfred and Elizabeth Catherine (Kate) (nee Fisk). Neil was known as Bob McBride for most of his life. It is not known why he was called this, although there may have been some family precedents as his father may have had a younger brother Robert McBride, and his mother had a cousin, Robert Fisk, who was a Mounted Policeman in Victoria.
Bob’s father, Alfred McBride, was a contractor working in towns and on properties in western NSW and Queensland, building, fencing, drilling for water, doing tank maintenance and construction. After their marriage in Cobar in December, 1879, Alfred and Kate moved around following the work. Their first child, Elizabeth (Lizzie), was born at Balowra Station, south-south-east of Cobar in 1880, then Alice at Double Gates west of Cobar in 1882 and Alfred James at Cobar in 1884. Alfred senior was working on Kallara Station on the Paroo River during 1883, and in 1886 on Jandra Station, south of Bourke, when his next son, John (Jack), was born at North Bourke. Lillian (Lil) was born in Hungerford in December, 1888, and Catherine (Katie) on Talyealye Station, south of Hungerford, in 1890. The final five, Bob, Eileen (1894), Leslie (1897), Irene (May) (1899) and Lenard (1903), were born in Hungerford. It appears that the family finally settled in Hungerford between 1888 and 1891.
Hungerford had a population at the turn of the century of about 100. After the Federation Drought took hold after 1895, the town water supply dried up and residents had to cart water from Talyealye Station in NSW, and by 1902 were travelling 24 kilometres to Waroo Bore and sharing the water supply there with 8,000 sheep. It was May, 1903 before a successful bore struck water in the vicinity of the town. Summer temperatures at Hungerford could reach 49°C, and when it did rain the town was cut off and mosquitos and flies proliferated. There was no hospital and no doctor and when influenza struck in 1898, Bob’s younger brother Leslie died. A ‘cyclone’ unroofed the McBride house in 1902, and after the Federation Drought broke good rain produced another problem – a plague of mice. In April, 1904, Bob and the rest of his family escaped only ‘in their night clothes’ when their house burnt down; the fire was suspected of being caused by mice.
Bob attended the Hungerford Provisional School established in 1892. His last teacher was a Boer War veteran, Eric Woodforde, who married Bob’s sister Alice in 1904. By this time Hungerford was in decline and many families left the district, including the McBride family, which moved to NSW by 1905. Bob’s exact whereabouts and that of his family until 1907 is not clear, but there is some evidence that he was in Cobar, where his grandparents still lived, and attended Cobar Public School for a while. By 1907, the family was in Bourke, at that time a thriving transport and trading centre for western NSW with a population of 1,500. In 1907 and 1908, Bob attended Bourke Superior Public School, where he was a ‘Senior Cadet’ in the school Cadet unit, part of the 11th Battalion. The cadets used the Bourke Rifle Club’s range for practice and competition shoots, and Bob did well, usually achieving within the top three or four scores. The cadets also participated in the ceremonial and social life of the community — sports days, Empire Day celebrations and concerts. When he was 16, Bob was indentured for three years as an apprentice draper by Annie Amelia Rodda in her IXL Emporium, which specialised in drapery, dress materials, dressmaking goods, millinery, clothing, boots and shoes, ‘novelties’ and toys and dolls for children. Here he worked eight hours a day, six days a week, with a half day holiday once a week on a Wednesday or Saturday, earning 5 shillings ($30) per week in his first year, rising to 10 shillings ($60) in his third year.
By early 1912, at the age of 19 years, Bob’s time as an apprentice draper was completed, but what he did between 1912 and 1915, when he turned up again in Cobar, is not known. The family story that at one stage Bob was a ‘horse breaker’, provides one possibility, as he was certainly experienced enough with horses to be later accepted into the Light Horse. Although his grandfather was now dead and his grandmother in Paramatta Hospital with senility, Bob still had relatives in Cobar, his older sister Katie and her husband Roger Maitland, and his aunt, his father’s sister, Maria Atkison (nee McBride). By the end of 1914, Cobar was in crisis. Drought had severely reduced the water supply, and a number of mines, including the Great Cobar Copper Mine, had shut down, throwing almost 2,000 men out of work. Bob was fortunate in being able to get work as a labourer with Francis George Kynaston in his Linsley Street produce business. Despite the depressed state of the township, Cobar citizens responded with ‘unselfishness and patriotism’ on the outbreak of war, and a Cobar Recruiting Association under the chairmanship of the Mayor, Michael Francis Duffy, was very active after its establishment in July, 1915, canvassed door to door and conducted public recruiting meetings in the Masonic Hall. Charles Stuart Fern, the Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly for Cobar, was an enthusiastic supporter of the work of the Cobar Recruiting Association. At a well-attended meeting in the Masonic Hall on October 29, 1915, together with Michael Duffy, he appealed for young men to ‘cut the apron strings’ and ‘do their duty’. Whether or not these exhortations by Charles Fern and Michael Duffy finally persuaded Bob to enlist is not known, but he completed and signed his Application to Enlist in the Australian Imperial Force the very next day, Saturday, October 30, 1915.
Following a successful medical examination by Dr Herbert Letcher in Cobar on the following Monday, Bob took the train to Dubbo, where he was formally enlisted and underwent another medical inspection at the Dubbo Showground AIF Camp on Friday, November 5, 1915. He was described as 5 feet 3 inches tall (160 cm), weighing 126 pounds (57.2 kg), and having a 35-inch (89 cm) chest girth when fully expanded. It was also noted that Bob had a dark complexion, brown eyes, dark brown hair and had no distinctive marks. He was allocated the service number 2367. He joined about 140 other men in camp. There were no uniforms or rifles, and he spent the next three months training in ‘blue dungarees’, living at times in crowded barrack rooms, and marching around the showgrounds. At Christmas, 1916, it is likely Bob travelled by train up to Trangie, where his oldest sister Lizzie and her husband Stuart, then Constable-in-Charge of Trangie Police Station, were living. After the riot in Sydney of recruits at Casula and Liverpool camps in February, 1916, the military authorities reduced recruit numbers in Sydney and sent men to camps in country districts, including Dubbo. By mid-March, the numbers at Dubbo Showground Camp reached more than 1,000, further disrupting the training regime. Bob spent more than four and a half months at Dubbo where he received little more than basic training. Finally, on March 21, 1916 he was sent to Sydney, and reported for duty at Menangle Park two days later. Here he was allocated to the 7th Light Horse Regiment, 16th Reinforcements.
Menangle Park Camp was still being established when Bob arrived, so he would no doubt have had to do his share of the ongoing construction work. There was no rifle range, and it seems, a limited number of horses. Bob’s training then was a continuation of what had occurred at Dubbo Camp — marching on foot. Fortunately, he only had to put up with this for 22 days before he embarked with the 16th Reinforcements on HMAT Palermo A56 at Woolloomooloo Wharf in Sydney on Tuesday, April 18, 1916. On board with Bob were four officers, 102 Other Ranks and 283 horses. After a five-night stop in Albany Harbour in Western Australia while the ship’s funnel was repaired, they sailed out into the Indian Ocean and into a northern summer. The horse accommodation on the Palermo was constructed hurriedly and was poorly designed with no room left to exercise the horses on deck. As a result, 23 horses died, mainly of heat apoplexy. The task of disposing of their corpses overboard fell to Bob and his fellow Light Horsemen, an unpleasant task they would have had to perform at least once or more per day for the time it took to cross the Indian Ocean to Port Suez. Stable work on a horse transport ship was hard and dirty work, seven days a week, often in the sweltering heat below decks. Bob and the others would have been pleased to transfer the remaining horses onto a train at Port Suez after they docked there on May 21, 1916.
There is a 19-day gap before Bob and the others are taken on strength of the 2nd Light Horse Training Regiment at Tel el Kebir. It is likely they spent some of this time at the Australian camp at Arbaen (Arbaeen), about nine miles (14.5 km) outside Port Suez. They were then transported by train to Tel el Kebir, a seven-to-eight-hour journey skirting the Suez Canal and Sweet Water Canal. Tel el Kebir camp was about 70 miles (112 km) east of Cairo. It was a tent city, accommodating three Light Horse Training Regiments, an Australian Stationary Hospital, a large prisoner of war camp, YMCA facilities, canteens and native shops. Bob was at Tel el Kebir for a little over a month during the hottest part of the Egyptian summer, with temperatures sometimes reaching 52°C in the shade during the day, but with cold nights, dust storms, mosquitos and flies — all nothing new to Bob. Immediately to the west of the camp were the well-preserved Egyptian trenches on the old battlefield of Tel el Kebir where Lieutenant General Wolseley routed the army of Colonel Ahmed Arabi Bey in 1882. Men at the camp reported finding buttons, bullets, bayonets, Martini-Henry cartridge cases, broken weapons, as well as human bones, including whole skeletons. The training regime for light horse reinforcements at Tel el Kebir during Bob’s time appears to have been heavily influenced by the urgent need to provide infantry troops to defend the Suez Canal from Turkish forces. Horses seemed scarce, and parades, marching, rifle and bayonet exercises and live firing on the rifle range occupied Bob’s time. He would have been concerned however, to see 21 men from the 16th Reinforcements sent in early July to the Canal Zone to join the 2nd Light Horse Double Squadron and 1st Field Squadron Engineers – both dismounted units.
Just in time, Bob was presented with a new opportunity to join a mounted unit. A decision had been taken in mid-June, 1916 to expand the current 10 Companies of the Imperial Camel Corps (ICC) by recruiting volunteers for an additional five Companies from the Australian and New Zealand Light Horse reinforcements at Tel el Kebir. Bob and 17 of the other men from the 16th Reinforcements volunteered. On July 10, 1916 Bob was transferred to No. 12 Company ICC, and later that week was on the train to Cairo to join this unit at the ICC Barracks at Abbassia. On Saturday, 15 July, 1916, he was formally taken on strength of No. 12 Company, commanded by Temporary Captain George Achilles Smith.
Camel troops had been used in ancient times, and the British Army had used them since 1839 in Afghanistan and the Sudan. By 1909 these had been organised into the British Camel Corps with a training school at Polygon Barracks, Abbassia, about three miles (5 km) east of the centre of Cairo. The Imperial Camel Corps was created in January, 1916 to combat the Senussi in the western desert of Egypt. Bob joined about 760 other men in training in mid-July, 1916 in mid-summer, with extreme temperatures, flies, mosquitos and a variety of other insects. His company had six officers and 178 other ranks, divided into four sections each of eight groups of four men. A 14-man machine gun section with three Lewis guns and 215 camels completed the unit. Training was rigorous, commencing with riding school and instruction in saddlery and camel management — correct feeding and watering, treatment of minor ailments, camp and stable management, and grooming. Once recruits had mastered these basics, training moved on to section and company drill, tactical exercises, practice marches and night camps. By the end of August, Bob and his company were engaged in extended field work, spending up to two nights away on marches, tactical exercises and ‘sham fights’ in the desert areas to the east and south of Abbassia.
With Cairo so close, unlike at Tel el Kebir, leave from Abbassia meant that it was just a short tram journey to see the sights. Bob most likely at some stage ended up in the Esbekiah Gardens, where the YMCA ran a ‘Soldiers’ Club’ with a regular weekly program of events such as concerts, plays, lectures, cinema, roller skating, foot races, boxing, wrestling matches and hockey tournaments. There was a swimming pool, billiards room, hot and cold showers and writing and reading facilities. A canteen, staffed by English and New Zealand women volunteers, provided inexpensive meals ‘pleasantly different from those the Army provided’. Unfortunately for Bob however, to get to these facilities, he had to cross the infamous ‘Wazza’ area — narrow, poorly lit lanes with bars selling over-priced, poor quality alcohol and numerous unlicensed, but officially tolerated, brothels, alongside the ‘one-room shacks’ where many non-European prostitutes plied their trade. On September 9, 1916, nine days before No. 12 Company completed their training and were dispatched to the Suez Canal to join the 1st Battalion, ICC, Bob reported sick. The ICC Medical Officer Henry de Boer’s diagnosis was venereal disease, and Bob was admitted to the Dermatological Section of the 3rd Australian General Hospital at Abbassia.
The Dermatological Section was located in the old British Artillery Barracks at Heliopolis. Treatment of men with venereal disease had improved markedly since 1915, when men were criminalised and many were sent home ‘in disgrace’. It was realised that this policy was neither militarily nor financially sensible, and medical officers became focused on preventing and curing the disease. After Bob was in hospital for a fortnight, the 14th Australian General Hospital replaced the 3rd Australian General Hospital, with Captain Reginald Bowman now in charge of the Section. Treatment was by means of injection of various irrigations, most of which contained heavy metal compounds which were at the time the only known means of killing bacteria. The treatments were painful and unreliable. After 39 days, Bob was discharged and forfeited all his pay for this period. He returned to the ICC Depot at Abbassia and was marched out three days later to rejoin his company at Bir el Bayud in the Sinai. Bob now experienced his first time in a front-line unit, nearly one year after joining the AIF. No. 12 Company moved north east to protect the Egyptian Labour Corps laying the military railway near Bir Moseifig, but after only two days on this duty, Bob reported sick to the medical unit at the railhead.
Bob was now passed from one medical unit to another for five days, before finally being readmitted to the Dermatological Section of the 14th Australian General Hospital at Abbassia. Here he was diagnosed with ‘VDSC’, chancroid or ‘soft chancre’ — painful genital ulcers. Treatment was less invasive than for venereal disease, but no less uncomfortable, toxic and uncertain in its outcome. Captain Bowman was still in charge of the unit and had made arrangements that patients were both mentally and physically occupied, to combat the boredom common amongst patients in venereal treatment units. After 12 days’ treatment, Bob was discharged to the ICC Depot at Abbassia and spent a fortnight there with the Australian Reserve Company ICC, with an almost unbroken focus on riding drill. On December 8, 1916, he was finally marched out to rejoin No. 12 Company, who were now at a rest camp at Bir el Abd.
Bir el Abd was a busy staging area for troops moving east, with few facilities for troops stationed there for a ‘rest’. Bob was not there very long before No. 12 Company was ordered forward to Bir el Mazar to join the 1st Camel Brigade, created on December 13, 1916. They arrived on December 19, 1916, to be greeted by a bombing raid by the Flieger Abteilung 300 (FA 300) – a German squadron based at El Arish. Fortunately, the ICC troopers suffered no casualties. The next evening, at kilo 128 on the railway line, the ICC battalions were partly reorganised with the ultimate intention of creating distinct Anzac battalions, but at this stage No. 12 Company remained with the 1st Battalion. For the first time, the ICC battalions were allocated an improvised field ambulance – the 1/1 Welsh Field Ambulance. As aerial observation confirmed that the Turkish forces had withdrawn from El Arish, on the night of December 20, 1916, Bob was with the Australian Mounted Division (AMD) and ICC Brigades trekking through the difficult country to El Arish. Early the next morning, the ICC brigade arrived at its allotted position two miles (3 km) south of El Arish and sent out patrols east and south west. Bob and his company bivouacked on the west bank of the Wadi El Arish using only blankets for shelter from the sun during the day and zero-degree temperatures during the night. The military commanders were uncertain where the Turkish forces had gone, but when aerial observation indicated a substantial force at Magdhaba, an attack on this position was planned for December 23, 1916.
It was a bitterly cold night as the AMD and ICC Brigades concentrated south of El Arish for the night trek to Magdhaba. There is nothing in Bob’s service record to indicate that he was anywhere else that night other than suffering the cold in the Wadi El Arish along with the rest of the troopers in the ICC. No. 12 Company had been designated as a reserve company for this action. By 6.30 am, the force had arrived about three miles (4.8 km) north west of the Turkish position — a well-designed system of redoubts with a clear field of fire over the flat hard sandy approaches. As the largest unit, the ICC brigade made the frontal assault. No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, was very active bombing and dropping messages during the day, but effective artillery fire was limited by poor visibility. Little progress was being made by 2.00 pm and Major General Chauval ordered the brigades to withdraw at 3.00 pm. However, a quick breakthrough then occurred, and Bob with No. 12 Company was ordered to advance in support. By the time the company had covered the three miles (4.8 km) to the village, the Turkish defenders had surrendered. They, along with the rest of the ICC Brigade then withdrew to bivouac about four miles (6.5 km) up the Wadi. The next morning, Christmas Eve, they straggled back into camp at El Arish.
Christmas Day dawned bitterly cold, with a north westerly wind blowing hard. Bob and his fellow ICC troopers enjoyed the contents of their Christmas Billies and were warmed by an issue of rum. Like most other men at El Arish at this time though, Bob had to primarily rely on mobile rations — no fresh meat or vegetables were issued until January 6, 1917. Lack of firewood and fresh water exacerbated the situation. Work continued however, despite the weather taking a turn for the worse, by developing into a gale with torrential rain and even hail at times. The ICC was responsible for maintaining a line of posts as well as standing patrols east and south of the town, and for bringing in supplies from the new railhead at kilo 139. New Year’s Day brought a violent dust storm, followed by continuous wind and rain in freezing conditions until January 6, 1917. FA 300 bombed El Arish whenever the weather permitted, the closest to Bob being the night of January 7, 1917 when the ICC camp was bombed and machine gunned, fortunately without casualties. The next day the ICC Brigade held its first company sports meeting, with trotting and galloping races, stunt riding, as well as wrestling, musical chairs, tug of wars and egg-and-spoon races, all on camel back. An FA 300 aeroplane interrupted this event but was driven off by anti-aircraft fire.
On January 3, 1917, No. 12 Company was transferred from the 1st Battalion to the 3rd Battalion, and it was with this unit that Bob marched out over the flooded Wadi el Arish in the early afternoon of January 8, 1917 to El Risa, where the AMD and ICC Brigades assembled with the 5th British Mounted Brigade in preparation for an attack on the Turkish positions at El Magruntein, about a mile (1.6 km) south east of Rafa. The night march was the one of the coldest ever experienced in the desert by the troopers and was particularly trying to both men and animals. At 10.00 pm, the ICC Brigade halted at Sheik Zowaiid for three hours, before continuing to Rafa, arriving there in the early hours of the morning of January 9, 1917. The men of No. 12 company were dismayed at the formidable nature of the Turkish defences on El Magruntein —a series of strong redoubts, connected by a maze of saps on the top of a huge mound, the approaches to which, on all sides, were smooth grassy slopes of a mile (1.6 km) or more. While the Turks were caught by surprise by the arrival of the column, they soon occupied their defensive positions, and by 8.30 am their artillery was firing high explosive and shrapnel in response to the British batteries. As No. 12 Company moved up, they and the rest of the ICC Brigade came under this shrapnel fire. For Bob, this was his first time under artillery fire since he joined the AIF.
Lieutenant General Chetwode and Major General Chauval deployed the New Zealand and Australian Brigades against the northern and eastern defences, the ICC Brigade against the southern defences and the 5th Mounted Brigade against the western defences. Little progress had been made by 1.00 pm, and by this time two of the three ICC Battalions were engaged. The 3rd Battalion with No. 12 Company had been in reserve up to this time, but now were ordered forward across ground well swept with rifle and machine gun fire. Bob and the others managed to get to within 600 to 900 yards (550-820 m) of the Turkish position in B2 redoubt before they were held up. There was no cover whatsoever, and Bob like everyone else, had to scratch a shallow hole to gain some shelter with whatever he had to hand — his jack knife, his bayonet or indeed, his bare hands. An attack on the main Reduit to the north at 3.30 pm met with little success, and when apprised of the advance from Shellal and Khan Yunis of at least two battalions of Turkish reinforcements, Lieutenant General Chetwode and Major General Chauval agreed to break off the engagement at 5.00 pm and withdraw under cover of darkness. This order was sent out at 4.20 pm, but in the half hour before this decision was taken however, their Brigade, Regimental and Battalion commanders had made critical decisions of their own. The 5th Mounted Brigade pressed the attack in the rear of the Reduit, and at 4.30 pm the New Zealand Brigade were successful in a frontal attack on the Reduit, and were thus able to enfilade all other Turkish positions. At the same time, Brigadier General Smith had organised an attack on the B2 Redoubt in front of Bob using Nos 11, 12 and 7 Companies, to commence at 4.20 pm. Major Langley, Bob’s former Commanding Officer, guided the attacking companies into position about 600 yards (550m) from the redoubt by the appointed time.
Bob with the rest of the troopers in the attacking companies, could not clearly see the exact position of the B2 redoubt from the firing line, and to get within assaulting distance they had to crawl forward on their hands and knees, most likely each section in turn, under the covering fire of the other sections and of the ICC machine guns on the flank. There was no artillery support to suppress fire from B2 and the adjacent redoubt B1. It was while slowly crawling forward that Bob was shot through the lower part of his abdomen and groin. He was 400 yards (365 m) from the Turks in B2.
After Bob was wounded, the remainder of No. 12 Company continued their advance, and rushed the Turkish trenches when they got to within 40 yards (37 m). By 4.50 pm the Turkish forces at El Magruntein had surrendered. Chaplain Charles Scott Little saw Bob not long after he had been shot and a Medical Officer gave him morphia. However, as the Field Ambulance Dressing Stations had been ordered to pack up and withdraw about the same time as Bob was wounded, it seems he may not have been evacuated immediately. The 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance Dressing Station remained behind, and it is most likely Bob was taken there at some time during the evening, joining about 100 to 150 other wounded men. The night was bitterly cold, and there were few blankets, no food and with the exception of the two hurricane lamps, no lights, as these items had been mistakenly sent back to the Receiving Station at Sheik Zowaiid when the withdrawal was ordered. Bob reached the Sheik Zowaiid Receiving Station early the next morning, and was evacuated by sand cart to El Arish that afternoon, arriving at the 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance Receiving Station on the beach north east of El Arish late on the evening of January 10, 1917. Bob’s wound was a serious one, so much so that the Medical Officers at El Arish considered that his condition was so critical that he could not be evacuated on the Hospital Train the next morning. Bob died early in the morning on Friday, January 12, 1917, and was buried that afternoon in grave no. 9 in the El Arish Military Cemetery, in the presence of members of No. 12 Company, with Chaplain Scott Little officiating. During the consolidation of military burials in the Sinai in 1922, his body was exhumed and reburied in the Kantara War Memorial Cemetery on the western bank of the Suez Canal.
Bob received the following awards: British War Medal and Victory Medal.
The service of Neil Hamilton (Bob) McBride is commemorated on the Bourke Public School Honor Board, The Imperial Camel Corps Monument in London, the Bourke War Memorial and the National Roll of Honour in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Panel 10. He is also commemorated online at the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Virtual War Memorial Australia, Discovering ANZACS, Lives of the First World War, Imperial Camel Corps Roll of Honour, 7th Australian Light Horse Regiment Roll of Honour, The Action at Rafa Roll of Honour, Every One Remembered, The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, The War Graves Photographic Project, A Street Near You and Find a Grave.
Bob had six cousins who served during the war – William Henry Fisk, Claude Ronald Fisk, Ernest Leonard Fisk, Herbert Edward Fisk, Percival John Fisk and Alfred Duck Ward. Another cousin, Oliver William Fisk, volunteered but his enlistment was refused as his parents objected. Also serving were the husband of his aunt Alice Maud Mary Fisk, Richard (Herbert Brisbane) Lloyd, the future husband of Bob’s cousin Zoe Eliza Marion Tucker, Ernest Albert Gillespie, and the future husband of his niece Phyllis Ann McIntosh, George Clive Brench.
Links:
Download Bob’s Service Record from the National Archives of Australia
Download Bob’s Entry on the First World War Nominal Roll from the Australian War Memorial
Download Bob’s Entry on the First World War Embarkation Roll from the Australian War Memorial
Download Bob’s Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Bureau Enquiry File
View Bob’s Entry on The AIF Project
Download a greatly enhanced and fully documented copy of Bob’s story, with additional images and maps – A Life Cut Short
Note: be aware that this is a large file – approximately 15 MB
Our Great War Family 