It was a sepia photograph of her fresh-faced great great uncle that started it all for former corrections officer Bec Linton – the historical detective work that led her to the WWI killing fields of France and then to studying at UNE.
But, as with most historical inquiries, the path has been anything but linear.
“I have always had an interest in military history,” says the mother three, who worked for four years in community corrections. “There was a photograph of an Australian soldier in my great-grandparents’ house and when they passed away I started wondering who that person was. It developed from there, years ago. I wanted to learn about his life and service – there was a sense that the rest of the family had forgotten him.”
Remembering great great uncle Rupert Walton – her great-grandfather William’s older brother – and honouring his military service started quite innocently. But soon Bec “wanted to know more”, and this saw her retrace Rupert’s footsteps from the small Western Australian rural town of Pingelly to the battlefields of northern France, where he fought and died, aged just 19, with the 44th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force.
Trench maps and battle scars
Living in Northern Ireland in her early 20s, Bec would visit France at every opportunity to see family and join her uncle Stu (Stuart), also a history buff, traipsing around the former battlegrounds. “It’s all basically farmland today, so we would keep to the tracks to avoid upsetting the farmers; armed with trench maps we covered a lot of the areas where Rupert and his battalion would have been,” Bec says. “In some places, the remnants of war still leave their mark – bits of shrapnel, spent cartridges, artillery shells and old bombs lying on the ground.”
By 2018 Bec was living in Perth and her “slight obsession” for military history had become an abiding passion. “Rupert died on 4 July 1918 during the Battle of Hamel so I travelled there and Villers-Bretonneux to mark the centenary of that battle,” she says. “Uncle Stu and I visited different war cemeteries and these, again, left a lasting impression. The incredible feeling of peace contrasted with the carnage that these same grounds had witnessed.
I have also found evidence of huge amounts of community sympathy for the individual and their family ... Back then, the community recognised that these were broken men and that the repatriation department didn’t offer as much support as it should have.
“After that, I wanted to know more about war graves, the Grave Detachment Units (ex-soldiers who collected bodies from the battlefields), the methods used to identify soldiers and the inner workings of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. So, Rupert has been instrumental in directing my own journey all along.”
It was on that flight to France that Bec found herself sitting beside an historian from the Australian War Memorial, who commented that she could study history. Bec took that advice upon her return and enrolled in a Bachelor of Historical Inquiry and Practice at UNE. And her major research project is now an immensely personal quest, to learn about the servicemen from Western Australia who died by suicide after returning home – and ensure their service and subsequent death is officially commemorated.
Setting the record straight
“When I started documenting the men and visiting their graves, I realised that many were unmarked,” Bec says. “So I’m submitting their cases to the Office of Australian War Graves to have military headstones erected on the graves of those whose death was clearly due to their war service. I’ve found that many families and/or soldier advocates (for soldiers without family in Australia) applied for recognition of death due to war service at the time, but a lot were denied, just as the men were repeatedly refused war pensions for mental health issues when they were alive. These boys need to be officially recognised.”
Recognition for her own thoughtful gesture is not something this humble student of history has ever sought. She simply wanted their names added to the Roll of Honour database, and for the Office of Australian War Graves to acknowledge that war service caused or contributed to the veterans’ deaths. “It’s also a small way of personally thanking them for allowing me to delve into traumatic aspects of their lives,” Bec says. “My husband is an ex-serviceman (with the US Army, who saw active service in Iraq twice), he’s seen the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and lost some mates from his unit to suicide. It’s the least I can do for these Australian soldiers.”
So far, Bec has identified 276 returned WA servicemen who died by suicide as a consequence of their war service, often in horrific circumstances. Several had already lost limbs in battle or been prisoners of war. She knows that many more still lie in unmarked graves in her state and around Australia.
“The repatriation records, newspaper reports and inquest findings often graphically describe the cause of death, but I have also found evidence of huge amounts of community sympathy for the individual and their family,” Bec says. “That wasn’t something I was expecting, given the stigma that often surrounds suicide, and that’s what I’m seeking to challenge through my research. Back then, the community recognised that these were broken men and that the repatriation department didn’t offer as much support as it should have.”
There’s a big focus today on the fallen during the war, rather than including the broken men and women who returned home. It can be easy to turn a blind eye to issues that are uncomfortable.
Opening up digital medical files and coroner’s reports has been both revealing and confronting. “I am often the first person to access these records, held by the National Archives in Perth,” Bec says. “It can be emotionally charged, even 100 years after their death, to read about the mental health issues they faced – and the struggles of their families. Many men found their peace in the most tragic ways, but it is an acknowledgement of the mental carnage they experienced from war and its lingering impact.”
Working to ensure their graves are marked is an important acknowledgement. “It shows that we know who they are, where they are and that they are not forgotten,” Bec says.
Trauma and closure
There are some bigger lessons for society, too. “What I am researching doesn’t deal with the victorious battles or necessarily fit the ANZAC narrative,” she says. “There’s a big focus today on the fallen during the war, rather than including the broken men and women who returned home. It can be easy to turn a blind eye to issues that are uncomfortable.”
One headstone was recently erected, in the Perth cemetery at Karrakatta, and more are nearing completion, such as the grave of Lieutenant Karl Fourdrinier of the 11th battalion. After being invalided home from Gallipoli, he died in 1917 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. “Some RSL sub-branches have agreed to provide a small memorial service for the soldiers in metropolitan and country areas once their headstone is in place,” Bec says, “so the soldiers can be at peace.”
Visiting the grave of her great great uncle Rupert Walton in France in 2018 similarly brought Bec and her family a degree of closure. “I know that my great grand-dad struggled after his brother’s death – he never spoke about him,” she says. “His mother used to wander around the house repeating the names of Rupert and her other son James Basell, who served with the 2/4th Machine Gun Company and was a prisoner of war in World War 2.
“Trauma experienced by soldiers and families consumed with grief for their lost loved ones extends beyond peacetime; it can have an intergenerational impact. Rupert was forgotten for a while, but my research has brought him back to light for the family. Rupert’s legacy, and those of returned servicemen who tragically took their lives, will hopefully live on.”
