Charles Finchett on leave in Paris in December 1918. Image courtesy David Finchett.
Charles Finchett was the fourth of five
children born to William Finchett and his second wife Elizabeth. His
Manchester-born father, a fruiterer by trade, arrived in Melbourne in the 1880s, married Elizabeth
Wearmouth in 1885 and settled in the Little River area where he had a dairy
farm. In the late 1890s, the family moved to a farm at Boorolite near Mansfield
where the Finchett children attended school.
In 1909 they moved to Brunswick,
and as Charles Finchett is listed on the Moreland State School Honour Board, he
must have attended the Moreland school first then moved on to do the higher
grades at Coburg before attending Coburg High School (then a Higher Elementary
School) in its first intake in 1912.
Charles Finchett and his oldest brother Edward enlisted
together and were allocated consecutive numbers. They both served with the 3rd
Australian Motor Ammunition Column, sailed together on the Afric and survived the war.
Theirs was a supporting role, carrying supplies to the
forward lines, supplying guns and ammunition and evacuating the wounded.
Neverthless the cost was high. A letter Charles wrote a few years before his death
highlights how difficult those times were:
To
live was one thing. To live from day to day under great strain and fear of the
unknown was another… I was under mustard and other gas at Messines, where I was
blown up by H.E. bombs… In Ypres we worked in a morass of mud… The whole
salient was a place of constant barrages and drum fire. The ground really shook
with explosions… I came under much enemy bombardment and gas. I was subjected
to much nervous stress and came up against many dangerous and frightening
situations…
After the war, Charles worked as a clerk in the
Victorian Railways, living firstly in the family home in Brunswick then in
Caton Avenue, Coburg. He and his wife Alice lived in Prahran then in Malvern
East. The effects of his war service were long-reaching: all his adult life he
suffered from problems with the nerves in his legs, arms and stomach. He died
in 1972 aged 75. His wife died in 1993 aged 84.
I've been trying to discover what an H.E. bomb was, but without success. Does anyone out there know?
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