Remembrance Day

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24628065-5016619,00.html

THE guns may have fallen silent at 11am on November 11, 1918, but for many Australians like Penelope Ransby the personal stories of the Great War sound out as strong as ever 90 years on.

When war broke out in 1914, her grandfather, Evelyn Wilton, was working on a farm he owned with his two mates, Lance and Chris Andrews, in Western Australia's Margaret River region.

Few places could have been under less direct physical threat from the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) than their farm but, sure enough, the three men left to serve the British Empire in battle.

In time, two of them would make the ultimate sacrifice.

As Ms Ransby prepared with the nation today to remember the fallen with a minute's silence at 11am, she shared her family's story with news.com.au.

"These guys had so much to offer and it was all taken away from them," Ms Ransby said.

"There is no longer any living memory of what they did so I think it's more important than ever that we remember them.

"Unless we do that it will be forgotten forever."

The brothers Chris and Lance were thrust into Gallipoli but did not serve together. Chris was in the Australian Imperial Forces, Lance in the Royal Marines.

On April 27, 1915, Lance was shot in the leg at Bloody Angle. But he could be considered lucky because at a time when many were dying as he was evacuated to England for medical treatment.

As Lance was heading to England Chris was sitting in a Gallipoli dugout writing letters to friends and family.

"I am longing to get back to the dear old Margaret (River) and never want to leave it again," he wrote.

"I did not like leaving Margaret at all. I am sure it is one of the choicest spots in the world. I fully expect to be back before the end of next year."

Instead, as he stepped out of the trench to hand the letters to his Colonel, he was unaware he was being watched by a sniper. The bullet hit him in the stomach and he died on died May 11, 1915.

"A mound, a small wooden cross and a few pebbles alone mark the last resting place of as brave a gentlemen as ever walked," wrote Chris's comrade-in-arms Private Horace Bruckshaw.

Lance would return to the front and even volunteered to join the Australian forces in Gallipoli so he could see where his brother had died.

After four long years of service, and only three months before the armistice we remember today, Lance was killed in action as the Allies captured the French town of le Barque on August 25, 1918.

Evelyn would have his own brush with death when the ship he was serving on, the Drake, was torpedoed by a German submarine on October 2, 1917. He survived but 19 of his shipmates did not.

There would be a final cruel blow to the dream of three men who had looked forward to the war's end and a return to their Margaret River property.

The task of running the sheep and horse farm proved too much for one man. The frontier lifestyle also took its toll on Evelyn's wife and young children who would return to England without him.

Evelyn ended up selling the farm moving to Hobart to live with a  sister he barely knew. He died in her care in November 1960, aged 60.