Anzac Day speech – one family story

I am doing so to honour his memory. George John McLennan was born in 1888 and enlisted on the 30th of August 1916 and was assigned to the 5th reinforcement 36th battalion Australian imperial force. Passchendaele, over a 5-month period saw both sides experience some of the most horrific fighting in WWI with total losses estimated at half a million soldiers Australian casualties numbered 38,000.

What a glorious sunny day it is today, now imagine it’s the early hours of the 12th of October 1917 on the western front in Belgium, its late autumn its freezing cold and it’s raining, and you can barely walk in the thick mud and the 36th battalion is preparing for a
2nd assault on the village of Passchendaele.

This was hoped to be the final assault on the village of Passchendaele, however it to resulted in a withdrawal and it wasn’t until the third assault that the Germans were pushed back.

Thus the 2nd battle for Passchendaele was over and amongst the troops it was renamed slaughter.

George has been badly wounded in the battle and was thought to be dead, but a fellow soldier thought otherwise and ventured back onto the battlefield and dragged my grandfather to safety, and this is the only reason I am standing here today.

My grandfather did partially recover from his (GSW) gunshot wound and shrapnel wounds and returned home to Australia and was discharged in august 1919.

I am sure he suffered mental scars and as a lad of 12 years of age, I do remember well seeing the physical scars as my mother, his daughter dressed his wounds daily from shrapnel imbedded in his legs, shrapnel that could not be removed and pain he endured till his death in 1967.