Brothers in Arms: Herbert & Colin Conran
Storyteller Tuesday Challenge: MILITARY MARVEL
Genealogy Matters Storyteller Tuesday Challenge: MILITARY MARVEL - Tell about an ancestor who was in the military. Was the ancestor in a specific battle? Find the story behind the war and use as the backdrop for your ancestor’s story. What might he/she have experienced?
During World War I, a major battle was fought during July-September 1916 at Pozières, France where Australian troops were tasked with capturing the town and a nearby ridge from which Germans bombarded the British and Allied Army. “The 1st, 2nd and 4th Australian Divisions suffered more than 24,000 casualties at Pozières, including 6,741 dead.”1
Two of those dead were brothers Herbert Allen Conran and Colin Stewart Conran, my 3rd cousins twice removed. They were from Mudgee in rural New South Wales. They enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) together on 13 September 1915 at Lithgow.2 They were in the 18th Battalion, 9th Reinforcements, AIF.
Herbert was 18 years 10 months old. Colin was 17 years 10 months old but put his age up to 18 years 1 month. Their father, John James Conran, gave his consent for them to “enlist to fight for the cause of the Empire”. The Conran brothers did basic training and sailed together, arriving in Marseilles, France on 3 April 1916.3 This is where they separated.
Colin Conran was admitted to hospital with a pre-existing medical condition. Herbert was sent to the 2nd Australian Division Base Depot at Etaples, France on 8 April 1916 for further training. He was transferred to the 20th Battalion and sent to fight on the Western Front in France. Colin was discharged from hospital and sent to 2nd Australian Division Base Depot at Etaples, France on 9 June 1916 for more training. He rejoined the 18th Battalion on 1 August 1916.4
The brothers, now in different Battalions, were unlikely to have seen each other again. Fighting at Pozières was fierce. Private Claude Lewis described his experience. “I was wounded at Pozières, on the River Somme, so you can see I have been in it, and it is not the game it is ‘cracked up’ to be. I was digging trenches under fire for two nights and three days, with only time to eat a biscuit and some bully beef. Dead were lying all around. The ground around that part is literally covered with dead—both German and our own.”5
Herbert was first reported missing on 26 July 1916. Upon investigation, he was reported killed in action on 5 August 1916. Private Barnes, who had been with Herbert, said that during a charge, Herbert was in the lead and had a bomb in his pocket which was hit by a bullet and exploded, killing him instantly.6 Colin was reported missing on 4 August 1916. The investigation into his fate took 11 long months. Finally, someone reported that he had last seen Colin lying dead outside their parapet on 4 August 1916.7
Herbert and Colin Conran have no known grave.
Campbell, Emma, The Battle of the Somme – 105 Years on, Blog, Australian War Memorial, 21 June 2022, https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/the-battle-of-the-somme-95-years-on.
National Archives of Australia, Service Record, World War I, NAA: B2455, CONRAN C S, Series number: B2455; NAA: B2455, CONRAN H A, Series number: B2455, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/SearchScreens/BasicSearch.aspx.
Ibid.
Ibid.
‘Charging at Pozières: A Graphic Description’, Lithgow Mercury (NSW : 1898 - 1954), 20 October 1916, p. 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/search.
‘Another Mudgee Hero – Private Herbert Conran’, Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative (NSW: 1890-1954), 5 October 1916, p. 21, https://trove.nla.gov.au/search.
National Archives of Australia, Service Record, World War I, NAA: B2455, CONRAN C S, Series number: B2455.
How incredibly sad. Thank you for sharing their stories, Diane.
So many young men lost to a senseless war 😥