The great grandson of Thomas Edward Drane, Andrew Drane, will be this year’s guest speaker at the Anzac Day service.
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This year’s service will have a strong emphasis on Forbes local Tom Drane, who signed up to the war on August 4, 1914, the same day that Britain declared war on Germany and Australia pledged allegiance with a force of 20,000.
This year marks 100 years since Tom Drane signed up to the war effort and to honour him, his great grandson Andrew will deliver the commemorative address.
Andrew will read extracts from Tom’s diaries, which the Advocate has been publishing in the lead up to Anzac Day.
Tom’s story is significant as he was the 53rd Australian to volunteer for the war effort, the very first person from Forbes, having caught the train to Sydney as soon as he heard the news Australia would be involved.
After arriving in Sydney and reporting to Victoria Barracks, Tom was assigned to the First Field Company Engineers.
Tom sailed from Sydney on October 18 on board the SS Afric, along with the Army Service Corps and the 1st Battalion Infantry assembling in King Georges Sound on October 18.
They then departed on November 1 and arrived at Aden, via Columbo, Ceylon on November 25, then through the Suez Canal on December 5 before arriving at Mena Camp in Egypt.
He would remain there until March 1 when he would leave for Lemnos with the 3rd Brigade.
They left Lemnos for Gallipoli on April 23 and Tom was one of the thousands of soldiers to land at Gallipoli at dawn on April 25, 1915.
Tom’s diaries detail his adventures leading up to the Gallipoli landing and the fateful landing itself, up until day four or five of the Gallipoli campaign when he was wounded, losing a leg, and taken to England before returning to Australia.
Andrew Drane said he took an interest in Tom’s history and the meaning of Anzac to his family when he first discovered that his family had Tom’s diaries.
Since then he has been unofficial custodian of the diaries, transcribing them and putting them online.
He has recently applied for an Anzac Day grant offered by the government, with the support of Forbes RSL sub-branch, to put the diaries into an interactive iBook format.
Andrew said Tom’s diaries are significant for the Drane family, not only because his grandfather, Tom’s son, Thomas Anzac Drane, was also a soldier in World War Two, but because there are a number of historical aspects that the diaries shed light on.
“Tom was in the First Field Company Engineers, he was in a Sydney unit, which is significant because generally, everyone knows that the 3rd brigade were the first ones to land at Gallipoli, who were mostly from Western Australia and Tasmania, but it is not well known that people from New South Wales were also in that first launch,” he said.
“It’s a story that needs to be more broadly told.
“Once you open a lid on it, it’s just so interesting, there’s so much history there.”
Andrew said the diaries are also a great way to remember his great grandfather.
“I’d imagine that he’d like for other people to read it,” he said.
“The diaries bring his stories to life a bit and I feel like I know him even though I never got to meet him.
“I think it takes subsequent generations to reignite some enthusiasm…I want to recognise our family history and give others the opportunity to understand it.
“It’s important to our family, something that we’re all aware of and proud of but the more people that see the diary, the more doors it opens about history.”
Andrew will be reading extracts from the first half of Tom’s diaries this Anzac Day, and next year, the centenary of Anzac Day, he will continue the second half of the diaries which describe in detail Tom’s experiences of landing at Gallipoli on that fateful day.
