WWI Stories – Rupert, Alan and Kenneth Henderson
Hawthorn
Dr. Margaret Henderson O.B.E. shares the story of her father and uncles: three Henderson brothers who served in the Great War.
From their family home in 89 Harcourt St Hawthorn, three Henderson brothers went overseas with the A.I.F.
Captain Rupert and Lieutenant Alan both died on Gallipoli. The eldest, Chaplain Kenneth, ordained priest in the church of England, served in France as Chaplain to the forces and was invalided home in 1918 with what would now be called “post-traumatic stress disorder”. He was my father – I was born in November 1915.
I have had access to the family letters of Rupert and Alan, written from the Transport SS Hororata and from the camp at Mena in Egypt. I have been able to transcribe these letters which were published as “The Journey to Gallipoli” by HellassInk Publishing 2004. This I owe to my friend, Maggie Helass. The original letters are now in the archives of their old school, Trinity Grammar School, Kew, available to a new generation of Victorians.
Alan was shot during the landing, taken on board a transport for Alexandria, but died the next day and was buried at sea.
Rupert was killed on 8 May in the battle of Krithia on Cape Helles, having been temporarily in charge of the Battalion through the injury or death of his senior officers. He is buried in Redoubt Cemetery, Helles.
In 1918 my father, Kenneth, recorded his experiences as a chaplain in the mud and blood of Flanders in a book “Khaki and Cassock”, illustrated by Napier Waller and published by Melville and Mullen Pty Ltd in 1919.
Read Dr Margaret Henderson’s “The Journey to Gallipoli”, a collection of the First World War letters and records of Rupert and Alan Henderson.
