A Darling Downs private made it further inland than perhaps anyone else on that first Anzac Day in 1915. He was also among the 101 men who landed in the first wave that didn’t see the end of the day. I told a version of this story live on radio 4AK.

The total number of Australian casualties at Gallipoli on the 25th of April 1915 was around 2,000 but no one can know for sure such was the fog of war. About 650 of those were killed, and 101 of those were in the first wave to land. Private Ewin was one of them, and he may well have been Toowoomba’s first Anzac fatality. I’m happy to be corrected, but no one can be certain.

Private Walter Seccombe Ewin enlisted in Toowoomba on the 31st of August 1914, twenty-one days after recruiting offices opened, and just twenty-seven days after the war began. Less than four weeks later, he was on the troopship HMAT Omrah (pictured above waiting to depart Brisbane) headed for war with Queensland’s own 9th Battalion.

The 9th Battalion was of course the first ashore at Anzac Cove. What happened next no one can be sure, and accounts vary, but it seems that Private Ewin was in a party of men who stormed ahead after the landing. They got further than anyone else, about one and a half miles beyond the frontline trenches at the time of the evacuation. Sometime between 10am and 12.30pm they were on a ridge when they saw the Turks marching down on them in three columns. The party fell back, but Private Ewin refused to leave despite others urging him to go. He remained lying down and firing rapidly, providing the covering fire that allowed the others to escape. He was never seen again. Only half a dozen men returned from that party of up to fifty-eight.

The Australian government wasn’t prepared for casualties on such a huge scale and so communication back to families was, quite frankly appalling. The federal member for Darling Downs, Mr. Littleton Groom, whose memorial in Toowoomba greets you as you arrive at the top of the range, got involved. He sent a series of seven hand-written letters to the department on behalf of the Ewin family, just to find out if Walter was still alive, and eventually to get hold of his personal effects and a death certificate. It took almost two years.

Walter Ewin had been in the first complement of men to enlist from the Darling Downs. He farmed on the family property at Wyreema just outside of Toowoomba and was twenty-four years old when he went into town to sign up.

He may well be Toowoomba’s first fatality at Gallipoli, but he’s actually not from Toowoomba at all, you see he was born in Nowra in New South Wales. His family came north when some of the best dairy farming land on the Darling Downs was bought by his father Mr. William Ewin.

Mr. Ewin was destined for bad news to be the death of him. You see, he lost his oldest child Florence when she was just eight years old. Then he lost his only son Walter at the war. And then a few years later, while visiting his only remaining child Alice in Pittsworth, he got the news that his brother had died in Sydney. Two days later, on Christmas morning the 25th of December, Mr. Ewin dropped dead. It had all been too much.

Private Walter Ewin has no grave although is commemorated at the Lone Pine Memorial in Turkey. But his father does have a grave which you can visit in Pittsworth, and his son Walter is named on the headstone. And so Toowoomba’s first Anzac fatality is actually commemorated in Pittsworth cemetery.

The headstone says that Walter fell at Gallipoli on the first Anzac Day the 25th of April 1915, which in fact was Walter’s 25th birthday. He’s the only Australian soldier in that first wave who was killed on his birthday that first Anzac Day.

So yes, please on Anzac Day be thankful to those who served us – and also remember their families who also give so much for our way of life.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON RADIO 4AK.

Photo credits:
HMAT Omrah with the 9th Battalion aboard at Pinkenba on the day of embarkation – Australian War Memorial C02481.
Walter Seccombe Ewin – Australian War Memorial.
Portrait of Littleton Ernest Groom – National Library of Australia.
William Walter Ewin, Pittsworth Cemetery – Lynda Krause 2019 via Find A Grave.