BACK in 2009, between a break in games of a Dandenong basketball tournament in which he was competing, Lachie Fogarty, then a kid of 10, accompanied his father Terry and mother Tracey to the nearby RSL. There Lachie caught first glimpse of the military uniform of his maternal great-grandfather Corporal Victor Royston Smith - a member of the 4th Light Horse Regiment - which had been donated by descendants who discovered the precious apparel hidden in an old trunk.
Lachie knew a little about the life of Corporal Smith, who was an 18-year-old labourer from Maldon when he enlisted for wartime service in January 1915. Five months later in Sydney, Private Smith boarded the Gallipoli-bound ship Ceramic with the regiment.
Private Smith - later Corporal Smith - survived the brutal Gallipoli campaign, but in October 1917 was admitted to an Egyptian hospital with a fractured tibia and fibula incurred when a horse fell on him. At the time, Corporal Smith was trying to free the horse after it got its foreleg entangled in its neck rope. The injury brought an end to Corporal Smith’s war and he returned to Australia in August 1919.
Though Lachie was only a boy of three when his paternal grandfather William Fogarty passed away, he also knew that William had served with the RAN through World War Two and in his post-war life officiated as Mayor of Footscray.
But it was only recently that Lachie discovered that there were other young men on both sides of the family tree that also fought for King and country - including one who made the ultimate sacrifice.
They are as follows:
- Robert Charles Hall (Signaller, 10th Light Horse Regiment, First World War) – Lachie’s maternal great-grandfather;
- Murdoch McIntosh (Acting Bombardier, 4th Australian Field Artillery Brigade, First World War) – Lachie’s paternal great-grandfather;
- Percival John Fogarty (22nd Infantry Battalion AIF, and later the 5th Pioneer Battalion, First World War) – Lachie’s paternal great-grandfather; and
- William Francis Joseph Fogarty (5th Pioneer Battalion, First World War) – brother of Lachie’s paternal great-grandfather Percival.
William Francis Joseph Fogarty lied about his age when he enlisted for wartime service. Though he was just 16 years one month at the time, the strainer by profession declared that he was 18 years one month when he put pen to paper in July 1915. Having trained at Geelong camp, and transferred to D Company, Private Fogarty soon saw action with the 22nd and 57th Battalions before joining the 5th Pioneer Battalion.
In June 1916, Private Fogarty boarded a ship bound for Alexandria, enroute to Marseilles, and on 27 August of the following year he joined his unit in the field in France. Barely a month later, on 3 October, he suffered a gunshot to the face, which badly shattered his jaw, and damaged his neck and axis vertebra.
On October 5, a mortally wounded Private Fogarty was transferred from Boulogne to Queens Hospital in Sidcup, Kent. Tragically, he suffered secondary haemorrhaging and septic peritonitis, and he died at 10 o’clock on the evening of 14 October 1917, aged 18.
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Private Fogarty was buried in the Australian Military section of England’s Brookwood Cemetery. William’s brother Percival, who also served with the 5th but was at the time stationed at Fovant Camp in Salisbury Plain, was present at the funeral - and heard The Last Post played by a lone bugler as his brother’s flag-draped coffin was lowered into the grave.
In August 1918, Private Fogarty’s personal effects, which included a purse containing rosary beads, postcards and letters, were ferried home via the Gilgai.
Lachie’s recent interest in researching his family’s wartime connections - with the support of his father as keeper of the clan’s archives - has proved to be life-changing. What he discovered was, by his own admission, “a genuine revelation”.
“Dad came out with all these documents and although I knew a little bit about Victor Smith and William Fogarty I was shocked to learn about the other family members who served - and equally proud at the same time. ‘Pride’ is the first word that comes to mind,” Lachie said.
“I also learned that when Murdoch McIntosh came back from the war he was affected mentally because he’d fought as a gunner and killed a lot of soldiers.
“Dad has since given me a postcard William Francis Fogarty sent to his Mum from ‘somewhere in France’. He also has the watch that William was wearing when he tragically died.
“Most of these men were no more than 18 when they enlisted, and to think of 18-year-olds going to war is pretty confronting. You realise how lucky we are because of what they have done.”
Lachie will join his father, mother and girlfriend at this year’s Anzac Day dawn service in Williamstown. In time he plans to go to Gallipoli and make the pilgrimage to visit William’s grave in Kent.
For the 20-game forward, the Fogarty family’s wartime links mean so much more, now that he has found perspective. As he said: “football is just a game for premiership points, but war is life and death”.
