A celebrated life ends with a tragic death

Guernseyman Gilbert Harry's war achievements in the Australian Imperial Force won him a string of decorations - not bad for a non-combatant.

But, as John Wright reports, for this Guern the real war began later, in a Brisbane to Cairns railway siding. THE auctioneer and the Methodist minister had two things in common.

Firstly the bravery medals and commendations awarded to the sons they had fighting in the First World War, if put together, were enough to decorate 10 brave men, not just two.

And the other thing was that the colonel and the sniper were both Guernseymen from St Peter Port.

They were part of the Australian Imperial Force and, although they may virtually have gone into battle together, it's not known whether they even knew each other.

And, while both men would survive the war, one would return home and face a whole new war of his own.

Herbert Collett was seven when he migrated to Western Australia with his family in 1884.

He was the son of Frank Collett, auctioneer, and his wife, Laura Augusta, nee Wedlake.

Herbert became a librarian in Perth at 14 and in 1904 married Anne Whitfield.

At 16 he joined the Metropolitan Rifle Volunteers as a private.

By the age of 24 he was a captain and at 31 was lieutenant-colonel in charge of the First Battalion in the WA Infantry Brigade.

When war came, at 38, he commanded the 28th Battalion of the AIF, which, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, he made 'one of the finest in the force'.

The Guernseyman apparently 'inspired respect rather than affection and did not hesitate to criticise inefficiency, even when his superiors were involved.' He fought first at Gallipoli in 1915, then in France.

And it seems that Lt-Col Collett was happy to put himself in the firing line, because in 1916 he was severely wounded at Pozieres, where he received the Distinguished Service Order.

He was back in the battle of Passchendaele the following year and was promoted to the rank of colonel.

He had been mentioned in dispatches, received the CMG in 1919 and was promoted to brevet-colonel for 'specially meritorious service.' After the war, his glittering career continued.

Lt-Col Collett became aide-de-camp to Australia's Governor-General and then went into politics, 'rising through the ranks' just as rapidly.

He died in 1947 aged 70.

Gilbert Harry's future would be different.

The son of Samuel and Sarah Harry, nee Bleathman, he migrated to Queensland just before the war to start farming.

Gilbert would survive the war too, but would it be in one piece? When he enlisted in the AIF in 1915, he gave his occupation as 'gunsmith and settler' and was made armourer sergeant.

His movements in the war matched Lt-Col Collett's.

Was the colonel keeping an eye on his fellow Guern, or was it coincidence? Sgt Harry's bravery medals are extraordinary when you think he wasn't supposed to be fighting anyway.

Although he was a non-combatant attached to the 26th Battalion headquarters, he pleaded to take part in the attack.

When the officer in charge of an ammunition dump became a casualty, Sgt Gilbert took over, despite the fact that he was once completely buried and later shaken by a high-explosive shell.

Gilbert spent 50 hours in the trenches during 'terrible fighting around Pozieres' in 1916 and won the Military Medal - an extraordinary achievement for someone who was supposed to be looking after the guns.

Then he became a kind of one-man 'Saving Private Ryan' when, 'at great personal risk, he guided carrying parties across the open from the dump to the captured trenches' and became a sniper.

He was made a second lieutenant, then lieutenant.

The Guernseyman was awarded the first of his two Military Crosses for courage, devotion to duty and plucky and clever reconnaissance as brigade intelligence officer before the attack on a ridge near Ypres in Belgium.

Despite being under continuous heavy shellfire, the battalions of the 7th Brigade suffered no casualties while they were assembling for the assault.

Then Gilbert did what only nine men have ever achieved in the AIF.

He was awarded an MM, MC and a bar to his MC in 1918 for bravery and determination.

'He obtained required information even though he was caught in a barrage and his clothing was pierced by enemy snipers' fire.

Two weeks later he was wounded again, but remained on duty.

That month he was made a temporary captain.

Four years later, an eight-year-old boy, Jim Day, was playing on his parents' farm at Kanyan in Queensland, Australia.

The grown-ups around him seemed amused by a man who turned up out of the blue one day to be a dairy farmer.

He'd arrived with another man and was later joined by an older housekeeper called Miss Bleathman.

An aunt? 'They were a bit amateurish', Jim, now 89, told me from his Queensland home.

'Although this man had bought the first tractor in the area, he was trying to plough with the middle disc of his (three-disc) plough off.' The figure of amusement was Captain Harry.

'Mr Brand, another returned soldier, was a better mixer,' said Jim.

But he didn't stay long.

'They produced a lot of cream for the butter factory.

Captain Harry took the train to Gympie regularly for entertainment and once he gave me a pound for our Sunday school picnic.

'He used to get petrol delivered for the tractor and leave the cans in the field.

We'd collect and wash them, put handles on them and use them for milk cans.' Jim's niece, Joyce Sexton, nee Larner, who still lives in Kanyan (a siding on the Brisbane to Cairns railway line), was another neighbour of Captain Harry.

'When I was about five, I went with my parents to his house.

He'd invited us to listen to his wireless.' It was also the first in the area.

'There was a lot of static.

I thought it was somebody coughing,' Joyce told me.

'His house was built as a hotel and had a beautiful garden.

It had a verandah and Jim remembers seeing roses and a whopping big bamboo tree.' Gilbert hired a gardener, but Jim said the house was 'poorly kept.' Joyce told me her grandparents 'used to pick Miss Bleathman up in the buggy and take her to church.

She didn't understand the Australian climate.

When a chicken was killed, she'd hang it up and it would get fly-blown.' Gilbert would try to eat it anyway.

Both Joyce and Jim described Captain Harry as 'a bit upper class.' He seemed to have some money and even built silos, but they were never filled.

His prowess on the battlefield clearly wasn't matched by his skill in what the locals call 'dry farming'.

Gilbert stuck it out for nine years until 1931, despite the absence of Mr Brand.

He had about 80 cows, recalls Jim, and was the first in the area to install milking machines.

But something was missing.

'He suffered with depression,' explains Joyce.

One day Gilbert told the housekeeper not to wake him up.

Two days later, they opened his bedroom door and found him nearly dead.

He'd taken an overdose.

They took him by train to Gympie, where he died in hospital.

He was 38.

Even at the end, no one really knew that Gilbert Harry had been to war, let alone how he had distinguished himself in it.

Whether it was ill-health or the trauma of emerging from such a conflict, or both, the ex-sniper, clearly, could see nothing in his sights any more.