From the farming soils of Cann River to the sands of Gallipoli

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Stanley Broome's photo published in The Queenslander newspaper, 1914

Henry Moulds

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Among the sixteen names on the Cann River Honour Roll is that of Broome SH. More correctly, the initials should be HS, but although Hider Stanley Filmer Broome is the name on his certificate of birth, he was more generally known as Stanley, so the order of the initials is understandable. Stanley was born in Sarsfield, near Bairnsdale, Victoria, in 1893. He was the second son of Mr Charles and Mrs Maud Broome (nee Filmer), of Cann River. The family was well-known in the district. Stanley attended school at Noorinbee and lived on the family farm until he was about 18 years old, when he moved to Queensland to take up farming there.

Stanley and three of his brothers, Walter, Ivan and Cyril, were farming at Barker’s Creek, near Nanango, Queensland in 1914 when the First World War broke out. Stanley travelled to Kingaroy, where he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on the 26th of September 1914.

Allocated to the 15th Australian Infantry Battalion, made up of Queenslanders and Tasmanians, Stanley, and the rest of those who made up the battalion, embarked for overseas service from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A40 Ceramic, just three days before Christmas 1914. After a brief stop in Albany, Western Australia, the battalion continued to Egypt, arriving in early February 1915. The 15th Battalion, along with the 13th, 14th and 16th Battalions, formed the 4th Brigade, commanded by then Colonel John Monash.

In Egypt the brigade continued to train in preparation for active operations. When the Gallipoli campaign began the 15th Battalion made its way to the small cove on the Turkish coast that soon earned the name of Anzac Cove. The first days for the Australians on the Gallipoli Peninsula were hectic and confused. At some stage in that tumultuous period Stanley Broome was wounded. No record survives of what those wounds were, nor how serious but he managed to get to the beach and was evacuated from the beachhead to HMS Mashobra, one of the troopships waiting off the coast. Unfortunately for Stanley, the treatment he received there was too late.

413 Private Hider Stanley Filmer Broome died of his wounds on board the troopship on the 30th of April 1915. It is most likely that he was buried at sea. On the Gallipoli Peninsula he is commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial. He is also remembered on the memorials at Cann River and Orbost in Victoria, and on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial.

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