THIS month marks the centenary of the last successfully planned cavalry charge in military history, the Charge of Beersheba, on October 31, 1917.
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It was an incredible feat of arms that brightened the mood of a sombre, grieving Australia during the seemingly endless horror of World War I.
This is a story of my great uncle Guy Haydon, who was a horse warrior in WWI.
He rode his stockhorse, Midnight, in the Charge of Beersheba, and recorded his experience in a letter to his parents just a few days later on November 5, 1917.
Guy Haydon was born at ‘Bloomfield’ on the Pages River near Murrurundi in 1889.
He was raised a middle child in a large pastoral family.
He received an education and went to Maitland High School, and finished at Sydney Church of England Boys Grammar School (aka ‘Shore’) at North Sydney.
He was a gifted athlete and represented Shore in GPS competitions for athletics, cricket, coxed fours rowing and rugby.
He was also interested in horses from an early age and played polo and was a successful jockey in country races.
Guy Haydon was a bright and energetic young man who lived the good country life in one of the pioneer families of the Upper Hunter district.
He attended balls and plays in Murrurundi and Scone, and dances arranged by his King cousins at ‘Goonoo Goonoo’ near Tamworth.
He worked on the land raising sheep, cattle and horses, and was recorded by the Army working as a grazier and living at Bloomfield in 1915.
Guy Haydon enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF), in what the men thought would be the great adventure of war at 25 years, together with his young brother Barney Haydon, at Liverpool on February 15, 1915.
He supplied a Bloomfield bred and trained Stockhorse (aka Waler) mare called Midnight.
He was assigned to the new 12th Light Horse Regiment (LHR), and underwent basic military training and cavalry drills at Holdsworthy NSW for three months.
He embarked with the AIF on the steamship HMAT Suevic from Sydney on June 11, 1915.
After the Caliph of Islam declared a Jihad against the British Empire at Istanbul on November 14, 1914, the 12th LHR went to reinforce the British garrison holding the port of Aden against Yemeni and rebellious Muslim Indian soldiers on July 11, 1915.
They then sailed on to Suez, Egypt, on July 22, 1915, and retrained as infantry for a month.
After speculating about fighting at Gallipoli, they sailed across the Mediterranean Sea and landed in the combat zone of Gallipoli on August 29, 1915.
Guy Haydon in B Squadron (Sqn) was assigned to the 7th LHR, attached to the Australian & New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), and sent into the frontline trenches at Lone Pine on August 31, 1915.
The Haydon brothers endured fearful, sleepless trench warfare against the Turks for four months, where random casualties from artillery shelling, hand bombing, and sniper fire was endless.
They were evacuated to Egypt.
The 12th LHR was reconstituted in Cairo, and the Haydon brothers went to the combat zone of Sinai at Kantara on May 14, 1916, and were tasked with holding the defensive frontline of the Suez Canal for a year.
The 4th LH Brigade (Bde) was reconstituted in Ismailia, Egypt, and they all rode out of Romani and went east for 190km over 11 days, along the legendary “Royal Road: used by the ancient kings of Africa, Asia and Europe to cross the Sinai desert.
They rode to the combat zone of Palestine at Khan Yunus on April 11, 1917, and were tasked with scouting patrols in strengths of Squadron or Regiment or Brigade by day or night as required, along the offensive frontline on the fringe of the Negev desert for six months.
Guy Haydon fought in the key Battle of Beersheba (aka Gaza III) on October 27-November 7, 1917, where the British planned to capture Turkish Palestine.
The 4th LH Bde, including the 12th LHR, stood to arms all day and night of October 27, and then rode out of Tel el-Fara Camp on the evening of October 28, and went south across the desert and clear of the frontline for 28km over two nights to Khalasa.
The men and horses were rested, fed and watered, and they rode out on the night of October 30, 1917, in secret under a full moon and went via Asluj, for 52km over 17 hours, to near Beersheba (now ANZAC Trail of KKL-JNF, Israel).
They arrived at the Australian LH Division concentration in the desert, to the loud sounds of battle at 1130hrs on October 31, 1917, and fed and rested their horses for an hour.
The 4th LH Bde, comprising the 12th LHR, 11th LHR, 4th LHR and 4th LH Machine Gun (MG) Sqn, was ordered to capture Beersheba as soon as possible.
Eight-hundred troopers quickly saddled their horses at 1600hrs and moved to the start line, with the 12th LHR on the south side and the 4th LHR on the north side, with their A Sqns forming the front row, and 300yds back B Sqns the second row, including Guy Haydon, and 300yds back C Sqns, and the 4th LH MG Sqn in the back row.
The 11th LHR was held as reserves, and an hour after the Charge rode into town and guarded it against attack all night long.
Guy Haydon said “the order was given; the 12th and 4th LHRs will charge Beersheeba on horseback, and the town is to be taken at all costs; and five minutes later we were on the way”.
They rode as modern crusaders in the famous Charge of Beersheba on October 31, 1917.
After 34 hours without sleep for man and water for horse, the Charge of Beersheba was launched at 1630hrs, as the sky faded into dusk.
The horses excitably kicked up the desert dust as two enemy planes machine gunned and bombed them, but remarkably without causing any casualty.
They fast trotted west for 3km past an enemy machine gun post on a southern hill that shot enfilading fire causing casualties, but it was quickly silenced by an incredible British Artillery first shell.
They then wildly galloped west for 2km and miraculously rode under the heavy machine gun and shell fire from well sited defensive lines situated directly in front of them, which was unheard of in the deadly charges of WWI.
Guy Haydon said “the Turks opened fire on us and we could hardly hear anything for the noise of their rifles and machine guns.
“As soon as their fire started we galloped, and you never heard such awful war yells as our boys let out, and they never hesitated or faulted for a moment, it was grand.
“Every now and again a rider would roll off, or a horse fall shot, but the line swept on.
“As we neared their trenches our men were falling thicker and the pace became faster.”
He galloped Midnight wildly through the deafening noise and air full of fearful artillery shells and bullets, and then the A Sqns and B Sqns jumped over the enemy trenches.
He then said “I wheeled my horse round and yelled to the nearest men to jump off, and let your horses go, and get into the pits and open fire.
“A few seconds afterwards a bullet hit me high up in the left buttock, lifting me clear off my horse and dropping me sprawling on a heap of dirt that had been thrown out of a rifle pit, and I rolled down into the pit.”
A sharp steel bullet passed up through horse, saddle and man; and, after three years, they were separated and he never saw Midnight again.
The legendary Charge of Beersheba resulted in its capture with the wells intact for the men and horses to drink from (see films Forty Thousand Horsemen, 1940 & Lighthorsemen, 1981), and in 64 Australian casualties, of which 39 were in the 12th LHR.
The Charge marked the beginning of the end of 600 years of Muslim rule of the Holy Land, as it opened the way for the British to capture Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, and together with the Balfour Declaration made in London on November 2, 1917, it was a foundational moment in the formation of the State of Israel (see ANZAC Memorial at Beeri Forest, Eshkol, Israel & Park of Aus Soldier, Ahimier St, Beersheva, Israel).
Guy Haydon was wounded by a gunshot.
“I lay in the hole listening to poor devils groaning all round me, and we had to lie there all night but it did not worry me, I had got past worrying,” he said.
“One of the boys got me a blanket off a dead horse, but it was terribly cold and I shivered all night long.
“About 7am a sandcart arrived and I was taken to the Field Ambulance where my wound was carefully dressed, then we went per car to the rail head near Fara, to a big casualty clearing station where we spent the night.
“At 9am we were loaded onto the Hospital Train and reached El-Arish that afternoon.
“We spent the night there and left the next day at 12am for Kantara, which we reached about dusk.
“The next day at 11am we boarded the train for Cairo and finally reached the 14th Australian General Hospital (AGH), the best spot on this side of the water, on November 4, 1917.”
He was operated on to remove the bullet on November 6, and said “I am sending you the bullet for a Christmas present”.
Unfortunately, he became gravely ill, and the Medical Board recommended he return to Australia to recover.
He was admitted to the 4th AGH (now Prince of Wales Hospital) at Randwick, and spent three months in convalescence.
He was medically discharged from the AIF on May 31, 1918, after three years of service including 19 months in the combat zone and fighting in two battles.
Guy Haydon recovered from his war wound and returned to work on the land raising cattle and sheep and farming wheat on Warrah Ridge on the Liverpool Plains, near Quirindi, for the rest of his life.
He died at 76 years at Quirindi, and was memorialised on the Maitland High School Honour Roll, and on the Shore School Honour Roll.
He regarded his greatest adventures as fighting in the trenches of Gallipoli and in the Charge of Beersheba.
1 Haydon Guy warrior story RM 2017