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Alan George KYD MM Croix de Guerre (Belgian)

KYD

Date of birth20 October 1893
PlaceElsternwick, Victoria, Australia
ParentsGeorge and Carol Kate (nee Tijou) Kyd
Date of death28 June 1937
PlaceMount Martha, Victoria, Australia
Age43
Scotch Year(s)1908 to 1910

Service record and post-war life

Alan Kyd was 20 years old when he enlisted on 17 August 1914. He had already been in the 29th Light Horse of the militia for two years. It is surprising that he was accepted, for at just 5 feet 4 inches (163 cm) tall he was two inches below the official minimum height requirement. No wonder that The Scotch Collegian reported that he had been rejected four times before he was accepted. On succeeding, he was initially allotted as a Gunner to Reinforcements to the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade Ammunition Column. By December 1914 Alan was an Acting Bombardier. The Collegian reported that Alan was at the landing at Gallipoli, but that he then returned to Egypt within days with the Ammunition Column’s horses. This is not in his service record. It does show that he spent nine days in hospital in Egypt in July 1915 with diarrhoea. Alan was certainly on Gallipoli – the Collegian says he returned in August - where his service record shows that on 23 October he transferred to the Heavy Battery of the artillery. In November he was promoted to Temporary Bombardier.

After the evacuation of Gallipoli, Alan was transferred back to the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade in February 1916. However, his transfer in March of that year to the 14th Field Artillery Brigade of the newly raised 5th Division would prove more lasting. He was posted to the 53rd Battery and then to the 55th Battery of that Brigade. He was made a Temporary Corporal in April and then a Sergeant in May 1916. Alan went into action at Fleurbaix (Fromelles) on 10 July, just before the 5th Division’s disastrous battle there. In a letter home from the Somme front he described the destruction of villages and trees and the mud so deep that quite often men had to be rescued from it with ropes. On 1 August 1917, during the Third Battle of Ypres, Alan was gassed and categorised as ‘Wounded in Action’. He returned to his unit 26 days later. Just two months later, on 30 October 1917, Alan was wounded a second time, again by being gassed by enemy gas shells. He was transferred to England. On 6 November, while still under treatment, news came that he had been awarded a Military Medal.

The recommendation, reproduced below, was initially for a Distinguished Conduct Medal. Alan was praised for showing ‘high courage and devotion to duty’ on the morning of 31 July 1917. When enemy shelling killed or wounded the three other crew members of the artillery piece which he commanded, he ‘succeeded in keeping his gun in action, performing the duties of 3 other men besides his own.’ The Scotch Collegian reprinted extracts from a letter he wrote in hospital while recovering from the 1 August gassing and describing the events for which he won his medal. This vivid account describes the effects of the gas and gives a more complete picture of his actions. He wrote:

‘I have been in the last big stunt, and was gassed. We had about 10-days’ bombardment before the hop-over, and Fritz put gas shells all round us every night. I had my mouthpiece out to give an order, when a gas shell came in the embrasure, and burst in the pit. I managed to carry on for the stunt, and saw the first day out. We pulled out of the pits after two hours’ barraging, then moved forward and took up a position just behind the old front line. After an hour we quickened up the fire, and started a creeping barrage. Then we got it hot. In a few minutes the 5.9s [German artillery shells] were bursting all round, and we had no cover of any kind. In ten minutes every man of my detachment was knocked out, and only myself left. I got hold of a batman and a fitter, pushed them into the seats, fixed up the ammunition, and timed my gun’s barrage…For two days I had not been able to speak a word - the gas had ruined my voice. Next day I was ordered to hospital, and am there now.’ Not until 26 March 1918 was Alan able to rejoin his brigade in France. In June 1918 he was sent to England to undertake officer training at Royal Artillery schools at Brighton and St John’s Wood. He was briefly hospitalised with a sprained leg. It appears that he did not complete his officer training course. In July 1918 it was announced that the King of Belgium had awarded Alan a Croix de Guerre. On 9 December 1918 Alan boarded a ship for Australia. In September 1919 he sailed for overseas again as part of a special AIF Contingent, as a Corporal. This was probably a trip referred to in the 1919 Collegian, which says he ‘left Australia again, after a short stay, on his way to Austria, with a batch of repatriated Austrians.’

Alan variously worked as a bank clerk, a jute, grain and flour merchant, and finally as a car salesman. He committed suicide by gassing himself in his car in a ti-tree scrub at Mount Martha in 1937.

Alan had married Florence Hilda Simpson (d. 1959) at Scots Church, Collins Street, Melbourne in 1921. They had a son and a daughter, with their son serving in the AIF in World War II.

Photographs and Documents:

kydAGA

Recommendation for a Distinguished Conduct Medal for Alan Kyd. This was downgraded to a Military Medal.

Sources:

  1. Australian War Memorial – Honours and Awards
  2. Mishura Scotch Database
  3. National Archives of Australia – B2455, KYD ALAN GEORGE
  4. Scotch Collegian 1917, 1918, 1919
  5. The AIF Project - https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=168372

Page last updated: 11 November 2015