Wednesday, June 16, 2021

The St Kilda War Trophy - a long range German Gun

In late 1919 the  Commonwealth War Trophies Committee was established and its role was to distribute 'war trophies' which had been captured during the Great War.  A War Trophy Committee was established in each State and they determined how the guns would be distributed. In Victoria, some of the trophies were retained by the Government for a State War Museum and trophies were also allocated to each Citizen Force Light Horse and Infantry Unit. The remaining trophies were allotted to towns; Melbourne and inner suburbs, such as St Kilda were regarded as one unit of allocation (1) The Lord Mayor of Melbourne convenened a meeting of mayors of suburbs within the metropolitan area and the allocations were decided (2). 

St Kilda was first offered in August 1921 a Trench Mortar (3), which they were not happy with. Correspondence between the local member, William Watt, M.P., and an unnamed staff member in Home & Territories stated that St Kilda feels that its undoubtedly fine war record has not been suitably recognised (4). There was some sympathy for this position within the Victorian Committee who thought that St Kilda had special claims by reason of its population and  its position as a leading metropolitan seaside resort (5)

After the initial allocation to Victoria another four or five guns became available from a shipment presented to Australia from the French Government and after passionate advocacy on Mr Watt's part on behalf of the St Kilda Council they were allocated a 8-inch Howitzer (6). However, in June 1922 Mr Watt received a letter from the Director of the Australian War Museum offering the City a 6-inch gun, though the gun is of smaller calibre than the howitzer, it is considerably larger, and in fact is the largest gun available for distribution in the metropolitan area (7). The gun itself was the largest type conveyed by the Germans with road traction, it weighed 11½  tons, was 30 feet long and it could reportedly throw a 120 pound shell from St Kilda to Mordialloc (8). 


The War Trophy Gun, looking over St Kilda Pier. It is views like this that led the Victorian War Trophy Committee to recognise St Kilda as a leading metropolitan seaside resort. 
Visible at the end of St. Kilda Pier is the Colonial naval ship Childers Conning Tower,
The Pier from Alfred Square, St Kilda. Photographer: Rose Stereograph Co., 
State Library of Victoria Image H32492/4925

In August 1922, the St Kilda Town Clerk formally accepted this offer of the 6-inch gun. The  appointed Trustees were Cr Joseph Hewison, Cr George Renfrey and Cr Burnett Gray (9). The gun was placed on display in Alfred Square, the same park where the St Kilda Boer War Memorial was unveiled on March 12, 1905 (10).  It wasn't the only gun at Alfred Square there was also this gun, pictured below. I do not know the fate of this gun.


An older gun in Alfred Square, St Kilda Esplande, Melbourne in 1919. The gun was featured in a series of photos under the headline Old Guns in Parks and Gardens.

On June 23, 1923 this 150 mm Long Range High Angle Gun, No. 103 (as the gun was officially named) was formally handed over  to the City of St Kilda by William Watt, M.P., in a ceremony in Albert Square. Mr Watt was reported as saying it was doubtful if any city in Australia had such a fine record for war efforts or for the number of its citizens who had enlisted as St Kilda. The gun was captured on 8th August, 1918, at one of the most dramatic and decisive moments of the war, three months before the final overthrow of the Germans. At this time the Australians were the spearhead of the Allied forces (11)

It is interesting that he gives the date of capture, because in October 1922 the Director of the Australian War Museum wrote to the St Kilda Town Clerk  that owing to the unit failing to record the place and date of capture it is regretted that a full history cannot be furnished other than it was captured by the Australian Corps on the Western Front during the final offensive in 1918 (12). 


Workmen placing St. Kildas war trophy - a long-range German gun captured by the Australians - in position in Alfred Square, on the Esplanade today

Other speeches on the day were also reported Mr. Eggleston, M.L.A., member for St.Kilda and a returned soldier, who unveiled a plate on the gun, said it was doubtful if Australians recognised sufficently the great efforts of their men at the front. The gun would serve as a memorial to future generations, and make them realise the horrors of war, and that every peaceful means should be exhausted before war was sought. Cr. Cummings, in receiving the gun on behalf of the City, said it would serve to remind the present generation of those who had returned and of its promises to care for those who had been left by those who would never return (13). 


The War Trophy Gun on the right, looking towards another memorial, the Carlo Catani 
Memorial Clock Tower and the St Kilda Baths.
View from Alfred Square, St Kilda. Photographer: Rose Stereograph Co.,
State Library of Victoria Image H32492/602

In spite of the enthusiastic efforts that the St Kilda Council went to, to obtain their War Trophy, there wasn't universal approval of this acquistion. The Prahan Telegraph was quite scathing -  In the meanwhile people are making rude remarks about the hideous gun which is scrapped in the Town Hall gardens, pointing its lean grey-hound barrel towards Carlisle street. This devilish instrument of man's inhumanity to man awaits its transference to Alfred Square, where it is to be placed to please the St. Kilda jingoes who shouted so hard to the other fellow to go to the war, but who themselves went no further than the St. Kilda pier to wave adieus to the troop transports. Such war trophies, the guns, are in their right place when retained in the war museum, but they are not in keeping with the amenities of the St. Kilda shorefront, where one does not desire to find a Moloch pendant of the heathen god of war, the most accursed of all cursed, gods that man ever capitalised or personified (14). 

The Prahran Telegraph later reported on the 'handing over' ceremony, under the headline Gun Gush - One speaker said the gun would serve to remind those who had relatives killed in the war that those honoured ones were not forgotten. We fail to understand what that apparently intendened pious observation means. If the gun reminds the relatives of the fallen, or anything, it reminds them that they have lost loved ones in a war, the true inwardness yet of which is not yet understood by the masses. Another speaker looked at the gun differently. He said the gun would serve as  a perpetual reminder of the horror and hatefulness of war. How it will do that, we do not know. There is no evidence of the horror and hatefulness of the war in the gun itself. It is simply a rusting piece of steel disfiguring Alfred Place, and quite out of place with the amenties of St Kilda's beautiful sea front.......Possibly after seeing miles of wooden white crosses in Picardy, recording the deaths of gallant Australian boys, we have less stomach to digest these flag-waving ceremonies, and less patience to hear jingoistic talk about war trophies far too often placed in the wrong places by men who talk, but who do not realise the hatefulness of war implements in abodes of peace (15). 


Mrs H. D. Matta photographed with the gun in 1925.

The gun remained at Alfred Square on display and formed a background to family photos and postcards and then it was back in the news in 1942 -  St. Kilda council is in a quandary as to what to do with the German 9.5 gun, a relic of the last war, which has been a conspicuous object in Alfred-square on the Esplanade for many years. It was recently offered to the defence authorities, who declined it "with thanks," and an offer of it to a firm for sale as scrap metal was not accepted. It was stated that it would cost £30 to remove it from its concrete emplacement. It was pointed out by one councillor that the presence of the gun in the square might constitute a grave menace to the neighborhood as hostile aircraft might regard it was part of the anti-aircraft defence. Moreover, it constituted an obstacle to the approach to slit trenches in the event of a raid (16).   

A report two weeks later said When the gun was offered a fortnight ago to the Minister for Munitions (Mr Makin) by the St. Kilda Council, the Minister suggested that the gun would be of more value to the war effort if it was used for training purposes instead of being used as scrap. It was reported at last night's meeting of the council that the Commanding-Officer of the 1/2 Medium Training Regiment at Puckapunyal had asked for the gun to train the troops, and it will be given to him (17)

However, for some reason the gun was never sent to Puckpunyal and we learn more of its history from Retrieving the Cultural Biography of a Gun by David Pearson and Graham Connah. Their article was published in the Journal of Conflict Archaelogy in Janaury 2013.  They write some time after July 1968 it was disposed of by the council and was rescued by a private purchaser whilst on its way to the scrap yard.  It is now at the Caribbean Gardens and Market at Scoresby, in Melbourne (18). 

Caribbean Gardens closed down in 2020. We do not know what the owners of Caribbean Gardens plan to do with the gun. 


The gun at Caribbean Gardens.
Image: Pakenham Modellers Group Facebook page, posted July 3 2019. 
This is the Group's website http://www.vinwragg.com/pmg/new/


The original plaque is also at Caribbean Gardens, which was unveiled on June 23, 1923 
by Mr. Eggleston, M.L.A., member for St.Kilda and a returned soldier. It may not be appropriate (or logistically possible) for the gun to return to St Kilda but it would be nice if the plaque could find a home in Alfred Square, as part of an interpretive panel or display. 
Image: Pakenham Modellers Group Facebook page, posted July 3 2019. 
This is the Group's website http://www.vinwragg.com/pmg/new/

Acknowledgments
I was made aware of the St Kilda War Trophy Gun by my research colleague, Isaac Hermann. His friend, David Clerehan, had informed him of Caribbean Gardens' closure and the pending situation with the gun and this led to this research, some of which was also done by or in conjunction with Isaac. Thank you, David and Isaac.  It was Kay Rowan, Local History Librarian at the City of Port Phillip who made us aware that the gun was not moved to Puckpunyal in 1942. Kay supplied the article Retrieving the Cultural Biography of a Gun by David Pearson and Graham Connah. Thank you, Kay.

Trove list
I have created a list of articles connected to the St Kilda War Trophy Gun, access it here.

Footnotes
(1) National Archives of Australia Series AWM 194 - Allotment of 1914-1918 War trophies St Kilda.
This is a 26 page file containing various correspondence from the St Kilda Council, William Watt the local Member of Parliament, copies of correspondence to and from the Victorian Committee to the Director of the Australian War Museum regarding St Kilda's request for a War Trophy and similar. You can see the file here https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2798268
(2) Ibid
(3) Ibid
(4) Ibid
(5) Ibid
(6) Ibid
(7) Ibid
(8) The Age June 25, 1923, see here and The Argus June 25, 1923, see here.
(9) National Archives of Australia Series AWM 194 - Allotment of 1914-1918 War trophies St Kilda.
(10) I have written about the St Kilda Boer War Memorial here    http://carlocatani.blogspot.com/2020/01/fathers-and-sons-mateship-and-monuments.html
(11) The Age, June 25, 1923, see here.
(12) National Archives of Australia Series AWM 194 - Allotment of 1914-1918 War trophies St Kilda.
(13) The Age, June 25, 1923, see here.
(14) Prahran Telegraph, June 1, 1923, see here.
(15) Prahran Telegraph, June 29, 1923, see here.
(16) The Age, April 9, 1942, see here.
(17) The Herald, April 21, 1942, see here.
(18) Retrieving the Cultural Biography of a Gun by David Pearson and Graham Connah in Journal of Conflict Archaelogy V.8, No. 1, Janaury 2013, pp 41-73. The quote is from page 65. This is the full quote, with their sources listed - The treatment of Gun 135 was also much superior to that of the only other surviving gun of this type in Australia (Gun 103) which is now in a deteriorated condition. This was initially presented to the municipality of St Kilda, in Melbourne, but some time after July 1968 it was disposed of by the council and was rescued by a private purchaser whilst on its way to the scrap yard (AWM194 Melbourne 29; AWM262 103 St Kilda; City of Port Phillip Archives, St Kilda trophy gun 06/012/0011; The Argus, 25 June 1923: 12; Prahran Telegraph, 29 June 1923: 6; St Kilda Municipal Council Minutes, 15 and 29 July 1968; Billet, 1999: 56, 58–59, 85; Caribbean Gardens, 2011). It is now at the Caribbean Gardens and Market at Scoresby, in Melbourne.

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