Captain Hugo Vivien Hope Throssell VC 

Throssell was awarded the Victoria Cross for most conspicuous bravery at Kaiakij Aghala (Hill 60), Gallipoli on 3 August 1915.

At the Garden of Remembrance in the Perth War Cemetery, Western Australia

Lieutenant Hugo Throssell of the 10th Light Horse had been in the charge at Nek on August 7. Throssell knew the charge was hopeless. He called out to his men to lie down on dead ground. 'A bob in and the winner shouts,' he yelled as his men huddled around him in a hollow. 'Jim' Throssell liked to joke. And he was lucky. He managed to crawl back unharmed. His brother, Ric, was wounded.

Now, on August 29, Throssell was in a trench at Hill 60 in a bomb-fight with the Turks that was as desperate as anything that happened at Lone Pine. Throssell and his men were on one side of a barricade, the Turks on the other. Ten yards separated them at times. Both sides pelted each other with bombs. 

The Australians fired until their rifles became so hot they had to throw them down and grab replacements from the dead and wounded. Throssell was shot in the shoulder and the neck. Corporal Syd Ferrier had an arm blown off by a Turkish bomb. He kept throwing bombs with his other arm until he collapsed. He died on a hospital ship.

Throssell held the trench, came out of the line and tried to smoke a cigarette. His wounds had stiffened and he could not raise his hand to his mouth. His shirt was shredded by bomb fragments and one of his 'Australia' badges had been driven into his shoulder. Throssell returned after having his wounds dressed. Captain (later Lieutenant-General) Horace Robertson ordered him to leave and not to come back.

Throssell, a 31-year-old farmer, won the Victoria Cross. He rejoined the Light Horse in Palestine in 1917 and was wounded in thigh and foot during the Battle of Gaza. His brother was killed in the same action. Throssell spent the night searching unsuccessfully for his brother's body. After that he seemed to change. The joy of life was gone.

Throssell married the writer Katharine Susannah Prichard and settled on a farm near Perth. Throssell started to go broke as Great Depression took hold. He thought a war-service pension would bring financial security to his family. In November, 1933, aged 49, the man who went off to war with a mischievous smile sat down on the verandah and shot himself in the head.

From Gallipoli by Les Carlyon ISBN 0-7329-1128-1

The private gravesite of Throssell VC at Karrakatta Cemetery, Perth WA

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