- Author
- Letter Writer
- Subjects
- History - WW1, Letter to the Editor
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- March 2008 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
Dear Editor,
I read with interest the recent article entitled Dry Land Sailors.
In this article, Commander Swinden suggests that the Bridging Train was ‘barely known about in 1917, let alone in the modern Navy’, and those who did know of its existence ‘possibly assumed that they were attached to the Light Horse, as they wore Light Horse uniforms’.
I would suggest that the reason they wore Light Horse uniforms and were initially issued with horses is because they were in fact a part of the Light Horse.
The Pictorial ‘Record of Australia’s Voluntary Effort in the Great War’, a copy of which hung on the wall of most Australian homes when I arrived here over fifty years ago, clearly shows the Naval Bridging Train as a part of the Light Horse Division under the command of Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel.
The Author of that pictorial record, who I believe may have been a non-commissioned soldier, certainly had no doubt where the Naval Bridging Train belonged. I trust that this will be of interest to your readers.
Yours sincerely
Fred Dawson
