Personal battle told

It was the third battle at Ypres, on October 3, 1917. The injury was so devastating, the member of the 33rd Battalion was initially left for dead.

It was a fellow Inverell resident, Sergeant Jack Gaukroger, who recognised there was life in the wounded man, and he had him transported to the field hospital. It was from that point the arduous journey to healing began for the man, known back home as Bill Kearsey.

The irony is that the young soldier had an elective surgery on his eyes to enlist in 1916.

Bill’s story will be one of eight in an exhibition at the Melbourne Museum titled World War I: Love and Sorrow, telling personal stories of individuals afflicted by the conflict, including a mother, soldiers and brothers fighting side-by-side. 

Local man, Peter Kearsey was adopted at age 14 after his arrival from England by Bill and his wife Verdi in 1960. It is Peter’s voice that museum visitors will hear as they view the images and learn about Bill’s story of injury, healing and life beyond the war.

The exhibition opens on August 29 and will run until 2018.

Australian War Museum collection curator and researcher, Kerry Neale, has spent the past six years invested in thousands of lives of disfigured World War I solders from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and England. It is the subject of her current PhD, and the idea came to her while listening to a radio program.

“A gentleman rang in saying that he had a series of photographs of his grandfather’s nose reconstruction. He’d lost his nose during the Battle of the Somme,” Kerry said.

“What struck me was this grandchild described his grandfather’s eyes as dimming a little in each of the photographs; that he’d lost that spark of life.”

Kerry said she was intrigued to learn more about how the injuries had robbed that soldier of his essence and she resolved to learn more.

During her research, she came across Bill Kearsey more than once, and it is her work on the man with help from Peter and other Kearsey relatives that is seen in the Melbourne exhibit.

Bill Kearsey’s face was literally blown apart by shrapnel from an Allied shell seized by the Germans. Photos taken do not reveal the initial extent of his wounds, but they do show the crevasse which cleft his forehead in half.

He endured 29 major surgeries at the Queen’s Hospital at Sidcup, England in 18 months. Those who resided at Sidcup benefited from the care of a New Zealand surgeon, Harold Gillies, and a team of dedicated nurses who looked after not only the physical care but mental well-being of the healing soldiers.

There was also mental stimulation with patients learning toy-making and woodwork. Gillies also came onto the wards and visited with the men. He actively consulted with them about their reconstruction and asked for their preferences.

What makes the Kearsey story so remarkable is the extent of his injury, medical treatment and how early 20th century plastic surgery, infection management, and anaesthesia rocketed in their advancement during a time when surgeons were faced with horrific injuries on the wards.

“The trauma that he would have gone through physically as well as emotionally, wondering what life was going to be like after he left the hospital, but physically he could have gone through quite a bit of pain,” Kerry said.

“It’s a slow process. You had to undergo one operation, recover from that before you could move on to the next phase in the reconstruction. A lot of it involved pedicle tubes, which were flaps of skin, which actually meant the skin could be grafted and still attached to the body so there was a continuous flow of blood.”

The process gave good results, but meant months between operations. 

Peter said during his father’s reconstruction, he actually had his arm attached to his head to facilitate blood flow to the healing facial tissue.

Allegedly engaged or at least involved with a young woman before his departure to the front, Kearsey was a single man after his return in 1919. Peter said when his father was due to return home, he was advised to keep to himself.

“He told me that when he came back, the surgeon said down go out to the towns, stay in the bush as much as you can, because you’ll be shunned by the people. And basically, he did,” Peter said.

Incredibly, Bill was denied a soldier’s pension until 1964, and did not receive a solder’s settlement plot. 

He began his life back in Inverell as a lease holder at Long Plain and gradually built up a life at Severn Vale as farmer, cattle and wool producer on his own property of 100 acres to a holding of 4500 acres. He eventually became a husband at age 59, and active community member.

Bill married Verdun Forsyth, a young woman on a neighbouring property in 1951.

"It was one of those long-time friendships before they eventually got married. I loved her right from the start,” Peter said, recalling the moment he met his future adoptive mother when she met him at the Inverell train station.

Peter was taken in by the Kearseys as a last in a line of young men who came though the Big Brother program, to give boys a start in Australia. The couple grew attached to the boy and decided to adopt Peter to carry on the Kearsey name. 

“He was hard, but he was fair,” Peter said. 

“He never expected anybody to do anything that he wouldn’t do. For a man who’d had his disfigurement and been knocked about so much by his wounds, he was a very successful man. He just got on with life.”

Though he was affected by dust and dry weather as he no longer had tear ducts as a result of the war injuries, and he was compelled to go to bed during thunderstorms due to the psychological trauma, it was diabetes that eventually affected Bill’s vision and health.

Peter said Bill began to seriously decline after he received devastating news about his beloved Verdi’s terminal cancer. Verdi died in 1969 at age 58 and Bill followed her, passing away at age 80 in 1971. 

The couple is buried together at the Inverell cemetery.