THIS week's article, the first for 2022, is about a Bathurstian who served at Gallipoli and in France in the Australian Army Medical Corps. Our photo of Captain Clive Wentworth Thompson was taken before he left Sydney Harbour in September 1914.
Lieutenant-Colonel Clive Wentworth Thompson, D.S.O., M.C., V.D., B.Sc., Mb., Ch.M., medical practitioner and soldier, was born on September 21, 1882 at Bathurst.
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He was the seventh of 11 children of parents William Gilbert Thompson, Bathurst's postmaster, and his wife Jane Amelia, nee Fraser.
He went to All Saints' College in Bathurst and, in 1902, entered the University of Sydney medical school to become a doctor, even though he had spent much of his time on sport and humorous escapades among his mates and staff.
In 1905, he decided to move onto the land.
At over six feet tall and of light build, he had been an all-round sportsman in his youth.
He must have had second thoughts as he chose to resume his medical course, completing his Bachelor of Science in 1911 and his Bachelor of Medicine in 1913.
He became a junior resident at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney as well as becoming a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC) the same year.
When war was declared in 1914, he enlisted on September 3, then re-enlisted on September 19, joining the A.A.M.C., Australian Imperial Force, as regimental medical officer to the 1st Battalion, attached to the 1st Brigade, under Lt. Col. Dobbin.
The 1st Battalion was housed in tents on the Kensington Racecourse.
The battalion sailed from Sydney on October 18, 1914 on the A-19 S.S. Apic.
Two other doctors were on board, Major Millard and Captain Basil St Vincent Welch, along with 1400 troops.
Clive assisted with inoculating and vaccinating the soldiers.
The convoy sailed to South Hampton to unload and the men marched to Aldershot to undergo three months of training, after which Clive expected to go to the continent.
These plans changed for those on board when orders were received to proceed to Mena Camp near Cairo to train there.
Clive was on the beach at Gallipoli with his battalion on April 25, 1915 to fight the Turks. On April 30, Clive was photographed with several other officers of 1st Battalion resting at Gallipoli, where the hospitals were all set up in tents.
Apart from one short rest period, he remained there throughout the Anzac campaign, using his initiative and organisational ability.
Clive wrote regularly to his mother and his family during the war, giving lots of information now lost in war records.
On February 10, 1915, he said the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Brigades were to move to Alexandria to embark to somewhere unknown. He mentioned that the Dardanelles were being bombarded at present by the Allied Fleet.
In another letter, on March 16, 1915, he said they were to be sent to somewhere in the region of the Dardanelles.
The troops were transported on the SS Minnewaska to Lemnos, where nearly 200 troopships and warships converged.
Clive landed with his battalion on the first day at Gallipoli.
On May 13, 1915, he wrote to his mother from the Gallipoli Peninsula, describing the first few days of the occupation after landing.
He went into considerable detail as to casualties and what the men were enduring.
Clive Thompson, as medical officer, had specifically warned Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges to be careful, which he must have basically ignored as he was mortally wounded, and Clive had to skilfully treat and evacuate the wounded major general.
Clive repeatedly undertook dangerous tasks to help wounded men, often under withering enemy fire.
He was awarded the Military Cross for his service at Gallipoli.
