Tall Digger played down war heroics
Bandy Turner was more than six feet tall in the old money, broad- shouldered and a good boxer.
As such it was little surprise that his actions on the battlefields of Gallipoli drew the attention of English war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, who wrote of how a giant Australian had dealt with a nest of Turks with his bayonet.
Benjamin "Bandy" Turner was a great-uncle of Vince Cusworth, of Maida Vale. Mr Cusworth said Turner was a "knockabout sort of bloke who loved his family".
Turner enlisted in September 1914, giving his age as 23 and occupation as labourer. He was assigned to the 11th Battalion and was among those who gathered on January 10, 1915, to be photographed on the Cheops Pyramid.
He was wounded on the day of the Gallipoli landing on April 25, taking a bullet in a forearm, rejoined the unit in June and in July was shot in the left hand.
Turner was returned to Perth to recover, and was interviewed by the Daily News. He was quick to play down Ashmead-Bartlett's description of his heroics, responding in a typically laconic way: "How could you expect a bloke to chuck Turks over his shoulder when the trenches are nine feet deep?"
He went on to describe what had happened when he found himself part of an attack on a Turkish trench. One Turk had grabbed his bayonet and twisted his gun away, and the men grappled until Turner "hit him on the teeth with my fist" and then "hit him with my right".
Despite being sent home injured, Turner was not done with the war. He re-embarked in September 1916 with the battalion's 20th reinforcements, this time to Western Europe. He was followed soon after by his younger brother, Thomas "Stormy" Turner.
In September 1917, Bandy was seriously wounded in action in Belgium. The book Legs Eleven, by Capt. Walter Belford, recounts that "Doc Robbie" amputated one of Turner's arms. "As the arm was thrown aside, Bandy remarked 'that's the best part of old Bandy gone'," the book records.
Bandy Turner died on September 20, 1917.
