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Colin Feslier
Sidney James Anton was a long-time secretary of the Island Bay RSA. His wartime diary is annotated in Analysing a Sardine Box by Colin Feslier for Sid Anton’s daughter Barbara Hoskins, a life member of the society.
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Sid Anton sailed to Europe right at the end of World War one, and was in the field for just 10 days under fire before armistice was declared.
His voyage, on the SS Tahiti in 1918, has been studied by epidemiologists because the officers, crew, and soldiers picked up influenza on the way.
Sid Ashton was one of those affected but unlike many others lived through it.
He was the oldest son of his parents Sidney James Anton snr and Mary Anton (nee Smith.) He was born in 1898 and had three sisters and one brother. When he left for the ‘Great War’ in 1918 the family were living in Brooklyn where his name is on the War memorial. Later they were living in Wadestown and when he married Sybil Edith Nimmo). They moved to 63 Derwent Street, Island Bay in 1931.
His daughter Barbara comments: “The War must have made a huge impact on him - a boy of 18, or19 but he never spoke about it to us. He coped with it by throwing himself into his family life and his job and by his involvement in his beloved RSA where, I presume, he could talk about it. He was the Secretary of the Island Bay RSA from its inception and most of the early committee meetings took place in our house. During the Depression, the RSA gave Returned Servicemen who were on work schemes a supplement and they called at our house where my Mother was home all day, to collect it. My sister and I were always encouraged to hold collection boxes at street corners on Rose Day (11th November) and Poppy Day (near Anzac Day) and helped fold and fill envelopes with annual reports etc. to be posted to members.
“He always brought home the wreath to go on the bell tower at Island Bay School for the Anzac day ceremony and today I cannot smell chrysanthemums without thinking of all those wreaths throughout the years! During the service he recited the Laurence Binyon lines - ‘They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old...’ Every Thursday evening for many, many years, he and his friend, Arthur Brown, drove up to the Island Bay Home of Compassion to take packets of cigarettes to the returned servicemen in hospital! They even took chocolate to the very occasional one who did not smoke! He called into the club rooms near the corner of Mersey St and The Parade every Friday night after doing the shopping and once a month attended ‘Long Night’ at the club on a Saturday night. (I think the long-suffering wives were invited to ‘Long Night’ now and again!) For all his services to the RSA, he was eventually awarded a Gold Star Badge.
“In later life he enjoyed playing bowls - he had been both a rugby and a soccer player in his youth. He doted on his ten grandchildren. Every single Friday night, for many years, after going to the Club he would come to my house where my Mother had spent the evening and he always left on the mantle piece a small cake of chocolate and shilling piece - one for each of my eight children! He was a great creature of habit - once he started going something he just kept on doing it.! Eventually all that smoking caught up with him and he developed emphysema. He died in the Home of Compassion that he had visited so often in 1970. He was my dear Father and a kind and generous man!”
Sid Anton’s diary began as he mobilized at Trentham camp to embark on 10 July 1918. He immediately began recording illness – seasickness among the troops in rough weather and his own problems with a boil and backpain. Both improved as the journey, first to Australia, continued. But there was worse to come.
By August 9 the Tahiti had reached Cape Town, where the troops were allowed ashore. They left on 12 August for the 10-day voyage to Sierra Leone, with ‘good weather’, calm seas’, and bright hot sunshine – ‘ too hot to do anything except loll about’. No leave was granted for fear of malaria fever, but trading was done from canoes
As the ship left on August 26 Sid Anton recorded: ‘Awoke on deck with lovely clear day. All hands paraded on deck at 9am to witness the departure of our convoy, ten steamers and tramps with an auxiliary cruiser as escort. Sickness on board, put down as virulent influenza more like black water malaria’. The next day he noted ‘Still prevailing sickness on board more of severe influenza’.
There were a total of 1,087 people aboard. Conditions were cramped. Later that week he noted: ‘Sickness still continuing, it affects one with headaches sore throat all muscles and limbs aching. Felt my first touch, took a mild fit after tea, caused through heat. Saturday August 31 Weather and climate cooler. Sickness beginning to diminish. Patients getting up after five to seven days in bed. Lost all my sickness now. OK. Sunday Sept 1 Good weather and a good sea. Sickness not yet abated. Lot in very low condition. 4 deaths during night. Man jumped overboard. Rescued doing well. Monday Sept 2 Good weather and plenty warm sun. Patients starting to pick up. First burial at sea today. Two more deaths this afternoon. Tuesday Sept 3 Good weather…Two deaths on board this morning, 3 this afternoon. Wednesday Sept 4 Weather still good, sickness eased up a lot although deaths to date total 33. Man lost overboard this morning. Thursday Sept 5 Weather becoming rough, total deaths to date 50. Sickness practically all over, bar a dozen or two. Saturday Sept 7 Weather rough no sunshine sickness practically subsided. Deaths today total 69. Sunday Sept 8 Weather rough picked up escort at 4.30pm, about 36 hours run to Blighty. Sickness all over. Deaths total 72 Monday September 9 Weather still rough only 7 boats left in convoy about seven or eight destroyers running around us. Sickness now well over deaths total 74. Tuesday September 10 Weather good although sea rough. Left convoy at Midday made for Plymouth arrived harbour at 3pm. Berthed in docks at 5pm. Another death on board as entered harbour total now stands 75.
Sid Anton before embarkation. Fourth horse from front.
A modern summary of the Tahiti epidemic tells us:
The medical and nursing personnel were overwhelmed by the mass casualty event caused by the influenza outbreak; many of them were incapacitated by illness when they were most needed. The use of strychnine, digitalis, and alcohol as stimulants for treating sick personnel onboard may have adversely affected mortality rates, but it is unlikely that any of the medications available in 1918 would have changed the outcome for most soldiers. Injections of an unspecific mixed catarrhal vaccine were given in the weeks before the outbreak but what affect, if any, this vaccine may have had is unknown. Nevertheless, another study during this period found that a possibly similar vaccine, also described as a mixed catarrhal vaccine, could have had a favorable affect on influenza-related mortality rates.
Socioeconomic status and military rank did not appear to effect mortality rates. Additionally, lower occupational status was not related to higher mortality rates, which suggested that any potential differences in nutritional or health status before embarkation or during the voyage did not play any major role in mortality risk. Classifications of [whether soldiers and sailors came from rural areas or not] … did not show any differences in mortality rates. New recruits (first embarkation) were just as likely to die during the outbreak as seasoned troops, which is not consistent with results of previous research. However, the numbers of experienced soldiers were small in this particular outbreak.
The outbreak on HMNZT Tahiti likely represents a worst-case scenario in which nonimmune soldiers were intensively exposed to a highly pathogenic virus while experiencing crowding and ineffective isolation measures. Perhaps the best use of the tragic story of HMNZT Tahiti is as a reminder that [even today] influenza is capable of causing devastating mass casualties, especially in closed and crowded populations.
Last photo before illness
Sid Anton’s pencilled notes are hard to read but he this captioned this photo ‘Last photo before illness’ and gives the names JJ(or SJ) Anderson, K(or H) Andrews, JK Hallaran (probably the obscured player) and SHE Newman. Note the pencilled cross above the second many from the left, Sid Anton’s sign that the man died in the epidemic.
Sid Anton’s experience of the influenza epidemic exposed him to the horrors of the deaths of young, healthy friends even before he saw battle. He recorded the names of the dead he knew in the diary and noted them in the ship-board photos he kept all his life, marking each with a small cross. Official inquiries found inadequacies but did not attribute blame for the deaths, some of the last of the Great War.
Analysing a Sardine Box is available from the Society
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