From Swords to Ploughshares: Townsville men and women who served their community in war and peace

Armistice Day procession, Flinders Street, Townsville, 1918. Photo: James Cook University North Queensland Photographic Collection NQID 00188

At 5am on 11 November 1918, representatives of France, Germany and Britain met in a railway carriage parked in a French forest and signed the Armistice that ended World War I. It followed a difficult year for both sides, in which German military leaders came to believe they could not win the war. The cease-fire came into effect along the entire Western Front six hours later, at 11am. As the guns fell silent and the news broke, rejoicing erupted from Paris and London to the cities and towns of Australia. - National Archives of Australia.

Some of the displays from the From Swords to Ploughshares exhibition at Eddie Koiki Mabo Library, James Cook University. Photo: Trisha Fielding

Trisha Fielding is pictured with displays from the From Swords to Ploughshares exhibition at Eddie Koiki Mabo Library, James Cook University. Photo: Bronwyn McBurnie

Lyndon Megarrity has written about Alfred Yapp - a fireman, railway man, soldier and poet - and shares his research here:

Alfred Yapp
Born: Townsville, 1891
Died: 9 April 1950
Private (Gunner): served as a member of the Australian Imperial Force’s 15th Battalion; later transferred to 7th Australian Machine Gun Company

A. Yapp. Photo: State Library of Queensland.

Townsville fireman Alfred Yapp joined the Army during the early days of World War I. He served in the Gallipoli campaign and later in France. Wounded on the battlefield, Yapp was forced through illness to spend much time in hospital. While recuperating in London, Alfred Yapp wrote and published his first and possibly only poem: 

Sick and wounded here I’m lying,
Far away from those I love:
But our dear old flag is flying
Bravely in the breeze above.

How that flag brings consolation
To a lonely breaking heart,
For, amidst this desolation,
It has played a gallant part.

We have christened it with glory.
Brave Australians made its fame,
We have seen it torn and gory,
In the shell fire’s bursting flame.

We have seen the five stars flutter,
Their defiance to the foe,
In their proudness seem to utter,
Words of courage, sweet and low.

Shall we stand our ground, or shall we
Lose the place so dearly won,
By the blood we shed so freely
At the cost of many a son?

By our mothers’ tears and sorrow.
By our fathers’ pent-up grief.
Shall we keep it there to-morrow?
Shall our triumph be but brief?

Will the children to come after,
In the years that follow fast,
In the peaceful hereafter,
When the dread of war is past.

Will these keep our flag e’er flying
O’er our rights so dearly won,
Proudly, scornfully defying,
Yielding principles to none?

To them we may say: “We trust you,
And we know that you will keep
It flying as to-day it flew,
When we did our glory reap.”

‘An Anzac’s Inspiration’, Daily Standard, 8 April 1916, p. 15

Due to medical reasons, Yapp’s career as soldier ended in 1917. Yapp subsequently returned home to Townsville and again found work with the local fire brigade. He married Edith Reynolds, a tailoress, in St Peter’s Anglican Church, West End, on 16 August 1920. The pair settled in the suburb of Pimlico and had three children.

Yapp Street, in the Townsville suburb of Vincent, was named in honour of Alfred Yapp. Photo: R.G. Megarrity.

Yapp soon left his work as a fireman and was employed for many years in the Queensland Railways Department, ultimately working as an engine driver. He died in Townsville on 9 April 1950 aged 58. Yapp Street in the Townsville suburb of Vincent is named in his honour.

Lyndon Megarrity

Sources:
‘Obituary’ and ‘Funeral Notice’, Townsville Daily Bulletin, 11 April 1950, p. 2.
Alfred Yapp and Edith May Reynolds, Queensland Marriage Certificate no. 1920/C/2888
Alfred Yapp, Queensland Death Certificate no. 1950/C/2431
National Archives of Australia:B2455, YAPP A [service record]
John Mathew (comp.), Highways and Byways: The Origin of Townsville Street Names, Townsville: Townsville Library Service, 1995 (revised 2008), p. 127.

Acknowledgements: This project has been funded by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs through the Armistice Centenary Grants Program in the federal electorate of Herbert. It has also received support from JCU Library Special Collections, Townsville City Council City Libraries, and the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Additional support from the Army Museum North Queensland, Townsville RSL Library, Townsville Museum and Historical Society, 1RAR Museum, and the Maritime Museum of Townsville, is also gratefully acknowledged.

For more on the project team, check out From Swords to Ploughshares - Introducing the Research Team

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.