Dear all,
before I comment and answer all the latest events and emerging research outcomes. I thought that I might digress to a story of another AIF soldier who became a National interest upon his State Funeral in 2004. I thought this story might strike a cord, given that we are searching for a fellow of similar characteristics, The two women who eventually unravelled his past, did so without his records using deduction and some good luck
Who is the mysterious Harold Katte, AKA Marcel Caux?
The mystery of Marcel Caux was so complex that the Australian Government had his body examined after he died to confirm his identity. Doubts were raised about the identity of the 105 year old soldier when Australian newspapers found there was no record of a soldier named Caux fighting for the AIF in WW1. The Australian Government was beginning to get worried that Mr Caux might not be who he said he was and given they were about to give him a State funeral in Sydney on Friday August 27th 2004, it might not look good if he actually wasn’t who he said he was. Never the less the Australian DVA were emphatic that he had served in the AIF. Meanwhile his service records were secured and not to be opened, suggesting some sort of strange conspiracy, becoming national news in Australia!
His family knew nothing of his war service until 1989 when the French made contact offering him the Legion of Honour for his WW1 service, which he accepted. He had become Marcel Caux by the time he married Irma Davis in 1929, she believed him to be French. Their Marriage Certificate records him as being born in Brest France. She was Belgian born and was convinced he was French. Although there is no record of a divorce, he then married Doris Young in 1949, this time claiming he was born in Quebec, he is then known as Marcel Cause aged 44.
The first deception in Caux’s story came in 1915 when he enlisted at 16 saying, he was 18 with his father’s signature on his enlistment papers. His father, Percy Katte, effectively sending his 16 year old son to War in Egypt and then France, to grow up in a very big hurry.
He was wounded three times firstly in France at Pozieres 1916, then Villers Bretonneux in 1918 and then at Amiens where his knee was shattered and subsequently locked solid for life. His unit lost 6848 men, killed, wounded or missing in 12 days around Pozieres, the total Australian casualties in six weeks was 23,300. Caux or Private Katte as he was then known was apparently AWL twice, firstly during 1917 at Le Harvre and again in 1918 in Brest apparently posing as a Frenchman.
After the war he returned to Australia with a rigid right leg and was subsequently refused an invalid pension, the physician insisted that if he could stand up he didn’t need one, Disillusioned with the Army he tore up his Army history and photographs and moved into the Australian bush where he became a Carpenter and an absolute opponent of War. He claimed for the next 80 years that his injuries were from WW2 and he was too young for service in WW1
He had not spoken of his WW1 history for 80 years, until 2001, he had never attended Remembrance day or Anzac day services. When he began to speak of his exploits his own narratives were riddled with inconsistencies and evasions. There were secrets in his service records that would threaten to undermine the hero-making machinery that ultimately ended in his State funeral. At different times he had laid claim to at least five different names, six birth places, three nationalities and five occupations.
The Katte/Caux story demonstrates what war can do to ordinary people. It also shows how one deception can lead to another and nearly a century later can embarrass the present. Caux was one of the last five Australian survivors of WW1. The French Government had honoured him as the last Australian survivor of the Battle of Pozieres
Just so there is no possible confusion here, this is definately not AE Harrison. This story is now the subject of a book "Marcel Caux A life Unrevelled" the Author and historian : Lynette Ramsey Sliver and Military Researcher Di Elliott and there is much about Marcel Caux, the book and the State Funeral on the NET.
You might well ask, how did Lyn and Di establish that Marcel and Harold were one and the same soldier without his service records? (his name change was in his records) but they were secured.
After some serious research they determined that Harold Katte was not repriated back to Australia on his designated troop ship the HMAT Runic. However, there was a soldier who was repriated to Australia aboard the HMAT Runic, with no record of him leaving Australia or for that matter fighting for Australia, his name was Marcel Caux, sounds pretty simple in this context...... !
