This story was originally published on April 21 2016
DOUGLAS WALSH was a noted actor in Adelaide’s theatrical circles in the early 1900s, but to many men, women and children, he was best known as a competitive footballer and a respected army lieutenant.
Playing for Port Adelaide in the 1908 and 1909 seasons, Walsh – originally of Wallaroo – finished his league career with a few seasons at Unley.
But it was on the frontlines of France where he distinguished himself.
Walsh and his younger brother D’Arcy enlisted to serve in World War I in 1915 - both were commissioned lieutenants - and like so many young Australians would travel to the other side of the world to fight with the Allied Forces.
While fighting the German forces on the Western Front, Walsh also battled the harsh life of a digger in the trenches.
Within the first year spent fighting, Walsh had suffered a shrapnel wound to his head and a gunshot wound to the neck - such was the nature of soldiering on the front in the War.
It was on 16 June 1917 that he was confronted by a new challenge – enemy soldiers inside his trench.
Walsh suffered wounds in the battle, as undoubtedly did many of his men, while leading his fellow troops forward to drive the Germans out.
For this, Walsh was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.
It’s the sort of bravery Australians venerate their servicemen for, but for Walsh and fellow footballers to receive medals during the First World War – men like Roy Drummond M.M. and Tom McDonald D.C.M. – actions were not done for medals, but for survival and the safety of fellow soldiers.
Walsh’s war continued, and while men fell around him, he battled on.
But for the risk of being picked-off by enemy snipers or killed like so many soldiers in the fire of war, it was illness that proved his biggest enemy.
By 1918, Walsh was fighting an enlarged heart, inflamed kidneys and bronchitis.
These illnesses resulted in him being sent back to Australia at the end of May 1918; his condition unchanged by his arrival in Australia, he was sent to the Keswick Military Hospital.
His family who greeted him upon arrival noted he was “a very sick man,” and he passed away on August 12 from his war illness. Walsh is buried at West Terrace.
For his parents - John and Margaret - the first World War took two of their sons, with D'Arcy killed in Belgium.
Their pain would be carried for many years, with Margaret living through another catastrophic conflict - the Second World War - in 1940.
Having never married, Douglas has few contemporary family members.
His grandnephew Richard Walsh, knew only of Douglas through the unspoken solemnity of his grandfather, who would visit his Douglas's grave every weekend.
"I first became aware, probably, when I was at boarding school and I would come into my grandfather's office," Richard recalls.
"In the office there were two rather large photographs of his two brothers, and I was told who they were - Douglas and D'Arcy.
"He would never talk about it, and I imagine it would have been quite painful; I imagine people would not have spoken much of it in those days."
