Lone Pine Memorial, Turkey

Private Havilland Montague Durand

Havilland Montague Durand was born on 21 December 1883 at Earley vicarage near Reading. His father, also Havilland Durand, was vicar there for 13 years, and died shortly afterwards in 1884. Havilland was the seventh and last child and was then brought up by his widowed mother Mary in St Peter Port and then Moulin Huet in Guernsey. Havilland was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, and then University College, Durham where he matriculated in Michaelmas term 1902. He passed his first year Arts exams in Easter term 1903 and his finals in Easter term 1904. He took his BA degree on 21 June 1904, and his M.A. on 25 June 1907. He rowed bow in the University College Senate Cup winning crews of both 1904 and 1905, having stayed on after graduation as secretary of the Students Representative Council (forerunner of the present DSU). He served for 2 years in the 5th (Volunteer) Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry. He then emigrated to Australia, travelling from London in September 1911 to Brisbane, where he settled as a teacher. He volunteered as a Private on the outbreak of war and joined the Australian Imperial Force on 4 September 1914. He was posted to the newly formed 13th Battalion on 22 September. He embarked for Egypt with his battalion at Melbourne on 22 December 1914 on H.M.A.T. Ulysses. As part of 4th Brigade of the New Zealand and Australian Division 13th Battalion spent the winter training in the Cairo area. The Battalion sailed from Alexandria on 13 April and arrived off Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula at 4.30 p.m. on the afternoon of 25 April 1915. A, B and C Companies disembarked under fire at 9.30 p.m. that evening, D Company landing at 3.30 a.m. the next morning. The battalion took up positions on Pope’s Hill and Quinn’s Hill at the head of Monash Valley at 5.00 a.m. By 27 April his company was running short of ammunition and Lister volunteered to go back down Monash Valley to the beach to fetch more. Both the gully and the beach were under heavy Turkish fire. He managed to get back with the ammunition but seems to have been killed either later that day or during the next. His service record established the date of death as 27 April however. His captain wrote “he had done his duty and saved our line. I have to mention that he was loved by officers and men alike. He was selected and especially trained for a batt[alio]n Scout, work that always required a lot of intelligence and tact. The Colonel assured me that if Durand had not arrived with the ammunition, his comrades who were in an isolated position, would have been annihilated and our line would have been broken”. His effects included a rosary, a French book and a sketch book. He was buried by his comrades on a hill at Gaba Tepe with a cross above his grave. The grave was lost in the fighting and he is now commemoratedin the Lone Pine Memorial in Turkey. His eldest brother, Francis William Durand, had been killed in France on 22 December 1914.

Additional sources: Australian Imperial Force unit war diaries, April 1915