Cooee still calls down the years
First recruitment march re-enacted

Celebrating: ACM Angus Houston, meets Cooee march re-enactors WO2 Chris Henschke, Leut-Cmdr John Potter and Cpl Simon Reddish. At the back are Martin Gibbs and Michael Bell.

By the left: Giving the beat for marching practice are returned servicemen Rusty Jones, Steve Thompson and Paul Bywater on drum. Photo by Bill Cunneen

By Cpl Emma Rainey and 2Lt Sam McCurdy

MAJ John Gallagher, of 1 Joint Movements Group, celebrated the 90th anniversary of Australia’s first recruitment march by treading in some of his great grandfather’s footsteps.

Bill Hitchen, a Gilgandra plumber, together with his brother Dick, a butcher, came up with the idea of a recruitment drive, the Cooee March, that would cover more than 514km over a five-week period in 1915 following heavy losses at Gallipoli.

“A lot of them, including Bill, joined to support other family members who were over there, other friends and other Australians,” Maj Gallagher said.

The recruits walked from Gilgandra, in central NSW, to Sydney. What began as a group of 35 men soon swelled to more than 263, as volunteers from Wellington, Dubbo, Orange, Bathurst and Katoomba joined them. With no state support, the men relied heavily on local appeals and collections to fund their ambitious campaign.

Maj Gallagher spent six months organising the re-enactment, a highlight of Reserve Forces Day celebrations in Sydney.

Two days of training began when AIF re-enactors from the Australian Great War Association (AGWA), Army Reservists and civilian volunteers from the CFA, SES and other community groups from towns along the route of the original march, began erecting bell tents on the Anzac Rifle Range in Malabar.

Here they established a period encampment with tent lines and an admin area. They conducted dress and weapon inspections then rifle drill with period weapons and a patrol to practise platoon formations.

Further training included briefings, company drill and the opportunity for the volunteers to walk through the period encampment and talk to the re-enactors. A final rehearsal brought everythingtogether.

Led by the band of 7 Fd Regt and the Light Horse Sqn, about 180 participants formed up in College Street, marched past Saint Mary’s Cathedral and the Albert Memorial then up Macquarie Street to halt outside the Australian Museum for inspection by NSW Governor Marie Bashir and CDF Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

The march finished in the Domain, the site of the end of the original Cooee March.

Of the 263 Cooees, about 220 eventually saw action in the Middle East and on the Western Front in World War I. At least 20 died, including Bill Hitchen.

The Church of St Ambrose was later founded in Gilgandra as a thank you gift from the people of an English village bearing the same name. It was a “token of brotherhood with men of Australia, who fought with the Mother Country for the freedom of the world”.