Book Review
George Hubert Wilkins is not a name which everybody knows. Outside a handful of WW1 historians, a handful of polar exploration buffs, and perhaps a handful of mystics, it's not a familiar name. It should be.
We've all heard of Charles Bean and Frank Hurley, Peary and Lindbergh; but Sir Hubert Wilkins? A new book by author and explorer Jeff Maynard aims to right this wrong.
As a collection of ripping yarns The Unseen Anzac would be hard to beat, and it's extraordinary that Wilkins has dropped out of the public consciousness. Where to begin?
Wilkins was born in rural South Australia in 1888. As a boy he was fascinated by anything mechanical, and by photography, so it was natural for him to run away from home to join a travelling vaudeville show which had an early petrol generator and an early cinematograph.
This led to a move to London, and aged 24, a paid job as official cinematographer for Gaumont news covering the 1912 Turkish - Serbian war. It was here that Wilkins developed a reputation for cool-headedness and a keen professionalism. He was never content to lurk behind the lines when there was real action to film and photograph.
From the Balkans, it was (to him) an obvious step to join an ill-fated expedition to the Arctic, led by an eccentric Icelandic-Canadian, who believed that the expedition needed neither stores nor preparation because the Arctic would furnish all that was needed. The expedition was not a success, but it left in Wilkins an endless fascination with polar exploration.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the Western Front was reaching its muddy bloody climax at the Somme. Charles Bean had become official Australian war correspondent and historian, with Frank Hurley, himself a polar explorer, as photographer. Bean was determined that there would be a detailed and accurate account of the Australians on the Western Front, and in the future an Australian War Museum.
Bean demanded factual images, which Wilkins was able to provide. Hurley wanted drama, and was quite prepared to fudge several negatives together if the scene demanded it.
In the final months of the war, Wilkins worked at a frenetic pace, creating the record that Bean wanted. He was shelled, buried in mud, carried out the wounded, was wounded himself, accepted the surrender of some bewildered Germans, led a group of (equally bewildered) American GIs into combat, and was twice awarded the Military Cross.
Most of his WW1 photographs are today in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. They are attributed to "Unknown Australian War Photographer", often mis-attributed, and some even claimed by Hurley.
After WW1, Wilkins was largely forgotten in Australia. He moved to the United States, married a Broadway actress, attempted to fly from England to Australia (but crashed in Crete), flew from Alaska to Norway, continued with polar exploration, collected specimens in Northern Australia for the British Museum, and despite derision attempted in 1930 to sail a second-hand US submarine under the North Pole. Wilkins lived just long enough to learn of the 1958 sub-polar voyage of the USS Skate.
This is an extraordinary life. The Unseen Anzac, Jeff Maynard, (Scribe, 2015) is available in Cooma from Dorothy Dickens Books and Music, 88 Sharp Street.