HYLAND, Francis William

Frank Hyland was onle a boy when he joined up, eighteen years and five months old. He was a junior telephone mechanic, in training with the Electrical Engineers Branch of the PMG,  and living at 18 Berry St., East Melbourne. In the immediate post-war years, he came back there, living at 72 and then 123 Gipps St, and in Hotham St.; presumably these were all boarding houses at the time. He was the son of William Patrick Hyland and Elizabth Anne Rutherford. The couple were to have three sons, Francis (1897), Basil (1899) and Nevillle (1904). It must have hurt when they agreed to let Frank go to war - his brothers were both dead, Basil having lived one year and Neville, presumably still born. There were also three sisters, Edith, Nellie and Marjory.

Frank Hyland signed up at Prahran on 3 July, 1916 and embarked for active service abroad on 2 October with the 7th Battalion. The 7th Battalion, along with the 5th, 6th and 8th battalions had been formed  from all Victorian volunteers and formed the 2nd Brigade of the AIF.  They had been part of the second wave at Anzac, and had then gone ten days later to fight at Krithia, a poorly planned and executed attack to capture the village, that cost the 7th Battalion a third of its strength in casualties.

By the time Frank Hyland joined the Battalion, they had fought at Pozieres, and then were placed on the Ypres Salient during the winter of 1917-1917. In early 1917, they fought in the push towards the Hindenburg Line. Frank Hyland was first in Britatin, but on 11 January, 1917, proceeded overseas to France on the Prince Augustus, leaving from Folkestone and marching in to Etaples, then out to join the 7th Battalion on 15 January. He was taken on strength on 19 January, 1917. On 25 May, he was ill, suffering from a strangulated hernia  and weas sent to hospital on 2 June, returning to duty on 30 May.  He remained with the 7th Battalion and would have taken part in the Ypres Spring Offensive of 1917, first the battle of Menin Rd., then on 4 October, Broodseinde, where  on the first day of the battle, he sustained a shotgun wound in his left leg on 5 October and was admitted to the 3rd Field Ambulance on the battlefield, then to the 11th General Hospital at Dannes.  From here  on 9 October he was transferred to the 6th Convalescent Depot at Dannes, then the 14th Convalescent Depot on 11 october and finally, on 15 october to the 2nd General Hospital at Havre. He was transferred back to England on 22 October and admitted to Queen Mary's Military Hospital on 24th October. He was on leave in England from 1-13 January, 1919, and reported back to the No. 3 Command Depot at Hurdcott. On to the 12 March, he was transferred to the No 4 Command Depot, and on 18 March, back to the No. 3 Depot. On 30 March, he was returned to duty in France, but within two weeks, was ill, this time with tonsillitis. He again returned to the field on 21 August, but on 11 October, just as the war was coming to an end, he was admitted to the 3rd Australian General Hospital at Abbeville with an iguinal hernia and  'debility'. At 12 February, 1919, he was afflicted with Fununculosis, a streptococcal infection which demonstrated itself in large pus-filled boils under the arms and resulted in two more weeks in hospital. On 24 February,1919, Frank Hyland was found to be medically unfit. He left England for his return to Australia on board H.T. Chemitz, landing at Melbourne on 5 September, 1919. he was finally discharged from further military service on 17 November 1919.

In 1926, at the age of 28, Frank Hyland married to Myrtle Christina Harrison. They appear not to have had children. In 1928, they moved into 75 Reynolds Parade, Pasoce Vale. Frank was a mechanic, probably with the telephone services. The couple were still there in 1963, with Frank still in work. He died in 1974 at Bundalong, Victoria.