The Anzac Skull Controversy

Really don't know where to start with this one. Some of you might already be familiar with the story.
I suppose parallels can be drawn with the exhibition of Prehistoric skulls etc in museums, but at least we know they have no living relatives to shock.
"Australia likes to refer to its battlefield dead, especially in the first and second world wars, as “the fallen” whose bodies, if found, were “laid to rest” in picturesque, peaceful cemeteries of blonde statuary and rosemary bush.
Our politicians invest significantly in commemorating them (some $600m-plus alone for first world war centenary events), and into finding, identifying and reburying those whose bodies the mud may surrender many decades later.
So it is surprising to find the skull of a first world war Australian Anzac soldier, replete with the shocking facial injuries that killed him a century ago this week, featured online in an American medical museum’s grisly collection of sometimes freakish exhibits.
The skull, part of the collection of the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, tells a shocking and tragic story of battlefield violence and intolerable physical suffering that official commemoration – with its almost ecclesiastical language of the fighting Anzac “spirit, the “fallen” and their “sacrifice” – all too often overlooks.
On 28 September 1917, the Anzac was shot in the mouth during the Battle of Polygon Wood (known also as the Third Ypres, part of the Battle of Passchendaele) in Belgium, and his right jaw destroyed by shrapnel while another bullet – still visible in his skull – struck his left sinus.
The museum’s explainer reads:
This Australian soldier’s skull has extensive damage caused by bullet wounds sustained in the Battle of Passchendale (or Third Ypres, Battle of Polygon Wood) in the First World War. He was shot on September 28, 1917. Most of the damage was caused by a lead bullet that entered the mouth and passed through the palate and right eye. Shrapnel destroyed the ascending ramus of the right jaw, and another bullet, visible here, struck the left frontal sinus.
Philadelphia opthalmologist and surgeon WT Shoemaker treated this soldier at a battlefield hospital in France. This soldier survived his initial injuries and treatments. But, five days after his injuries, blind and disoriented, he pulled out the bandage materials in his mouth that packed the wounds. He bled to death.
It says Shoemaker donated the “Adult skull with ballistic trauma” to the museum in 1917, making possible an inference, of course, that the opthalmologist removed the head from the battlefield hospital. It’s hard to imagine what, if any, consent was involved."
The Anzac skull that tells a shocking and tragic story of battlefield violence | Paul Daley

 

Still some Australian Aboriginal bones in English museums, that despite repeated requests and pleas to bring them back to Australia, are still there...the ANZAC skull should be brought back to Australia or be buried with his mates in France...IMO
Fuck war sucks...

 

May they all come home..
KTK

 

Absolutely disgraceful.

 

The remains should, of course, be returned home, and research conducted to try and determine his identity. Yet, I can't help but wonder about that lead bullet above his eye socket. That has to be a .45, and the fact that it's not jacketed would point to .455 Webley. Are we seeing a botched attempt at a mercy killing?

 

Museum takes note:
Regarding a recent Guardian article

Some think they have identified this chap, but are being understandably 'vague' on announcing ID.

 

So, are you suggesting that the .455 slug means his own sergeant or officer shot him?

 

Yes, I think so.

 

I typically don't participate in speculation, but I think KB might be right. That appears to not be a 8mm rifle bullet or 9mm handgun bullet. Larger calibres would limit you to .45 ACP (1911 handgun), .455 (Webley revolvers) or .455 Auto (1911 handguns, Webley-Scott handguns) - all Commonwealth mainstays. The Germans still used the Reichsrevolver which fired ~11mm bullet in a limited capacity but given the shot placement and other wounds I'd strongly lean towards a "mercy killing". I have to wonder if the "story" is embellished and this man died on the field before medical personnel reached him. It's difficult to imagine a botched coup-de-grace.

Regardless, what a poor bugger. Usually I'm not impacted by such things but I can't stand to look at the photo or think of what that poor man endured both before and after death. I'm at a loss over why a medical professional would choose to "save" such a gruesome "trophy". Give his remains a proper burial. It's long overdue.

 

Doubt it...this wasn't done (only ever heard the enemy finishing off) for a start, but if your intention is to finish the bloke, you'dve shot him again to make sure...you wouldn't then get a stretcher barer in! (IMO) Heard story of "finishing off" but this was done against an officer who had ordered a suicide charge, been injured and instead of being helped was shot (with his own revolver) by the first bloke who got to him...small lesson there for the officers...Im sure this occurred a number of times...

 

Think about it. It's a large unjacketed slug, which points heavily to .455 Webley (the US .45 ACP is jacketed). GP above mentions the German 11mm revolver which is possible, but pretty rare (I think) unless some German was carrying dad's old Franco-Prussian war revolver. If somebody shot him (whether a mercy killing or a coup-de-grace by an enemy) it might well have just stunned him for a few hours, to be picked up later by stretcher bearers. It's obvious the slug didn't penetrate, so it would be more like being struck with a heavy hammer blow.
This poor guy had a bad end, both in the field and later in the hospital.

 

Im not arguing the slug...that's your field and I bow to your (much) greater knowledge...just the logic of the argument doesn't "sit well"...it could be that the wound was hideous and he was coughing large amounts of blood and looked stuffed, I still don't like the mercy killing idea (im adult enough to admit it can still happen though)

 

Poor sod.

 

The cached collections page. Seems to have been removed from the site:
Mounted Skull with Bullet and Fracture | Memento Mütter

An Australian researcher:
Solved? The mystery of the ANZAC skull - Dale Blair

The GWF discusses:
Anzac skull


Personally, I have mixed feelings on the exhibit.
If it was/is part of a medical collection, as it appears to have been/be, then I'm reasonably sanguine about such things and how they may have contributed to genuine medical (or even historical) enquiry.
It appears Shoemaker was no quack, & the Mutter Museum appears to be a deadly serious medical collection despite it's added grim fascination to the macabre-minded like myself.
There is a place in my mind for 'Here is war. It is shit.' exhibits, and I'm always left in a state of some confusion as to what's the length of time cut-off for when remains are acceptable or not to display. I'd love to see the Wisby* skulls and am endlessly fascinated by the Towton ones.

Mostly though. What he said:

*
Wisby & Towton.
Are these acceptable while more recent remains that might also inform or educate are not?
Does context/time matter?

Wisby:


Towton:

 

Can't casts and 3D imaging and photographs replace most of these so the remains can be respected?
Bit of a double standard here these days...if permission is givien that might be a different story.

 

The "First Emperor" exhibit I saw in Seattle did some pretty impressive things with CGI displays. More oriented toward the changes in the statues over time but ... In some ways they might be able to do "too good" of a job with such technology displaying the nature of such wounds.

Whether such a display is disrespectful or not is a good question. In some cases just how and at what purpose the display is a big factor. In other cases it's a matter of personal opinion. Certainly permission is a factor as well, there may even have been such in this case but I doubt it could be considered "informed". Then there's the question of what is gained by keeping the remains once return has been requested. It would seem to me that what little utility remains is outweighed by other considerations at this point although institutional inertia may explain part of it. If and when he's actually identified I would certainly expect any family desires to be respected (at least so much as that they are not in conflict with each other).

 

Think you're probably right about imaging, 3d prints etc. in the long run.
Pretty new technology, though. Expensive, and lots of specimens to work through. Presumably something collections have been discussing for a while (know a few bods in 'curation' and it seems to currently be a bit of an ethical swamp for them as internet chatter drives a response to such).
Though... I also wonder if looking at or handling a 3d print or image is any less prurient than the real thing, if prurience is the concern.

 

The Smithsonian has hundreds of war ravaged limbs, some preserved in alcohol, and mostly Civil War era, so it doesn't surprise me that this ended up in a museum. As in von Poop's link, it was the end of the Victorian era and quite the fashion among military doctors.

I'm much more interested in that lead slug, though I don't suppose an answer is to be had. It is very interesting that in the case of Private Hurdis there are two dates of wounding, 25 and 26 September. That ties in nicely with a mercy killing; the man is quietly "put out of his misery" because of awful facial injuries, then comes back around the next day and is then transported out.


.

 

Back to the CWGC he goes:
Mutter Museum to return skull of Australian soldier killed in WWI

 

I would hope anyone who sees that, even doctors, realize that skull was once part of a living, breathing, human, who was killed in the most disturbing and horrifying ways. Poor lad, awful what all of those men on both sides had to go through............