Bro Major Frederick Harold Tubb VC (1881 - 1917)

Brother Major Fred Tubb was Initiated in Euroa Lodge N^o 185 (UGLV) on 10 Feb 1914. Eighteen months later, he would receive a Victoria Cross. He is one of only three known Australians who had already been Initiated as Freemasons at the time they were awarded a VC, the others being Cpl Cameron Baird (1981-2013) and Cpl Jack Edmondson (1914-41). Bro Baird’s and Edmondon’s VCs were both were gazetted posthumously.

Any Australian solider who has received the Victoria Cross becomes part of our Nation’s narrative; just as all who serve do. While Cpls Baird and Edmonson hold a special place our Nation’s history and the history of Freemasonry, this article focuses on Major Tubb and two other corporals left in a trench at Lone Pine in August 1915. Of the three men left alive during the attack, one would be killed before it ended and only two would survive, all were awarded the Victoria Cross, and remarkably, both survivors were Victorian Freemasons.

First, to our eponym Brother Tubb, born in Longwood Victoria and the son of a headmaster and a farmer, Fred became a grazier. The Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) describes him as “tall, an extrovert and a born leader”. After volunteer service with the Victorian Mounted Rifles (1900-02) and the Australian Light Horse (1902-11), he joined the 60th Battalion, Australian Military Forces, and was commissioned second lieutenant in 1912, transferring to the 58th Battalion in 1913. Unlike many others shipped to Gallipoli and France, Tubb was a professional soldier.

According to the ADB;

Appointed to the Australian Imperial Force on 24 August 1914 as a second lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Tubb was promoted lieutenant on 1 February 1915. He reached Gallipoli on 6 July and was gazetted captain on 8 August. On the same day he took over a vital sector of captured trench at Lone Pine, with orders to 'hold it at any cost'. Early on the 9th the Turks launched a furious attack, advancing along a sap which had been barricaded with sandbags. From the parapet, with eight men, Tubb fired at the enemy; two corporals in the trench caught enemy bombs and threw them back or smothered them with greatcoats. Although Tubb was blown from the parapet and the barricade repeatedly wrecked, each time it was rebuilt. He inspired his men, joking and shouting encouragement. A huge explosion blew in the barricade and killed or wounded most of the defenders. Wounded in the arm and scalp, Tubb was left with Corporals A. S. Burton and W. Dunstan; he led them into action, shooting three Turks with his revolver and providing covering fire while the barricade was rebuilt. A bomb burst, killing Burton and temporarily blinding Dunstan. Tubb then obtained additional help, but the Turks did not renew the attack.

Evacuated that evening, Tubb was taken to England to convalesce. For his gallantry at Lone Pine he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

After being invalided to Australia in April 1916 due to complications from an appendicectomy, he arrived “to a hero's welcome”. Later persuading the medical board he was fit, Bro Tubb returned to France in December and was promoted to Major on 17 February 1917. Taking part in the Third Battle of Ypres, with “dash and courage” he led his company to its objective, but was hit by a sniper and while being evacuated on a stretcher he was mortally wounded by shell-fire and died in a dressing station. He was buried with almost 10,000 others in Belgium at the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery.

Tubb is commemorated by Tubb Hill, on the Hume Hwy at Longwood Victoria, and also by a memorial tree in the Avenue of Honour, Euroa, Victoria. Bro Alexander S Burton VC, likewise from Euroa and awarded his VC in the same action, also has a memorial tree there as does Leslie Cecil Maygar, VC, DSO, VD (1868 – 1917). Maygar, a distinguished solider, was awarded the VC for rescuing a follow Victorian soldier in the Boer War. Maygar was killed in the Great War, at the Battle of Beersheba. Bro Tubb’s, Bro Dunstan and Maygar VC’s are on display in the Hall of Valour, Australian War Memorial, Canberra. Three of Tubb’s brothers, Arthur Oswald (lieutenant, 60th Battalion), Frank Reid, M.C. (captain, 7th Battalion) and Alfred Charles, a signaller, also served in the A.I.F. Frank is also believed to be a Freemason and an “AO Tubb” also appears in Lord Carrington No 111 lists in UGLV’s WW1 Roll of Honour.

My research on Bro Fred Tubb recently caught the attention of Prestonian Lecturer Granville Angell of UGLE who has written several book, including The Victoria Cross Freemasons' - Band of Brothers. Such research often becomes collaborative. VWBro Neil Wynes Morse (Lodge Baden Powell #646 NSW/ACT. Secretary, Canberra Lodge of Research and Instruction. Fellow; The Victorian Lodge of Research #218 UGLV) contacted me in Nov 2017 to say Granville had given a talk at his lodge in Canberra and approached him excitedly to let him know about Tubb, Neil replied 'Yep - Lodge Euroa'. Neil knew of the Honour Roll entry and that Tubb appears in the ANZMRC database of WWI Masonic dead. Like many Famous Freemasons, specific people know about them in pockets, but their membership is not always generally known. This is why I like to share this information freely in Devotion News and on the web.