4th Light Horse Regiment
Memorial Association
1610 Trooper Thomas Mckeogh
My father was Trooper Thomas Francis Mckeogh. He served for 1,435 days of which 1,227 were abroad. Thomas’ brother Joe was in the landing at Gallipoli and Thomas was part of the charge at Beersheba.
He was born in Alexandria, Victoria on 10 Aug 1896. Horses were part of the family story; his father Joseph Patrick Mckeogh served in the Mounted Police.
On 12 Nov 1912, Thomas started his first job, with the Victorian Railways.
After seven months in the Mytrleford Light Horse, on 3 September 1915, Thomas enlisted in the 4th Light Horse. He was assigned the Regimental Number 1610.
After training at Broadmeadows Thomas departed Melbourne on the vessel “Ceramic” on 23 Nov 1915. He arrived in Heliopolis, in Palestine, on 13 January 1916.
For the next three years, the Regiment was involved in many campaigns through Palestine, the most notable of which was the famous charge of Beersheba.
It seems that like most returned men Thomas did not expand too much about his experiences. I can only recall two things that my father said about his war years. One was that “the only reason we captured Beersheba was that the horses had not had any water for many days and when the charge started the horses smelt the water in the wells at Beersheba and we could not stop them”. The other story he told was that he once meet Lawrence of Arabia.
The first story did not mean much to me at the time; it was not until a few years ago that I discovered the charge of Beersheba was, in fact, the most successful and last great mounted calvary charge in history.
The second story seemed like a fairy tale until I discovered that the 4th Light Horse Regiment and Lawrence of Arabia’s Arab troops joined forces for eight weeks in early 1918 to attack Damascus. So it seems quite possible that they did meet.
Regards, Brian Mckeogh
4th LH Aussie Rules team. Thomas marked with X.
Thomas is the one on the left
Tom had written on this picture “Station we captured in the advance Nov 1917”.