Barney Hines the Australian " Souvenir King "

Spike

Spike

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One of the fierce Aussie soldiers who fought at Polygon Wood was Barney Hines, known as the Souvenir King due to his escapades of robbing the German dead. Apparently even the Kaiser heard of him and branded him a "barbarian... typical of Australian Troops on the Western Front".

But private Hines was of Irish descent and born in Liverpool. When the Great War broke out he was working in a sawmill in Australia. Despite being in his early 40s, he tried to enlist but was turned down on medical grounds. Undeterred, he haunted recruting centres until he was accepted. Hines became one of the legends of the Great War. He generally disdained conventional weapons such as his Lee Enfield rifle preferring to go into action with two sandbags packed with Mills bombs (hand grenades).

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Great Pic Spike:
I have seen this one before in some reference book. However the subject was not identified. Did he survive the war? Brian
 
b.loree said:
Great Pic Spike:
I have seen this one before in some reference book. However the subject was not identified. Did he survive the war? Brian
Click to expand...

Yes Brian he did survive here is some more about him...

After the war Barney Hines lived as an unmarried loner in a bag humpy beyond Sydney. From time to time, the photograph would be published and he would come briefly to the public’s attention. The post-war years and the Depression were hard on him, although he received occasional support from ex-service groups.

Barney was not at all fazed by the notoriety the photograph brought him during the war and continued to collect great supplies of badges, helmets, guns, watches and other jewellery while maintaining his amazing attacks on German troops. He was reputed to have killed more Germans than any other soldier in the AIF.

On one occasion he reached a German pill box and danced on the roof taunting the occupants to come out. When nothing happened he lobbed a couple of Mills bombs through the gun openings, killing some and forcing the rest, about 63 of them, to come out with raised arms. He duly collected his souvenirs from them and herded them back to the Australian lines.

Among his more unusual souvenirs were a grand piano, which he managed to keep for several days, a grand father clock which was eventually blown up by his own men because it attracted shell fire from the German lines whenever it chimed, a barrel of Bass ale, which he shared with his comrades, and several suitcases full of banknotes from the bank at Amiens. He was arrested by British military police but caused so much bother he was returned to his unit.

His luck had to run out eventually and he was wounded when at Passchendaele every man in his Lewis gun crew was killed by an exploding shell. Hines was flung 20 yards through the air, had the soles ripped from his boots but still managed to crawl back and keep firing until he fainted from his wounds.

He was soon back in action but not long afterwards was hit above the eye by a bullet and was hit by a gas attack. He was eventually repatriated to Australia and recovered sufficiently to take up droving, prospecting and timber cutting. When World War II broke out he again tried to enlist in his 60s but for some reason was rejected !


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John (Barney) Hines he died in 1958.
 
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