Percy Smith, Anzac

Warning

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I have clickable links to photos held in the Australian War Memorial collection. These links don't work! You have to pay $8.80 for each photo used in electronic form. [A bit of a pity for an amateur non-profit site, but I don't want to do the wrong thing].

Finding the photos: I have included the reference number for the photo or art work, so if you are particularly interested in seeing it, go to this page, and add the ref no in the "Enter Search Terms" box, and use the drop-down menu to place "First World War" in the Conflict box.

Introduction

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A few years ago I became interested in family history, and in the course of finding out as much as I could, I came across a series of letters which my grandfather (known as "Gargoo") had written to his sister during World War One. Mum also had a couple of those beautiful, embroidered postcards which he had sent his mother from France. I had always admired them when I was a child.

I decided that the story my grandad had to "tell" (he had been dead for nearly 40 years) may be quite interesting, and decided to find out as much as I could, mainly so I could write it up for Mum. Like so many of his comrades he chose not to talk about his experiences on his return, other than to denounce war and say he hoped no-one ever had to go through a similar experience.

What especially struck me was that many of the histories of the war concentrate on the battles from the point of view of infantry soldiers - and that's great. But Gargoo was a Light Horseman, and then an Artillery Driver. Many of the histories and guides to battlefields provide very good information about the sites of infantry battles; I set out to discover as much as I can about the wagon lines and artillery positions.

First, I discovered that his personal war service record was available via the War Memorial Archives, so I sent away for that. We knew his regiment and regimental number, so that was easy.

These days the Australian War Memorial has one of the most extraordinarily comprehensive websites of any comparable institution, and it is an absolutely essential resource for anyone undertaking this kind of research.

Once I knew which units Gargoo had served in, I made a trip to the Research Centre at the War Memorial to read the unit diaries. . . they gave a complete picture of where he was on a day to day basis. These records are now rapidly appearing on the AWM website.

The search function on the AWM website led me to the personal diary of another soldier in his unit ,"Gunner Day", which complemented the personal, but limited view I had gained from Gargoo's letters.

While all this was going on, I read, and read, and read. . . voraciously. I stumbled across early editions of C.E.W. Bean's Official History of the AIF in 1916 and 1917, as well as the photographic volume, in a second hand bookshop, complete with the original cardboard casings!

In 2003 we made a family trip which included several days in the Somme area. I had already visited Gallipoli a couple of times in the early 1990s. Then in 2005, I again found myself in the Somme, this time witnessing the Anzac Day commemorations at Villers-Bretonneux and Bullecourt. I have included many photos from these trips, as well as some family photos.

In other places I have provided links to the War Memorial and its paintings and photo collection, because I have not sought permission to use them on the site (as yet).

I've chosen the blog format, because I already know how to use it, and it means as I continue my adventures in Gargoo's story, I can update and change it.

Dedication

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DEDICATION

This is dedicated to Ella Gertrude Smith (nee Pearson), who died too young

5 August 1892 - 28 August 1934

Chapter 1: Albert Percival Smith 1891-1966

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ALBERT PERCIVAL SMITH
Born 3 August 1891 Glenburn (Yea)
Died 17 September 1966 Melbourne
Regimental Number: 972

My grandfather, Percy Smith ("Gargoo") joined the 1st Australian Imperial Force on 2 March 1915, as a private in the 4th Light Horse Regiment.

He was aged 23 years and 6 months, and single.

Gargoo was born and bred a 'country boy', who must have had much experience with horses. He was taken into the 4th Light Horse Regiment, but never fought as a Light Horseman. After the 4th LH was split up in Egypt in early 1916 (half went to Palestine where they took part in the Charge at Beersheba), Percy Smith became a Driver in the Artillery. His main work in France consisted of being in charge of a team of horses and carting the artillery and ammunition up to the trenches.

During his lifetime, like so many others, he rarely, if ever, talked about his experiences in World War One. He was away from Australia from May 1915 to early 1919 (he embarked for Australia from England on 2 January 1919) - just under 4 years. During that time, he saw action at Gallipoli and in France, both Flanders and the Somme. There were a few periods of respite, due to illness after Gallipoli ('nervous breakdown'), which saw him recuperate in Malta and Egypt, mumps and dysentery (Egypt), and leave in (England). In May 1918 he left France and was posted to the Reserve Australian Artillery Brigade in Heytesbury, England.

This is "his story" as far as I can reconstruct it.

Chapter 2: Before the war

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Albert Percival - Percy - Smith was born at Glenburn near Yea in Victoria on 3 August 1891. His parents were Sydney and Elizabeth (nee Johnson) Smith.

Sydney Smith was born on 10 July 1853 at Epping. Elizabeth Johnson was born 21 June 1855 at Epping. Both of their fathers were farmers.

Sydney and Elizabeth were married 11 April 1877 at St John's Church, Nillumbik (now Diamond Creek). Sydney was a farm labourer of Woodstock, Elizabeth was living at Hazel Glen (now Doreen).

Percy was one of 9 children born to Sydney and Elizabeth.

Sydney died in Heyfield on 26 June 1919, five months after Percy's return from war. Elizabeth died in Heyfield on 6 May 1940.

Here is a photo of Percy's father, Sydney. I do not have one of Percy's mother.

St John’s Church, Nillumbik

Sydney farmed in various places - Hazel Glen Glenburn, Strath Creek, Cowwaar and Heyfield. His father, also Sydney, had selected 320 acres at Diamond Creek / Hurstbridge area. It has now been subdivided and is called Midhurst - on the west side of Arthurs Creek. At the point of Haley's Gully and Arthur's Creek roads, the original Smith home was built. The family moved from the farm at Epping to their new home in 1874, and the children still at school attended Diamond Creek State School, a walk of 4 miles each way through the bush. Sydney was 21 by then.

Percy attended Glenburn and later Strath Creek State schools and moved with his family, in 1902, age 10 or 11, to Gippsland.

The Smiths farmed land at Cowwaar. It is unknown to me what became of the farm at Cowwaar, or the selection made by Sydney at Diamond Creek.

Percy mentioned a Mrs Roberts of Cowwaar in one letter home. He received letters and parcels from her. I suspect that the Smith farm bordered the Roberts', and from reports received, has fallen into disuse and reverted to scrub.

[Insert photo of Cowwaar]

Chapter 3: Enlistment 1915

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Date of Enlistment: 2 March 1915 (however, he arrived at Broadmeadows Camp 1 December 1914: there are letters from that time. )
Rank: Private
Regiment: 4th Light Horse
Regimental Number: 972
Place of Enlistment: Broadmeadows, Victoria.
Age: 23 years 6 months
Height: 5 feet 5 inches
Weight:
Chest expansion: 33.5 to 38.5
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Fair
Religious Denomination: C of E

Considered fit for active service 2/3/15 Signed Geo S Cole Capt AAMC

From Smith, Men of Beersheba (1993) p 4:

"It is often asserted that the bulk of the light horse regiments found their recruits in rural areas this is not entirely true. Certainly many troopers had backgrounds on the land which suits the modern perception that light horsemen were tall, bronzed young men accustomed to life in the saddle on the outback plains of Australia. But an examination of recruiting sources for the 4th Light Horse Regiment reveals that this is not the case…of the original members of the regiment, about 20% were city dwellers from Melbourne."

From Bill Gammage The Broken Years: Australian soldiers in the Great War. Penguin, 1975. P. 7:

" Many volunteers were disappointed. The army wanted men 5 ft 6 inches and over, at least 34 inches about the chest, and between nineteen and thirty-eight years, but so many volunteers that these minimums or any defect - lack of military experience, unfilled teeth, flat feet, corns or bunions - often meant rejection. Doctors set artificial standards, so high that even in 1918 the survivors of the '1914 men' stood out clearly from other soldiers…Those who sailed against Turkey were the fittest, strongest, and most ardent in the land.

Most of that early avalanche of volunteers were roused by a sense of adventure. Great wars were rare, and short, and many eagerly seized a fleeting opportunity. They were the first Australians enabled to unsling the drums of the Empire's glory, they would engage in the splendour of the charge, and in some glorious moment of cut and thrust balance the chance to kill with the risk of death. And they would do this overseas, on horizons hitherto only the wisps of boyhood dreams."

"Some volunteers felt obliged to enlist….'I would never have been able to hold up my head & look any decent girl in the face' …Other volunteers …offered to do 'their bit', or 'their duty', or to 'answer the call"…Other men enlisted from hatred of Germany…There were in addition a thousand and particular and personal reasons for enlistment. Loneliness, family trouble, public opinion, and unemployment all contributed a measure" (pp 8-10)

Chapter 4: Broadmeadows

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From Men of Beersheba, 1993 pp 3-4:

One soldier, Tom Cranwell wrote about Broadmeadows:

" Let me try to give you some idea of our camp life. Everyone is up at 6 in the morning, and our straw beds are at once folded up. It's a fine sight to see 3000 men lined up at the 6.30 parade to answer their names. From then to breakfast we pass our time at drill and physical exercises. One of our Sgt major instructors can speak seven languages and has seen much service in India and among the Afghans. You should see the rush there is for breakfast, for we acquire a very keen appetite. Our typical breakfast menu - coffee without milk, and very little sugar. Boiled beef and a huge slice of dry bread, no butter - that's a luxury. I haven't tasted milk for a fortnight. These are what are known as active service rations.

Our comfort is that all the British at the front are braving it on the same fare. After breakfast we fall in again when the Squadron Leaders receive their instructions from headquarters. This may be drill, swimming or riding tests, and last until 12. After diner we parade and drill until 5.30, when we have tea. Although there may be a few doubtful characters here, the remainder are a jolly good and fine lot of fellows, and also good comrades. We are free after tea, but we cannot leave the lines. The YMCA also have got some huge concert tents erected for the men, and they also have a good reading and writing room. It does one good to see the crowds of fellows waiting around every night to take their turn at the writing table. The Church of England also has a huge tent for the same purpose and the Salvation Army is also doing very good work."

AWM photo showing Mess Parade at Broadmeadows. (P01700.011) The caption reads in part: "Broadmeadows, Vic, 1914.Mess parade for recruits...The recruits are gathering for dinner at the camp kitchen. The meal has been cooked in large dixies balanced on two poles stretched over a long pit, in which a fire has been lit."

From Patsy Adam-Smith The Anzacs, Thomas Nelson Australia, 1978 p. 33

"They arrived at Broadmeadows to mud and more mud. So tenacious was this mud claimed to be that the New South Welshmen swore that in Egypt and Gallipoli there were still 'Broadmeadows' mud marks on our clothes'.

Chapter 5: 4th Light Horse Regiment

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From Smith, Men of Beersheba (1993) pp 3 - 4:

On 11th August (1914) authority was promulgated for the formation of the 4th Light horse regiment as Divisional Cavalry for the 1st Australian Division under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Forsyth. This fine officer however was soon detached to the 1st Light Horse Brigade and did not assume command of his regiment until the troops arrived in Egypt. At the Broadmeadows camp the Regiment's replacement commander, Lieutenant Colonel Long set about recruiting, organising, equipping and training his fledgling Regiment."

AWM photo titled 1914 Broadmeadows. Horse lines of Light horse units training. (H03025)

From Smith, Men of Beersheba (1993) p 4:

"It is often asserted that the bulk of the light horse regiments found their recruits in rural areas this is not entirely true. Certainly many troopers had backgrounds on the land which suits the modern perception that light horsemen were tall, bronzed young men accustomed to life in the saddle on the outback plains of Australia. But an examination of recruiting sources for the 4th Light Horse Regiment reveals that this is not the case…of the original members of the regiment, about 20% were city dwellers from Melbourne."
The Light Horse Regiment was made up as follows:

Year/Unit:1916 Light HorseRegiment
Section: 4 Other Ranks (mounted)
Troop: Troop Headquarters (1 Officer, 3 Other Ranks)
8 x sections (ie 32 Other Ranks)
Squadron: 4 x troops.
Total:4 Officers,140 Other Ranks
Regiment: 25 Officers,497 Other Ranks
Regimental HQ3 x squadron
Total:
37 Officers,
897 Other Ranks

Chapter 6: Departure for Overseas May 1915

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From Service record:

7 May 1915 Embarked on "Palermo" Port Melbourne

AWM photo showing the Troopship Palermo, Brisbane, about 1915. (H02227)

Percy Smith sailed with the 5th Reinforcement of the 4th Light Horse, which comprised Regimental Numbers 926 to 979 inclusive. The reinforcement included 1 Officer and 52 Other Ranks. His comrades included:

Private H Biggs (928) Killed In Action
Private EH Cashmore (934) 12 Field Artillery Brigade
Private A Cashmore (932)
Private JA Cashmore (933)
Private S Chambers (931)
Private W Colombini (950) Died 1939 Returned to Australia 20 Oct 1915
Private G Crooks (939) Returned to Australia 4 August 1915
Sergeant RJ Darby (979) Returned to Australia 4 Nov 1915
Private D Devlin (935) Returned to Australia 28 Jan 1916
Private A Edwards (945A) Returned to Australia 13 Dec 1915
Private AE Goss (936) Returned to Australia 17 March 1916
Private FS Hick (941) Killed in Action 16 Sep 1915
Private H Hill (938) AVH (Army Veterinary Hospital??)
Private RD Hollins (937) British Expeditionary Force (Europe)
Private JP Howard (939)
Corporal KC Hudson (940) Returned to Australia 15 June 1919
Private J Jackson (943) Returned to Australia 8 May 1916
Private C Jobson (964) Cyclist Corps
Private FG Johnston (944) B Squadron Western Front
Private SAJ Johnston (931A) Invalided 1915. Re-enlisted, went with 18th Reinforcements, 20 June 1916
Private MD Lang (960) ABD HQ
Private C Leslie (947) Cyclist Corps
Private JW Lockey (946) Returned to Australia 17 Sep 1916
Private SP Macumber (949) M/O 1 March 1917
Private J McAlpine (955) British Expeditionary Force
Private HF McInerney (957) British Expeditionary Force
Private PW McLellan (959) Returned to Australia 19 Jan 1916
Private A McLeod (956) Died of Wounds 7 October 1915:
Private PA McMahon (958) British Expeditionary Force
Private MW (Malcolm) McPherson (A955) Died of Wounds 17 Nov 1915. Painter by trade.
Private AS Mill (954) 13th Light Horse
Private E Money (951) Cyclist Corps
Sergeant F Mortimer (952) Returned to Australia June 1916
Private R Newth (951) British Expeditionary Force WIA
Private WG Peel (962) Died of Wounds 5 Sep 1915
Private TJ Popple (963) Returned to Australia 31 Aug 1915
Private JA (Joseph) Roberts (969) Died of Sickness 25 June 1915 . Labourer from Cowra.
Private HC Robertson (968) Squadron Sergeant Major. Military Medal. Returned to Australia 15 June 1919
Australian War Memorial Record B01165
c December 1918, Tripoli. Portrait of 968 Sergeant Herbert Charles Robertson MM, 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment. He also served in 4 (Qld Imperial Bushmen Contingent) in the Boer War. Australian Commonwealth Horse, who all enlisted in South Australia. He is wearing the Queen's South African campaign medal. A small badge in the form of the letter "A" on unit colour patch denotes that the wearer had taken part in the 1915 Gallipoli campaign.
Private HF Robinson (966) Returned to Australia 11 June 1917
Private J Slattery (971) Died of Wounds 23 August 1915
Private H Stephens (970) Returned to Australia 23 Sep 1919
Private JA Stone (961) Returned to Australia 4 Nov 1915 961
Private (Pte) John Alexander Stone, of Bairnsdale, Vic. Pte Stone enlisted on 25 January 1915 and embarked aboard HMAT Palermo on 7 May 1915. On 22 August 1915 he sustained a shrapnel wound to the leg at Gallipoli and returned to Australia on 30 October 1915. On 19 September 1916 he was discharged as an invalid. (Australian War memorial Record No DA08619 )
Private O Thaw (974) Returned to Australia 15 June 1919
Private L Trigg (973) Cyclist Corps
Private G Vardy (975) B Squadron Western Front. Military Medal. Sgt Wounded In Action
Private JR Walsh (976) Returned to Australia 1 Sep 1915
Private AS Walton (953) To Provost Corps
Private JM Ward (978) Cyclist Corps
Private T Wombwell (977) Returned to Australia 15 June 1919

-From Men of Beersheba: a history of the 4th Light Horse Regiment 1914-1919

From Patsy Adam-Smith The Anzacs, 1978 pp 33-34:

"Most of the men had been no more than six weeks in camp - and much of that had been spent in getting uniforms together, learning to drill, and arranging their papers. On board ship, men who would be signallers for infantry regiments were drawn from the ranks and trained in semaphore and message carrying. All ranks were given instruction in semaphore signalling and all officers 'should be able to send and read semaphore by the end of voyage".

"The men had come on board with much of their personal kit such as 'soap, piece of, in wallets; Boots, ankle, brown. Laces (spare), for boots, ankle, pairs; socks, worsted, pairs - one pair on person, one pair in pocket of greatcoat and one pair in kitbag at base.' The final instruction regarding kit was: 'Soldiers when discharged will receive a suit of plain clothes and a cap for free or sum of 20 shillings in lieu…

During the voyage they were to be paid 1s 0d per day for 50 days. The pay of a private, apart from on board ship, was to be 5s 0d per day plus 1s 0d deferred pay…The allotment to dependents must be 'Not less than 2/5 of pay to wife or de facto and no less than 3/5 if children.' Illegitimate children were to be allotted one-fifth, and pre-maternity orders would be in the order of one-fifth. Colonels of regiments were obliged to ensure that soldiers retain at least 1s 0d per day for their own use while abroad."

From Bill Gammage The Broken Years, 1974 pp 32-33:

"Complaints about food, beer restrictions, canteen facilities, and the distribution of mail were fairly frequent on board the transports, but there were only two real discomforts: seasickness, or 'practising singing', and boredom. With a spirit that was to support them well in harder times, men tried to laugh seasickness away ('If I was Christ I would get out and walk home'), and they had a ready counter to boredom:

Gambling is a favourite pastime on board. I suppose 60% of the troops indulge in these games, more or less. There are the crown and anchor, house, cards, and two up. Any time of the day and up to 9p.m. one will find crowds congregated together at different parts of the ship, playing one or other of these games…the first thing that meets my eyes on coming up from below this morning was the coins being tossed…at the stern…the crowd…started their gambling and kept it up all through the [church] service…I don't think it possible for them to lift their minds off the two coins in the air. (Bdr W.E.Baker, 2 FAV, Telephone mechanic of Northcote, Vic. KIA 21/3/18 aged 27.)

Australians necessarily tolerated their confinement at sea, but they resented being kept on board a ship in port. Authorities invariably attempted to restrict shore leave, and large numbers of men invariably ignored such attempts. General Bridges wrote that discipline on the first two convoys was good, the chief difficulty being in off-loading civilian stowaways at Albany. In fact men from these convoys regularly went absent without leave, often only a small proportion of those given leave returned when it expired, and troops kept under special guard on board serenaded their officers with songs as 'Britons never shall be slaves' and 'Every dog has his day'. "

In mid-1915 soldiers on a troopship at Colombo were refused leave, and were fined when they took it. They were not allowed to buy beer or fruit from the natives, but after the ship left port the canteen sold Colombo fruit at rates 200 per cent above Colombo prices. The 'Australian spirit' having been roused by these injustices, the troops rioted. They pushed officers about, assaulted the military police, broke open the canteen and the detention cells, and threw furniture overboard. When their commanding officer attempted to address them, he was hooted, hissed, and threatened with ejection over the side, until at last he withdrew. The men finally dispersed when more leave and cheaper fruit had been promised them, but by then they had exhausted their opportunities and energies for riot and revelry.

The man who described these events, a Victorian private, defended them by pointing to the injustices done at Colombo, and by listing other iniquities; the men had been kept below deck when they left Australia and so has missed the last goodbyes; the voyage had been insufferably monotonous; there had been no fruit on board until Colombo and seasick men craved fruit; the commanding officer had broken promises about leave and refreshments; the detention cell was hot and dirty, so that men were carried to hospital from it." (Lt H.S. Trangmar, 57 Bn, Book keeper of Coleraine, Vic. b. 1888.)

From http://www.maps.jcu.edu.au/hist/aif/vshipb.htm:

Voyage From Australia Shipboard Training and Morale
The leadership of the AIF placed great store in ensuring that discipline was maintained on board troopships. For a good deal of the time of the eight week passage to Egypt, recruits were drilled and underwent instruction in weapons training.
The training men received included lectures on hygiene and sanitation. For the Light Horse Brigades there were lectures on horse health and diseases.
Officers of the AIF were also conscious of the need to sustain morale, especially given that theirs was a volunteer citizen army. So it was that, during the voyage from Australia, a measure of high spirits and horseplay was tolerated - more so than would have been given units of the British or Indian armies. Cultural activities such as concerts and the production of ship board newspapers were encouraged, even though these activities sometimes resulted in military authority and politicians being made the target of satire.

Chapter 7: Arrival in Egypt

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No details are contained within the service record, or any known letters from this period. It is likely that he went very quickly to Gallipoli, having embarked in Australia on 7 May 1915, and reported to unit at Anzac (Cove) 5 August 1915.

He was part of the 5th Reinforcements.

Chapter 8: Gallipoli 5 - 17 August 1915

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On 3 August, Percy turned 24. Two days later he reported to Anzac Cove, where he stayed for 12 days, until evacuation on 17 August, suffering from 'nervous breakdown'.

From service record:

5 August 1915: Reported to unit M.E.F.(Mediterranean Expeditionary Force) Anzac

From 4th Light Horse War Diary: [AWM4 - AIF War Diary collection]

5 August Ryrie’s Post
1020 to 2040 Demonstration … to draw enemy’s fire
(remainder not easy to read)
6 August Ryrie's Post
0930 to ?
Not easy to read
2315 to 0120: Demonstration by Reg against enemy’s trenches in front
Messages attached
13 August Ryrie's Post
2100 to 0300: Ruses (5) were carried out to draw enemy’s fire
Messages attached
14 August Ryrie's Post
1000: 1 Corporal and five men detailed as portion of escort to Sir Ian Hamilton
Message

SPECIAL ORDER

General Headquarters
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force,
5th August 1915

Soldiers of the old army and the new.
Some of you have already won imperishable renown at our first landing or have since built up our foothold upon the peninsula, yard by yard, with deeds of heroism and endurance. Others have arrived just in time to take part in our next great fight against Germany and Turkey, the would-be oppressors of the rest of the human race.
You, veterans, are about to add fresh luster to your arms. Happen what may so much as least is certain.
As to you, soldiers of the new formations, you are privileged indeed to have the chance vouchsafed you of playing a decisive part in events which may herald the birth of a new and happier world. You stand for the great cause of freedom. In the hour of trial remember this and the faith that is in you will bring you victoriously through.

IAN HAMILTON, General

Messages
From Commanding Officer 4th Light Horse (Lt Col Leonard Long)
To Headquarters 2nd Light Horse Brigade

7th August 1915 0600

After the engagement on our left yesterday the enemy kept up an irregular fire on our trenches up till 0935. The remainder of the 24 hours was quiet. The ruses practiced last night failed to draw very little fire from the trenches in front.

Trench Mortar fired several bombs into position pointed out by our observers where enemy’s machine gun was located. Enemy during the night used considerable number of star shells mostly white.

Casualties Wounded 6

8th August 1915

With the exception of one heavy brush with fire from the enemy’s trench on our front has been light. Otherwise a quiet 24 hours.

Casualties 1 killed and 6 wounded.

9th August 1915

Enemy’s bomb proofs have not been added to since yesterday. Whenever a burst of fire occurred from our left enemy threw up star shells. Trenches and recesses deepened.

Casualties one wounded (slight)

10th August 1915

Very quiet 24 hours. Deepened trenches and recesses. Enemy does not appear to be doing any further work on his trenches.

Casualties nil

11th August 1915

A quiet 24 hours, but the fire from enemy’s trench in front was heavier than for the previous 24 hours. Deepened trenches and saps and widened Sap No 8 (?) in order to use it by stretcher bearers.
Casualties Nil

12th August 1915

Enemy were observed carrying bushes along the trench apparently to be used for overhead cover. The ruse last night failed to draw much fire. Deepened trenches and saps.
Casualties – one slightly wounded.

13th August 1915

A very quiet 24 hours. Widening saps and deepening trenches and recesses.
Casualties – one wounded.

14th August 1915

Ruses drew very little fire last night.
Casualties One killed One wounded

15th August 1915

About 0100 our artillery fired a few shots in what appeared to be the direction of the Olive Grove. In reply a few small shells were fired at our trenches from the direction of Pine Ridge. No damage was done. The officer on duty at 0100 received a report that a body of the enemy were moving from their left flank towards Lonesome Pine. A sharp lookout was kept but nothing unusual was observed. Deepened trenches and saps.
Casualties one wounded

16th August 1915

Very quiet 24 hours.
Casualties – One wounded (slight)

17th August 1915

1. At 1930 yesterday liquid bomb fired from enemy’s trenches ?? along from GUN RIDGE landed at number 10 sap. The bearing to the ? was taken and forwarded to Brigade Headquarters.
During the night four bombs were fired from the same position.

2. Deepening saps.

3. Casualties one

18th August 1915

Summary of events for previous 24 hours:-

1. Very quiet
2. Enemy were throwing up earth during the day of a very dusty nature which appears to be from the bottom of the trench.
3. Casualties one.

From Philip J. Haythornthwaite (1991) Gallipoli 1915 frontal assault on Turkey p 71:

"Hamilton scheduled the Suvla landing for 6 August, and ordered two simultaneous diversionary attacks to occupy the Turks, at Helles and Anzac. ..

…To the forces already at Anzac, Hamilton added 13th Division, which with 29 Indian Brigade gave Birdwood some 40 000 men. The reinforcements were slipped ashore at night on 4 - 6 August and the troops secreted in newly constructed trenches and caves, to conceal their arrival from the Turks. The plan was for an attack at Lone Pine, to the south of the ANZAC bridgehead, utilizing a secretly constructed underground tunnel which would allow the assaulting force to debouch almost directly into the Turkish positions. Having convinced the Turks that this was the main attack, after dark the principal assault would be made further north, towards Sari Bair, which was hoped to be in ANZAC hands by the following morning."

The 4th LH was not directly involved in the attack on Lone Pine, but did provide cover.

From Smith, Men of Beersheba, 1993 pp 29-32:

29 July: The 4th LH replaced the 7th LH's forward positions at Ryrie's Post and two days later supported West Australia's 11th Battalion in an attack on what became known as Leane's Trench…For the next week the Regiment was given the perhaps odd responsibility of drawing the enemy's fire between 2 and 3 am every morning. This involved 'demonstrations' at the appointed time with much yelling and rattling, flares being fired and even some shooting and throwing of bombs. The idea was to keep the enemy on his toes and hopefully wear him down somewhat. Although annoying to the Turks doubtless the troopers of the 4th Light Horse Regiment did not find much rest in the activity either.

6 August: Leane's Trench became a point of particular interest to the Turks who at 4.30 am on 6th August made a concerted attack on the Australian infantry defenders. The Light Horsemen became heavily involved in the ensuing counter attack which resulted in the loss of five Light Horsemen killed and five wounded, most if not all, from A Squadron…Late the same day the Regiment supported the fateful attack on Lone Pine with covering fire on Pine Ridge and the Turkish Despair Works…Orders were then received to support an 8.30 pm attack by the 5th Light Horse on Green Knoll and Balkan Gun Pits. Thankfully the weary troops were to be told at 8.00 pm the attack was cancelled.

There was little respite. At 1.20 am the following morning the 4th Light Horse Regiment was again tasked with a 'demonstration' against the Turks with bayonets fixed, and much rattling, cheers and 'cooees' echoing from the Light Horse trenches. Apparently many troopers were of the belief that this demonstration and the earlier cancelled attack had been part of an accidentally aborted charge, but this was not the case. The 6th August had been a costly day for the 4th Light Horse Regiment in terms of life and limb….

8 - 21st August: the 4th LH remained in the Ryrie's Post position. Various ruses were carried out to draw the enemy's fire and generally harass him. All the time the troopers worked to deepen and extend the trench system which had become their home. On the 21st C squadron plus a troop from A squadron relieved the 7th LH in the trenches at Lone Pine where the next day they had to fight hard to withstand a heavy Turkish attack comprising concentrated shelling , bombing, machine gun and rifle fire."

And so it went on…the 4th LH being moved around in various positions covering Ryrie's Post and Leane's Trench.

AWM photos:

4th Light Horse Cookhouse, Gallipoli. (P00859.002)

"Army cooks outside the dugout which served as the cookhouse for the headquarters of the 4th Light Horse regiment, 1st AIF. Steam rising from one of the dixies in front of the men indicates that a meal is being prepared."

Observation team at the southern end of Leane's Trench (P01436.003)

"Possibly observing the attack at Lone Pine. Two man team in full battle dress including webbing. Camoulflaged periscope and camouflaged headdress."

Looking along the beach from Ryrie's Post (H00196)

"The Turkish trench runs across the ridge in the foreground."

Dugouts rising from the beach at Anzac Cove (C01129)

View of Anzac Cove taken from the jetty (A02645)

Sunset over the Dardanelles (11 Aug 1989):

The Sphinx, the Nek and Walker's Ridge: The Sphinx, The Nek and Walkers Ridge from Ari Burnu cemetery:
Anzac Cove:

Lone Pine cemetery:
Memorial at Anzac Cove:
Poppies:

Chapter 9: Hospital Ship and Hospital in Malta

2007-04-02T16:22:00.000+10:00

From service record:

17 August 1915
Sick to hospital
Anzac

From Smith, Men of Beersheba, 1993, p 35.

An unending stream of men continued to be evacuated from Gallipoli due to injuries and sickness. By late August the Regiment could count only 320 men on the Peninsula. Men succumbed to sickness every day. In August …many were hospitalised…The depleted ranks were generally filled rapidly as reinforcements accumulated in Egypt and were shipped across as necessary…

From service record:

27 August 1915
Nervous breakdown. Admitted to hospital Hamrun ex H.S. Georgian
Malta

From Les Carlyon, 2001, Gallipoli p 333:

"…'nervous breakdown' (a phrase used in 1915 to describe everything from mild exhaustion to frothing lunacy)…"

During the First World War, like the Crimean War period, Malta served as a "Nurse of the Mediterranean". From the Gallipoli campaigns 2500 officers and 55 400 troops were treated in the Maltese hospitals.

Click here for more information about military hospitals in Malta

Chapter 10: Back in Egypt - Dysentry, Mumps and Training

2007-04-02T16:21:00.001+10:00

From service record:
7 January 1916
Dysentery. Transferred to Egypt per "Essiquibo". Non cot case.
Malta
11 January 1916
Admitted to No 2 Aux Conval Depot
Heliopolis
21 January 1916
Transferred to Con Depot
Helouan
2 February 1916
Discharged to duty ex Helouan and rejoined Regiment
Heliopolis

3 Feb Letter to brother-in-law, Dave Lade:

Sister Maud, and brother-in-law, Dave Lade, with their grandchild.

Letterhead of The Young Mens Christian Association with H.M. Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in Egypt.

Heliopolis Feb 3rd 1916.

Dear Dave

As you will know before you receive this I am in Egypt again. I was sent to the convalescent home at Helouan, about twenty miles up the Nile from Cairo, and after having about a fortnight there was allowed to rejoin my regiment here.
I could have gone home if I had wished, but as I felt so well I did not care about that, there being so many more in need of a trip than I was. The doctor was doubtful about letting me stop, as they make a point of sending typhoid cases home for three months; but here I am, and hope I will be able to see the war through before being sent home sick or wounded.
I got another batch of delayed letters yesterday - about a dozen in all including one from you, one and a postcard (view of Strath) from Maud, and one from Hilda. They were very old ones - written mostly in September and August.
Will Ross is a lieutenant in my regiment, and although I have seen him once I have not had an opportunity of making his acquaintance.
I also met Dave Patterson, and he wished to be remembered to you. He has been sick, but is better again now.
Will tells me that they have started what is very nearly conscription in Australia, and is not sure but what he might be called up.
I think myself that Australia has done quite her share now, and will not be doing much good by sending her young married men away.
Everything is very quiet in Egypt, but as you know there are possibilities of stirring times shortly.
However, I cannot say much about that, as the censorship is very strict at present.
We are having perfect weather in Egypt now, but I expect it will soon be getting warm again.
I was glad to hear you have had such a fine season in Australia, and I suppose it was most welcome after last year.
You said in your letter your nephew Perce was in the 13th L.H., so he will be in the same lot as Dave Patterson. It is not far from where I am so will try and see him shortly.
You said you were a great believer in prayer for soldiers, and I am sure it will interest you to hear what fellows in the trenches have told me.
I have been told by the most hardened of men that in the hour of greatest danger, they have offered up a prayer - the first in most cases since they were children - and have been surprised at the benefit they received.
This is about all this time.
Yours truly, Percy
Remember me to all your people.

AWM photos:Al Hayat Hotel, Helouan, used as a Convalescent Depot (P00156.019)
Al Hayat - the Australian Convalescent Home (J06424)

From Service Record:

25 February 1916
Mumps (mild): adm No 4 Aux hospital
Heliopolis

1 March Letter to sister, Maud Lade:

No 4th Auxiliary (sic) Mumps Hospital
Abassia
March 1st 1916

Dear Maud
As you see by this address I am in hospital again, this time with the mumps. I came in last Friday 25th and am getting on alright now, although my face is still a bit swoolen. I think they will keep me hear three weeks as that is the time they allow for isolation of mumps cases.
A great number of the soldiers here are getting mumps for some cause or other.
I had a number of letters the day after I came here including one from you and one from Dave. They were both written in Oct. though. However I had some later news from Mother also one from Berta. They were written in the middle of Jan.
By the way I am to congratulate myself I suppose on the possession of several new nephews.
I expect you would be disappointed - Mother especially - when you heard I was not coming home after all, but I think you will agree I did the right thing, as it would not be too nice returning when there was nothing wrong with me. In any case I would only have meant coming straight back again.
We had just finished three days sham-fighting in the desert before coming in here. It was very interesting and exciting while it lasted although hard work.
We used to get up early march out about five miles - sometimes further - and then double about in the sand all day. By the time we got in at night we would be tired enough. The 4th L.H. is very much over strength so all those who have come back from hospital lately have gone in what they call the details, and have no horses yet. The details consist of D + E squadron. I am in D squadron under the command of Lieut Ross.
I was speaking to him for a few minutes the other day. I was to go to his tent and have a yarn with him but have not been able so far. He wished to be remembered to you and Dave. He is looked upon as a good officer and got the most points with his men in the sham-fighting.
Auntie Sarah and Uncle Arthur are getting quite gay in their old age running about to the lakes and so on. I have not heard anything of Eric lately. Have been wondering if he has enlisted. Berta too was down Gippsland she says. I have not come across any more Strath boys. I fancy they most of them are down on the canal somewhere.
We have a chap - Sgt Major - in our lot name of Purves. He comes from Yea, and used to visit Henny Yorston at Strath. I wonder if you know him.
I have also seen Jim and Arthur Knoop. Arthur is in the next tent to mine and Jim is in the 8th L.H. Also one of the Collins from Break-a-day is in the 4th and a Pat Nelson brother of Mrs Mitchell of Strath.
All these chaps belong to the late reinforcements.
I think this is about all this time.
I would tell you a lot more that would interest you, but the censor won't allow I'm afraid.
Hoping you are all well
Yours
Percy

I wrote to Dave about a fortnight ago.

Chapter 11: Preparing for France

2007-04-02T16:20:00.000+10:00

AWM photo one of the tented areas at Heliopolis Camp, 1915 (H02283)

From Men of Beersheba (Neil C. Smith, 1993) p 45:

" From the men who had been evacuated wounded or sick from Gallipoli and who after a period in hospital were now available for duty, and from fresh reinforcements a new squadron of the 4th Light Horse regiment was formed and known as D squadron. This squadron, plus B squadron formed a unique Light Horse contribution to the campaign on the Western Front and went to France. The troopers were destined to be linked with the Otago Mounted Rifles and then placed under command of a New Zealand officer. Australian 4th LHR original Lieutenant Colonel Hindhaugh later took
over. "

From a letter written by Percy Smith on March 1st 1916:

" The 4th L.H. is very much over strength so all those who have come back from hospital lately have gone in what they call the details, and have no horses yet. The details consist of D + E squadron. I am in D squadron under the command of Lieut Ross."

From The Battle of Hamel: the Australians' finest victory (John Laffin, 1999) pp 25-26

" …after the fighting against the Turks on Gallipoli the Australians believed that they could stand up to any conditions, dangers and hardships that might face them in France and Belgium.

The men of the 1st and 2nd Divisions knew little about the war in Europe other than what they occasionally read in the newspapers of Cairo. The ignorance of most of them about what was happening on the Western Front was profound. They were not to know that the battles fought by General Sir John French used up men at a frightening rate. On 25 September 1915, while the Australians were still on Gallipoli, 15 470 men became casualties on the first day of the Battle of Loos. On 11 October a single British division lost 3 800 men in ten minutes of fighting. The entire battle cost General French 61 280 casualties - and without gain.

Unknown to the Australians, some British generals considered that they had great soldierly potential. By common British consent, they lacked discipline but they could fight. Early in 1916 the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, in London, telegraphed the British commander in Egypt: 'Three Anzac Divisions in France in April might be worth six at a later date, He meant that the British and the Canadians were under such pressure that the sooner the Australian divisions arrived the better.

At the end of 1915 General French was dismissed for his failures and the new British commander-in-chief, General Sir Douglas Haig, had begun planning a major offensive to relieve the German pressure on the French armies.

The newspapers in Cairo emphasised the heroism on the Western Front, and there was plenty of that, rather than the horrors of which there were also many. The heavy casualties were rarely correctly stated and some defeats were presented as victories. The newspaper reports had one important effect - the Australians now knew that the Gallipoli campaign had been a sideshow and they were eager to move on to England, which was 'Home' to most Australians, and then on to the war in France and Belgium.

The transfer came in March 1916, though direct to France, not via England. Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood, the Briton who had commanded the Australians at Gallipoli, visited each brigade to give them the news, usually during a church parade. He told them that in France they would be among people whose young men were fighting for their country, leaving behind the old men, the women and children. The Australians would be living among these people and serving with British, French and Canadian soldiers, as well as those of France's many colonies. He appealed to the men's honour to uphold the good name of Australia and to justify the reputation they had won at Gallipoli.

The theme of service, honour and probable sacrifice came up in sermons preached by army chaplains on troopships carrying the Australians from Alexandria to Marseilles."

From Service Record :

11 March 1916
Transferred to 2nd Div. A.C. (2nd Division Ammunition Column)
Taken on strength
Zeitoun

From Smith, Men of Beersheba p 49
A result of the re-organisation and growth of formations and new units in the Middle east in early 1916 gave rise to massive personnel transfers to and from the 4th Light Horse Regiment…Scores of men were transferred to the 2nd Divisional Ammunition Column and about one hundred and fifty went to the newly formed Cyclist Corps…
Most transfers occurred on 11 March.

From Service record:

19 March 1916
Appointed Act Driver and posted to No 2. Section
Zeitoun

AWM photos of Zeitoun:

Zeitoun campfire and kitchen (P00620.010)

Line of sleeping huts, Zeitoun (H12865)

Chapter 12: 2nd Division Artillery

2007-04-02T16:19:00.000+10:00

2nd DIVISION ARTILLERY
Formed September 1915 and assigned to 2nd Division.

Subunits:
· 2nd Division Ammunition Column September 1915 to past November 1918
· 4th Field Artillery Brigade 23 September 1915 to past November 1918 (NB 10th, 11th and 12th batteries)
· 5th Field Artillery Brigade 6 September 1915 to past November 1918
· 6th Field Artillery Brigade 19 October 1915 to 20 January 1917
· 22nd Field Artillery (Howitzer) Brigade February 1916 to 27 January 1917
· V2A Heavy Trench Mortar Battery 17 April 1916 to 21 February 1918
· X2A Medium Trench Mortar Battery 17 April 1916 to 21 February 1918
· Y2A Medium Trench Mortar Battery 17 April 1916 to 21 February 1918
· Z2A Medium Trench Mortar Battery 17 April 1916 to 21 February 1918
· 3rd Medium Trench Mortar Battery 21 February 1918 to past November 1918
· 4th Medium Trench Mortar Battery 21 February 1918 to past November 1918

The Artillery Regiment

1916

Detachment: 10 Other Ranks, 1 x 18-pounder gun or 4.5 inch Howitzer

Section:

18 pounder: 1 Officer, 18 Other Ranks (inc 16 drivers), 2 x detachments

Total: 1 Officer, 16 drivers, 22 Other Ranks, 2 guns

4.5 inch Howitzer: 1 Officer, 20 Other Ranks (inc 18 drivers) 2 x det

Total: 1 Officer, 18 drivers, 22 Other Ranks, 2 guns

Troop: N/A

Battery

Regiment/ Brigade: 20 officers, 579 Other Ranks, Brigade HQ, 3 x 18 pounder batteries, 1 x 4.5 inch Howitzer Batteries

Commanders:
· Brigadier General G. J. Johnston 1 December 1915 to 8 October 1917
· Brigadier General O. F. Phillips 8 October 1917 to past November 1918
Campaigns:
Gallipoli: Defence of Anzac

Egypt: Defence of Suez Canal

Western Front: Pozieres, Advance to the Hindenburg Line, Bullecourt, Menin Road, Broodeseinde, Passchendaele, Hamel, Amiens, Mont St Quentin, Hindenburg Line, Montebrehain

From: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/structure/army_detailed_structure.htm

2nd Division Artillery Insignia at Australian Corps Memorial Park, Le Hamel, France. (SE, May 2003)

Chapter 13: Drivers and Horses

2007-04-02T16:18:00.000+10:00

A very powerful painting of horses and drivers by Septimus Power. (ART19842)
"First Australian Artillery going into the 3rd Battle of Ypres (1919). This work shows a team of six horses, three mounted and three led, struggling through thick mud pulling a heavy 18 pounder gun on the limber. Six other soldiers on foot are helping to haul the gun, all moving away from the viewer. Septimus Power has captured the dash, the urgency, the immediacy of guns being moved to give fire support on the battlefield. You can almost hear the sound of mud sucking on the hooves, the gasping of the horses, the slap of leather, and creaking of axles, and the shouts of men. And you can imagine the sounds of the great battle beyond and sense the danger towards which the gun team is headed. "

Power did some wonderful drawings and paintings, many of artillery, horses and drivers. Search the AWM Collection using the term "Septimus Power" to see his other works.

From Laffin:

"Man and Horse: Sharing The Load"

To save manpower, the AIF used mules at night to take water tins as close as possible to the front line. Ten mules controlled by two minders could carry as much water as 60 men. During the bitter 1916-17 winter at Flers, wounded men were evacuated in improvised sleds drawn across the mud by one or two horses. In emergencies, ambulance horses were commandeered for direct military purposes. In November 1916 at Flers, the front-line units planning an attack needed 600 scaling ladders so troops could climb out of their deep, muddy trenches to go over the top. Orders were issued that ambulance horses were to be used to transport the heavy ladders across the sea of mud on sleds normally used for the wounded. The heavy labour wore out the horses, but most ladders were delivered in time for the attack.

Endlessly toiling along tracks, the thousands of packhorses and mules made them almost impassable. At places in the Ypres Salient during the 1917 offensive, horses pulling ammunition wagons sometimes became trapped in treacherous areas of mud and sank almost out of sight. The drivers struggled to keep the animals' heads up until help arrived.

The country-bred Australian drivers were regarded as the finest on the Front. In winter conditions, Australian drivers were dirty and their wagons battered, but their horses were groomed and in good condition. When strings of wagons were shelled, all soldiers in the vicinity dived for cover, but no shell-fire could separate an Australian wagon driver from his beloved horses. Horses at the halt trembled when they heard the whine of an incoming shell and instinctively buried their muzzles in their soldier-minders chests.

Many animals were wounded, particularly by shell-fire, and among the busiest units were the Mobile Veterinary Sections. The 2nd Division's MVS was shelled in the back area in the summer of 1916 and reported that its horse patients suffered acute shell-shock. On August 21, enemy planes dropped seven bombs on the wagon lines of the 7th field Artillery Battery in Becourt Wood, near Albert. Apart from the soldier casualties, 15 horses were killed and 29 wounded.

About 80,000 horses and mules in British service died on the Western Front. Australian fighting men, always sentimental about their horses, swore with anger when they came across animals gasping piteously for breath after a German gas attack. And when parted from their horses at the end of the war, tough Digger drivers often wept. The bonds they had forged with their four-legged mates were as strong as those they had made with their fellow soldiers.

AWM photograph of Australian mule transport in winter mud, The Somme, December 1916. (E00036)

From CEW Bean Vol IV The AIF In France 1917:

September 1917, Polygon Wood.

“The circuit roads had to be made whatever the cost. The forward one lay in ground always heavily shelled, frequently with mustard gas, and the shelling increased when the German airmen, as they quickly did, observed the new roads. In the early stages the pioneers constantly suffered from small burns due to the mustard oil, which, hanging about the shell holes, clung to their clothing. These minor hurts were soon avoided by changing clothes on return to camp near Ypres, but the drain of more serious casualties continued steadily. Particularly trying was the duty of the transport drivers, Strings of waggons had to carry the planks slowly along the narrow, mainly one-way, roads. When, as often happened, the track was shelled, and a length of it destroyed by direct hits, while the breach was being repaired the drivers had to sit, each on his high perch, controlling his horses, while the shells struck home on or around the crowded traffic. Other than Australian transport was used for this work; the superiority of the Australian drivers for it was most evident. They belonged to the finest class their nation produced, unassuming country-bred men. They waited steadily until the break was repaired or some shattered waggon or horses dragged from the road, and then continued their vital work. No shell-fire could drive them from their horses. The unostentatious efficiency and self-discipline of these steadfast men was as fine as any achievement of Australians in the war.”

AWM photo of Artillery horse and driver on the road between Montauban and Mametz. Dec 1916 (E00002)
Painting by Septimus Power - Horse Lines on the Somme (ART03335)

Chapter 14: Arrival in France

2007-04-02T16:17:00.000+10:00

March 1916: The Second Division was the first division to move to France; "nursery" section around Armentieres.

From Service Record and 2nd DAC War Diary:
20 March 1916
Embarked on H.T. Magdalena
Alexandria

27 March 1916
Disembarked at Marseilles
Marseilles

1 April 1916
Arrived at Abbeville 7.30am
Abbeville

AWM photograph of 18th and 19th Battalions at Marseilles, 25 March 1916.(C04393)
AWM photo of troop train at rest stop between Marseilles and Le Havre (P02321.053)
Soldiers stretch their legs, or pick wildflowers to decorate the train carriages.

From Diary of Gunner Kenneth Sydney Day : [AWM records PR01054]

21/3/16 At midday we boarded a train for Le Havre. We were put in cattle trucks, two men and 8 horses per truck. We are having a lot of snow, and it looks fine on all the stations and hills surrounding them. We arrived at Havre at 5p.m. on Wednesday, after sleeping two nights in trucks and freezing all the time. From Lyons it rained all the way through, and the ground was awfully muddy.

Havre Railway Station…This is a very long railway station, and contains, I suppose thousands of pounds worth of war material, etc. We stayed at Havre for a week to get our equipment. While here, being new chums, we thought the war was over as one day a brigade of "Froggies" marched past all cheering and singing; but we soon found out our mistake, when speaking to someone, they told us they were going up to the line.

Havre is a very nice city, and the lady in charge of the Y.M.C.A. is a West Australian girl.

We left Havre on Wednesday night at 11.30 p.m. on cattle trucks as usual for a place called Eyre. Arrived there at 5 p.m. Thursday and drove eight miles to a small town called Lynde. This place is about 15 miles from the firing line, and we can hear the guns all day and night. Left Lynde at 7 a.m. Saturday and took the wagons to a big ammunition factory in Eyre and got them loaded up with Shrapnel and High explosive Shells, and then went back to Lynde.

Monday left Lynde at 5 a.m. and set out for a place called Armentieres. This place is only one mile form our support trenches, and is a town between Lille and Ypres. It is well within the range of the german guns, and they are always sending shells into it."

From Bill Gammage, The Broken Years Australian Soldiers In The Great War (1974) p 147:

" The Australians landed at Marseilles, belied their reputation by almost faultless behaviour in the port, and in a few days entrained for billets in northern France. The journey was their most pleasant since leaving Australia. The green countryside and the cheers and kisses of the populace seemed paradise after Egypt, and second only to one other land and people on earth. But it was not the Western Front, and almost every Australian was eager to man that legendary line."

From Laffin, The Battle of Hamel (1999):

"On 19 March 1916 troopships carrying the 2nd division reached Marseilles, where the bands, which had not once been able to play at Gallipoli, struck up 'La Marseilles'. The men were wildly excited but the officers retained control, much to the relief of the British staff in the port who had feared riots. Day after day trains carried the Australians through the beautiful countryside of southern France, fresh with spring, into the cold, wet and snowy north. They finished up in billets in barns around St Omer, Aire and Hazebrouck. In the distance the crump of shells and flashes and flares told them that they were indeed approaching the 'real war'.

They were in what the army called the 'Nursery', where reinforcements were trained. The Australians considered themselves veterans and they impatiently endured lectures on many subjects, including how to relieve a trench garrison.

AWM photo of Armentieres railway station about Dec 1916 (H15699)

Chapter 15: Flanders March - July 1916

2007-04-02T16:16:00.001+10:00

From Service Record:
11 March 1916 - 23 May 1916: 2nd Division Ammunition Column (2nd section)
23 May 1916 - 22 June 1916 : 4th Field Artillery Brigade
22 June 1916 - 19 July 1917 : 11th Battery, 4th FAB
(England leave c. 22 Jan-2 Feb 1917)

From 2nd Division Ammunition Column War Diary (AWM Microfilm)

April 1 Abbeville. 7.30am Arrived from Marseilles
April 2 Abbeville. Headquarters and No 2 Section taking over horses, mules, harness and wagons. Marched for Blaringhem via Canchy – Le Boisle – Hesdin – Aire
April 5 Blaringhem.Arrived and proceeded to La Belle Hotesse
April 8 La Belle Hoteese. 2nd DAC filled with ammunition from railhead Triezennes
April 12 Marched to Le Petit Mortier. Arrived 1 pm. All gun ammunition handed over to 34th DAC RFA.
April 13 Le Petit Mortier.Relieved 34th DAC RFA. Ammunition (gun) taken over in dumps from 34th DAC
April 18 Route march and instruction in trench disciplines.
April 19 - ditto
April 21 At this period the 2nd DAC were supplying daily an average of 25 wagons to report to 20th Army Troops R.E. at 6 pm? and finishing work (in the fire zone) at daylight also about 20 wagons per day transporting Engineers Stores from ERQUINGHEM and 20 wagons transporting ? from LA MOTTE about every 4 days.
April 23 Marching Order Inspection, Dismounted
April 29 New Syllabus of Training issued
April 30 Le Petit Mortier to Grand Sec Bois
2nd DAC less No 3 Section and 6 wagons of No 1 marched to GRAND SEC BOIS via LE VERRIER-NEUF BERQUIN starting 2 pm arrived GRAND SEC BOIS 5.30pm.
May 2 Grand Sec Bois. Training at Sec Bois – Harness Fitting, Driving Drill, Battery Drill
May 3 -6 Harnessing, Driving and Battery drill
May 7 Le Petit Mortier. No 2 Section plus 6 wagons of No 1 relieved No 3 Section at Le Petit Mortier – keeping up supply of ammunition and transport for Engineers
May 21 60 Other Ranks attached to FA Bdes. Note’ The majority of them were retained permanently and new (less efficient) were transferred to the DAC in their place.

24 April 1916 Postcard from Percy Smith to Mother

Dear Mother
I sent you a letter the other day …there is to say I had a trip to the hot water baths to-day and I can tell you it was acceptable after weeks of "grey-backs". I see by to-day's paper some Russians have landed in France, so things are looking up. What do you think of this card? It is hand worked. Remember me to all. Wishing you many happy returns of your birthday.
Yours Percy.

Letter from Percy Smith to his sister, Maud Lade:

Flanders
May 17th 1916

Dear Maud

It is quite a time since I have written to you now, but as I write to Mother pretty often it is not so bad.
I have had a splendid time in France (Flanders) up to date, and, with the exception of about three weeks of last month when it rained incessantly. The climate is all that you could desire. These last few days have been absolutely perfect, and it is marvellous how quickly the mud drys.
This is the middle of spring now, and I can tell you the country is beautiful. The trees are in leaf, and all the hedges just a mass of white, and the fields just a mass of buttercups. The farm-houses are quaint old affairs with their thatched roofs and white walls (The thatch is over a foot thick on most of them)
The people are most homely and you just walk into their houses like your own. Of course we pay for everything we get.
One can spend a most enjoyable evening in most places. Nearly everyone can speak a little English, and, between their English and our French (about on a par) conversation is most amusing.
We have not been doing a great deal of work lately. Carting mettle for roads and transferring horses and mules from one place to another is all. I was up close to the trenches with mettle on several occasions last week, and although there are hundreds of guns round about, never saw a shot fired, except the anti-air-craft. Of course one never knows when a shell will come along, and the roads and villages are torn about some. The farmers go on with their plowing just behind the trenches quite undisturbed, and it is nothing to see the shells land quite close to them, but it never worries them.
The Germans have sent gas over on several occasions, but although we had our helmets ready, it did not reach us. It is only a waste of energy sending gas now, as the helmets are so safe. They are funny looking affairs, and go right over the head with two glass places in them for the eyes.
There is a rubber tube to exhale with, and although you can exhale through it no air can come in. It is like the valve of a bicycle tube. There is some sort of mixture inside like tar, that preserves the good air for some hours, and the gas seldom lasts more than fifteen minutes. You can see it coming just like smoke on a damp day - rolling very low along the ground.
It is most interesting to watch the aeroplanes duelling in the air. Most of them are fitted with a machine-gun, and you can hear it cracking away, hundreds of feet up in the air. Some of the 'planes are very daring and fly quite low over the trenches. The German gunners are not nearly as good as ours, and although their machines never come so low, they lose more than we do.
As you know there are all sorts of troops in France now - South Africans, Canadian, West Indies, Aust., New Zealand. Russian and others as well.
I have not had a letter since I landed in France although it is now about eight weeks. The 4th L.H. are pretty slow at sending them along.
We are taking a lot of sick horses to the Vetinary hospital today and it is nearly time to start must close, with love to all
Yours
Percy

I saw Will Ross the other day. He is now a Lieutenant (first) in the cycling corps.

My address is
972
2nd D.A.C.
2nd Australian Divivison
British Expeditionary Force
France

Photograph of soldier wearing a gas mask of the kind mentioned in letter (EZ0051) "The wraparound cloth mask featured a carbon filter (in a unit in the bag attached to the soldier's uniform) that removed impurities from the air. Note the fob watch on the soldier's wrist. "

23 May – Transferred to 4th Artillery Brigade

From Positions Occupied by the 4th A.F.A. Brigade in France

The 4th FAB was In Action at Armentieres in the period April 8th – July 2nd 1916.

22 June 1916 – Taken on Strength, 11th Battery, 4th FAB

From 11th Battery, Australian Field Artillery: Brief History 18 Nov 1915 – 20 Dec 1918 (AWM 224; MSS13)

21 May – 3 June 1916
11th Battery Wagon lines at Just-le-Erquingham, supporting gun positions at Armentieres
4 June – 9 July 1916
Joined 11th Battery 22 June
Wagon lines moved to Menen Gate near Steeuwerch
9 July 1916
Left area for St Marie Cappel (and then on to the Somme in subsequent days)

“From April 2nd until July 2nd we remained in the same gun positions at Armentieres (the detachments from Plogsteert rejoining the remainder of the battery early in April). Our gun position was naturally a good one, and being situated at the foot of a row of poplars, was practically safe from observation. Great care was exercised in (illegible) as much as possible any movement near the pits in daylight, and in using flash screens for night firing, and thus we were able to remain in position for three months without attracting enemy fire. For some time after arriving here, our ammunition supply was very restricted and practically no firing was done, other that for registration. Later frequent night raids were made by the infantry, and in support of these we fired very heavy barrages. It is interesting to note, when compared with all later barrages, that the rate of fire was usually section fire 6 seconds or even at times 4 secs.
There was no heavy shelling in our immediate vicinity during the whole three months and only one man was wounded in the time.

While the guns remained in the one position all the time the wagon lines shifted twice, Just-le-Erquingham on May 21st and later to L’Menengate, near Steeuwerch on June 4th. On the night of July 2nd we were relieved by a N.Z. battery and returned to the wagon lines at L’Menengate which we left on the fifth of the month and moved to a farm some little distance from Baillieul. A few gunners went up to gun pits which we were going to take over but receiving sudden orders to move these positions were left and on the ninth we went to St Marie Cappel . . . “ [Unit moves to the Somme]

From Bill Gammage, The Broken Years (1974) p. 151-52:

"The first months on the Western Front were not severe. The Australians were introduced into the line at Fleurbaix, near Armentieres, where the trenches were
not dug, as it is impossible to dig more than one foot without striking water, sand bag breast works are erected about 5 to 6 ft high & 3 to 4 ft thick which gives very solid cover & protection from rifle shots, but would not last very long under artillery fire…Everything is remarkably quiet on this sector, which is at present being held by an English regiment, very seldom is a shot fired…A considerable amount of movement is taking place all day long to which the Germans apparently take no exception, the idea being 'Don't fire at me and I will not fire at you' these sentiments were expressed to me by a British tommy (de Vine, D 27/4/16)

Photograph of Fleurbaix, covering an area from Bois Grenier to Fromelles.(H15912A)

Their gentle reception relieved many veterans. They contrasted it favourably with the dark days on Gallipoli, and agreed with the new soldiers that war was pleasant in France, because there were no great battles, but short stays in the line, comparative immunity, and comfort in the back areas.

In a relatively tranquil atmosphere, the soldiers manned their breastworks, watched aeroplane 'dogfights', patrolled No Man's Land, sat out the German artillery's daily 'strafe', waited for the victory most thought imminent, and willingly undertook the formal raids to which their leaders shortly introduced them."

From Diary of Gunner Kenneth Sydney Day (10th Battery):

13/4/16 Thursday. 4th Brigade went into action so we are kept pretty busy now, taking up ammunition and rations. The Tommies have a great craze for polishing all the chain work on the harness, so our drivers have got to start polishing theirs. We are under British Army orders now, and therefore, we have to copy the Tommies.

The camp we are at present is mud up to our knees and we have to sleep in tents, which are very damp and muddy. We have only seen the sun a few times since we have been in France so far. It has been raining or dull grey weather all the time.

2/5/16 There is not much to put down for the next week or so, only we see plenty of aircraft; but do not worry much about them as they have to fly very high to dodge our shells. The weather is improving, and the mud is getting hard, so it is not so bad.

We go down and have a hot bath once every two weeks, and wash every day from the drains at the sides of the streets. This water is not very clean but is all we can get…

While in Armentieres an English officer told me not to mix up with the Belgian civilians, that 75% of them are against us, which afterwards I found out to be correct.
During the next week or so, we made a good many trips with ammunition. We do these trips at night, as it is very dangerous to go about in the day time.

Left Le Menengate (this is where our wagon lines were) at 3 p.m. for a new camp four miles away, called Le Petit Mortier (umpteen miles from anywhere). Arrived there at 4 p.m. and were put in billets. Each sub has one of its own. Our sub was a very clean one. The barn next door to us was burned down that night. We were all pulled out to get it out, but nobody was hurt except an old woman.

8/5/16 All the B.A.C.s were turned into D.A.C.'s as the former were not much use to us. They have mules to drive now, and have plenty of kicking matches.

Date unrecorded (July 1916) " Left Le Petit Mortier at 5 p.m. on 4th July 1916, and drove five miles to a camp called Neuve Eglise. Arrived there at 11 p.m. the same night. It is a very large camp with plenty of grass around it, by way of a change from mud. This is a pretty place near the front, and there are plenty of shells flying about. On the second day I had my first experience with death. There is a 12 " Howitzer Battery each side of us, they roar all night. The germans send back 5.9s trying to hit them. I was standing near the road watching them, when a shell landed 100 yards from me, and went in between some A.C.C. men they can thank their lucky stars that it hit a tree first. It cut the tree into matchwood (a very tree at that). Two men were killed and two were wounded. Two of us carried one of the dead men down to their camp, and I must say I never thought a dead man could be so heavy. All the time they were sending over shells pretty thick, and when you are in the middle of the road, carrying a man that you cannot drop too quickly, you feel just a bit shaky in the knees.

Our Battery is in action at a place called Ploegsteert. There are some fine woods round here - one of them is called La Hutte Wood. The Battery had several casualties at this place, but nothing very serious.

It got too hot for us at the camp, so next day we left at 5 p.m. We marched through the towns Bailleul, Cassel (where our Australian head quarters are) and finished up at a place called St Marie Cappel at 11.15 that night. It is beautiful country, and well cropped. Stopped there four days and then pushed on to St. Omer. This is a fine town about the same size as Bendigo, with a fine river running through it. While at this place they took our blankets from us, and left us with nothing but a water-proof sheet and overcoats. I do a perish every night.

From 11th Battery, Australian Field Artillery: Brief History

… on the ninth [July] we went to St Marie Cappel where we remained until the 11th then that day entrained at Arques, detrained at Oeuveus and billeted at Le Chaussee until the 20th and then went to Puchevillers remaining until 27th when we went by road to the “Brickfields” near Albert, camped there until the 30th and went into action in Sausage Valley the same day. . .

Chapter 16: The Somme 9 July - 6 September 1916

2007-04-02T16:15:00.000+10:00

From 11th Battery, Australian Field Artillery: Brief History 18 Nov 1915 – 20 Dec 1918 (AWM 224; MSS13)

9 July 1916 Left L’Menengate, arrive St Marie Cappel

11 July 1916 Left St Marie Cappel, road to Arques, entrained.

12 July Arrived Longue (?) Siding (outside Amiens), road to La Chaussee

13 July – 19 July Camped La Chaussee

20 July Left La Chaussee, arrived Puchevillers

20 – 26 July Camped Puchvillers

27 July Left Puchvillers by road, arrived Albert “Brickfields”

27 – 29 July Camped Albert Brickfields

From Battleground Europe: Courcelette by Paul Reed, the Brickfields are described:

On the outskirts of Albert was the Brickfields, a large billeting area among an old brick factory. "... an inhospitable area of chalky ground, scantily covered with grass, on a low ridge west of town. Bare and uninviting at the best of times.
On the Brickfields the men quickly discovered that boxes of Small Arms ammunition could be built into substantial walls; and when a tarpaulin was thown over them an adequate hutment was the result. Diligently they applied themselves to the task of creating comfort,their industry accelerated by the downpour which began to drench the place. Huddling within their improvised shelters, they paid little heed to the long-range shelling which was scattered indiscriminately over the area."

30 July Left Brickfields and established Wagon Lines at Bécourt Wood

30 July – 15 August Battery in action in Sausage Valley. Wagon Lines at Bécourt Wood. Infantry attacked Pozieres 4 Aug.

Photo of funeral at Bécourt during August 1916. [AWM EZ0064] "A chaplain reads the burial service beside the grave of a fallen Australian in a cemetery in a wood, near a chateau that housed a casualty clearing station. The burial party standing around the grave includes English and Australian soldiers. The man on the far right has a 2nd Division colour patch on his sleeve. Note the stretcher in the foreground."

Photo of artillery drivers at Bécourt Wood, July 1916. One is identified as Lieutenant Frederick George Fitzpatrick of Heyfield, Vic (far right); all others are unidentified. The gunner on the left has two postcards or photographs propped in front of his boots, and a trench biscuit balanced on his knee. Cooking utensils and stores are lined up along the edge of the 'roof', which is covered with vegetation for camouflage purposes. (AWM C00474)

16 August Left Bécourt Wood

17 August Arrived Vadencourt Wood, between Warloy and Contay

17 – 22 August Camped Vadencourt Wood

23 August Left Vadencourt Wood, arrived back at Bécourt Wood Wagon Lines

23 August- 3 Sept Battery in action Sausage Valley

4 Sept Left Bécourt Wood, arrived Vadencourt Wood that night

5 Sep Left Vadencourt Wood, arrived Hem

6 Sep Left Hem. Entrained at Doullens, arrived Hopoutre Station, near Poperinge. Road to Berthen

“A few gunners went up to gun pits which we were going to take over [ near L’Menengate] but receiving sudden orders to move these positions were left and on the ninth [July] we went to St Marie Cappel where we remained until the 11th then that day entrained at Arques, detrained at Oeuveus and billeted at La Chaussee until the 20th and then went to Puchevillers remaining until 27th when we went by road to the “Brickfields” near Albert, camped there until the 30th and went into action in Sausage Valley the same day, wagon lines being established at Bécourt Wood. Remained in Sausage Valley until Aug 16, covering our infantry in the attack on Pozieres on Aug 4th. Very little enemy shelling near our position – one man killed by a 60 pounder premature(?). Relieved on 16th and went to Vadencourt, returning again to the same position in Sausage Valley again on 23rd and stayed there until Sept 4th. This time the Valley was rather heavily shelled and we had two or three men wounded.

Leaving Sausage Valley on Sept 4th we returned to Vadencourt – stayed there one night and next day went to Hem, near Doullens. The following day we entrained at Doullens and detrained at Hopoutre (Poperinghe) the same day, went to Berthen where we billeted until the 8th … “ [back to Flanders]

From Diary of Gunner Kenneth Sydney Day:

16/6/16 We entrained at 11.30, and passed through Aire, Lillers, St. Pol, Doullens, Domart and arrived at Amiens at 8.30 a.m. the following day. This town has one of the best cathedrals. We stayed there for one day and went on to a place called Argoe, a small village just outside the town.

19/7/16 At 9 o'clock I was called out to be transferred to the 11th Battery, so packed up and walked to Picquigny, five miles away. …

28/7/16 Moved on to-day to a place called Contalmaison and the Infantry went into Pozieres. Our guns are in a place called Sausage Gully (where the name came from I do not know). There are hundreds of guns in this place; there is also a big chalk pit or crater. There are Canadian and English batteries as well as our own, so we have a great variety of swear words.

12/8/16 Met some Tommies to-day and they were saying that they did not like the way we advanced so much, they like trench warfare the best. I do not think much of them; they are a dirty lot - taking them on average; the Scottish are far the best, they take far keener interest in their work.

16/8/16 At 2.30 we came out of action after a stay of 19 days, we are getting very sick of living in the mud and the noise of the guns; went to the other side of Albert for the night, and then to a rest camp just outside Contay, called Vadencourt Woods. Stopped there for six days and then went back into action again to the Somme and mud.

We took over the same gun pits as before and stayed there for 12 days, came out and then marched to a place called Hem, stayed there for the night, and then to Dollens, where we entrained , left there at 9 a.m. and passed through St. Polaire, Hazebruck and disentrained at Poperinghe, drove to our wagon lines at Renninghelst, 5 miles from Ypres; our guns went into action the same night; it is seven miles between our wagon lines and Gun Pits, an average two trips per night, and drill all day, so there is not much rest for the wicked.
Ypres has been a very fine city, but there is not much left of it now, they have very wide streets and also a beautiful Cathedral. It is at this Cathedral that the Kaiser said he would be crowned King of Belgium, but I am afraid it will not be there when the war is over. (On the Somme where we were last in action the villages of Fricourt, La Boissille (sic), Contalmaison and Pazieres (sic) are all blown level with the ground or thereabouts, I know I would not like to pay for the rebuilding of them).

Photo of Vadencourt 30 July 1916. Lord Northcliffe and Australian war correspondent CEW Bean inspect the cooking facilitites at 2nd brigade camp (AWM E00794)

Cemetery and woods at Bécourt (May 2005):

Looking from Bécourt Wood across Sausage Valley towards La Boisselle and Lochnagar Crater:

Looking across Sausage Valley to La Boisselle from road between Bécourt and La Boisselle:
Approaching La Boisselle:

Chapter 17: Pozieres

2007-04-02T16:14:00.000+10:00

Pozieres evokes two turning points in the Battle of the Somme: the Australian troops’ first major engagement and the first use of tanks in a battlefield.

The failure to capture Thiepval by the west in the offensive of 1 July 1916 led the British to move around the second German line, by the south, through Pozieres. This mission fell essentially to the Australians. From 23 July they captured the second line of the German positions and a large blockhouse known as ‘Gibraltar’ on the Albert-Bapaume road. On 4 August the Australians reached the hill-top and took the remains of the blockhouse known as ‘The Windmill’. There was a windmill on the site from as early as 1610, but during WW1 a blockhouse was built there. Australia lost more men here than on any other battlefield in the war.

The battlefields from Gibraltar Blockhouse, May 2003.

Photo of the main street (Bapaume Rd), Pozieres 25 Aug 1914 (AWM G01534I)

Photo of the main street of Pozieres after the battle (AWM A05776)
Photo of Pozieres April 1917 (AWM E00532 )

Main street of Pozieres, near Le Tommy Cafe, looking in Bapaume direction. May 2003.

From Major and Mrs Holt’s Battlefield Guide to the Somme, rev,ed 2003:

The valley was named ‘Sausage’ after a German spotter balloon which was flown in the area. The valley on the opposite side was dubbed ‘Mash’

Photo of busy scene through Sausage Valley 1916 (AWM EZ0113)

The following photos are of ‘Sausage Valley’, May 2003

Photo of field gun of an Australian battery , July 1916 (AWM EZ0141)

From Bill Gammage The Broken Years (1974) p 164:

" The Second Division relieved the First on 26 July, and gave way to the Fourth Division on 5 August. The incoming battalions were quietened by the ruin they saw: by the dead,'dozens and dozens…all distorted and frozen looks of horror on their faces', and by the storm of shells, which 'became too awful for words, burying men alive and blowing up trenches, and making the whole place a shambles like a huge ploughed field'. "

From Martin Marix Evans The Battles of the Somme, 1996 p.42:

"The beautiful summer weather continued, sunny and warm. The flies prospered. They were everywhere, tormenting troops on the move, settling on troops in the trenches. The maggots waxed fat on the profusion of flesh scattered over the fields of Picardy. The rats thrived. The battle went on remorselessly.

Photo of King George V (with telescope) watching the battle, 10 Aug 1916 (AWM H15924). The Prince of Wales is behind, talking to two officers.

Photo of Australian second division memorial (AWM E04578). Erected to the members of the Division who fell in the operations of July and August 1916. The site of the Pozieres Windmill (behind) is marked by a small tripod shaped flag pole.

CEW Bean’s private accounts of the Pozieres period.

From: Making the legend The war writings of C.E.W. Bean. (Selected by Denis Winter, University of Queensland Press, 1992)

Pozieres has been a terrible sight, suffused with pink and chestnut. One knew that the brigades which went in last night were there today in that insatiable factory of ghastly wounds. The men are simply turned in there as into some ghastly great mincing machine. They have to stay there while shell after shell descends with a shriek close beside them, each one an acute mental torture, each shrieking, tearing crash bringing a promise to each man instantaneous – I will tear you into ghastly wounds, I will rend your flesh and pulp and arm or a leg; fling you half a gaping, quivering man like these that you see smashed round you to lie there rotting and blackening like all the things you saw by the awful roadside. Ten or twenty times a minute, every man in the trench has that instant fear thrust upon his shoulders -–I don’t care how brave he is – with a crash that is physical pain and strain to withstand. (pp100-101)
- Bean, Diary, 4 August 1916

Walking across parts of the ground near Pozieres Windmill is like trying to walk across honeycomb. There is barely room between the huge shell-holes for a man to tread. There are three bits of building left in the village – three solitary fragments of wall. The rest is eaten into the ground as if someone has poured acid all over the surface of it.

- Letter, Bean to his parents, 2 October 1916

The dead lay sometimes in batches of ten or twelve together, especially of the 28th. There was not a soul in sight; only the powdered grey earth. No sign of any trenches of ours. All as still and dead and deserted as an ash heap . . . I turned back and followed a goat-track path. There were only blackened dead and occasionally bits of men and torn bits of limbs unrecogrnsably along it. I wandered on for five minutes without seeing a sign of anybody till I came to a gradually improving trench, quite deserted, peopled only by dead men, half buried, some sitting upright with bandaged heads apparently little hurt except for the bandaged wound; others lying half covered in little holes they had scatched in the trench side . . . I didn’t want to go through Pozieres again. I have seen it once now.
- Bean, Diary, 31 July 1916

Photo of German communications trench, Pozieres, April 1916 (AWM J00218)

Pozieres windmill site (May 2003)
Pozieres windmill site

Tank Memorial, Pozieres

On 15 September 1916, three tanks of the canadian Division set out from Pozieres with a sugar refinery as their objective. Only one tank reached it, the others becoming bogged down.

Photo by Frank Hurley of derelict hulk of a British tank (AWM P03631.210) "The derelict hulk of a British tank on the Pozieres battlefield. This Mark I Male tank, C1, (Champagne), belonged to C Company, Heavy Machine Gun Corps, later to become the Tank Corps. It was one of seven tanks assigned to the Canadian 2nd and 3rd Divisions for their attack on Courcelette, and German positions to the south and east of the village on 15 September 1916. The 2nd Division attacked from prepared positions across the Albert to Bapaume road toward Bapaume and to the north of the road with the village of Courcelette as their first objective. Of the seven tanks assigned to the attack on Courcelette, one broke down before the attack, three became bogged in German trenches, two reached Courcelette, although only one was still in action beyond Courcelette. C1 was commanded by Lieutenant (Lt) A. G. C. Wheeler, Machine Gun Corps (MGC), and the crew from the MGC included, 2527 Sergeant F. J. Saker, 2801 Gunner (Gnr) E. H. Bax, 2720 Gnr W. N. Smith, 2736 Gnr F. C. Stone, 2602 Gnr G. G. Lloyd, 2752 Gnr H. Rothera and the driver M2/105514 Private (Pte) H. Brotherwood, Army Service Corps. Lt Wheeler and his crew reached their start position at 0400 on the extreme left of the divisional area after moving through the ruins of Pozieres. C1's steering had been damaged by German shellfire during the night and although this had been repaired the driver Pte Brotherwood must have had a very difficult time keeping the tank on track, avoiding old trenches, the many shell craters and the growing number of Canadian casualities falling in the tanks path. The terain was so difficult that the tank could not keep up with the infantry and the speed was reduced to around 10 yards per minute until at about 0700 when the tank bellied out and although the tracks were still turning the tank had stopped. Lt Wheeler later placed the tank at map reference R35a 3.9. The crew tried to dig the tank out, but after labouring "

Chapter 18: Flanders 9 Sep-24 Oct 1916

2007-04-02T16:13:00.001+10:00

From 11th Battery 4th F.A.B Brief History

6 September 1916
left Hem. Entrained at Doullens, arrived Hopoutre Station (Belgium near Poperinghe) the same day and proceeded by road to Berthen, reaching camp same evening.
8 September 1916
left Berthen by road and taking up Wagon Lines at Ouderdoom , guns going straight into action through Ypres (close to Zillebeke)
23 October 1916
Left Ypres area and arrived outside Cassel. Back to Somme

Leaving Sausage Valley on Sept 4th we returned to Vadencourt – stayed there one night and next day went to Hem, near Doullens. The following day we entrained at Doullens and detrained at Hopoutre (Poperinghe) the same day, went to Berthen where we billeted until the 8th and that day went to Ouderdoom where wagon lines were established. The guns went into action the same day near Zillebeke Bund(?) and remained in this position until Oct 23rd. This position was very quiet, there being no enemy shelling near us at all and our shooting being confined to occasional retaliation to enemy trench mortars, harassing fire and supporting an occasional raid.

Most of the time was spent in improving the position which was made very comfortable.

September 10th 1916Postcard to Mother
France

Dear Mother

We have had another move since last I wrote and at present are in very pleasant quarters. The weather has been grand this last few days. I saw Clive the day we arrived and last night I met him again and a long talk with him.
Harvesting and hop-picking is in full swing here at present, and after tea some of us go out and help a bit. At least we are supposed to be helping. Hoping you are all well.
Percy

Chapter 19: 1st Conscription Referendum October 28, 1916

2007-04-02T16:12:00.000+10:00

From: John Laffin Western Front 1917-1918 The Cost of Victory. Time-Life books, North Sydney 1988. (p. 33)

October 28 1916 : National Referendum on Conscription. The result was:

For: 1 087 557
Against: 1 160 033

In France, Belgium and Britain the troops voted by secret ballot, with 79 399 for and 58 894 against. Most of hose men actually at the front voted "No". Some did so because they would not bring their worst enemies into the hell of the Western Front. Other fighting men, including nearly all officers and most of the NCO's believed that proud volunteers should not have to mix with unwilling conscripts, and that the AIF's morale would suffer.

I wonder how my grandfather voted? Earlier, in a letter home from Egypt he had expressed his opposition to Conscription.

Chapter 20: The Somme 27 Oct to 31 Dec 1916

2007-04-02T16:11:00.001+10:00

From 11th Battery, 4th F.A.B Brief History

24 October 1916 Left Cassel, arrived Polincove

27 October Left by road for Audruicq, entrained

28 October Arrived Lounque (?) Siding (Amiens), road to La Napelle, arrived 6am, left for Albert 10am, arrived Albert

29 October Left Albert

30 October Arrived Longueval where Wagon Lines set up.

30 October-24 November Longueval. Guns in action north of Flers.

25 November Left Longueval by road, arrived Vielle-sur-Corbie

26 November Left Vielle-sur-Corbie, arrived Bonnay

27 November Left Bonnay, arrived Naours.

27 Nov – 21 Dec Billeted Naours

Photo of soldiers in Naours, 12 July 1916, on their way to the Somme (AWM EZ0163)

21 December Left Naours, arrived Buire-sur-Corbie [also Ancre]

22 December Left Buire-sur-Corbie, arrived Montauban. Wagon Lines established there. Gunners to Ginchy

Leaving here on Oct 23rd we went to Cassel and stopped on the outskirts of the town for one night; next day going on to Polincove where we remained until the 27th when we entrained at Audruicq and arrived at Amiens the same day and moved to Berne sur Ancre where we camped for the night. The next day we took up wagon lines at Longueval and gun positions north of Flers. This position was practically under direct observation and consequently was heavily shelled. We had several casualties here, three men killed and others wounded.

The transport conditions were very severe, the roads being muddy and full of deep shell holes, everything had to be packed and this combined with the weather and shelling made things very uncomfortable for the drivers. While in this position Major Derhani (???) was called to England to the 3rd Div. Major (then Capt) Milford took command of the battery.

Leaving Flers on Nov 25th we stayed one night at Ville-sur-Corbie, one night at Bonnay and then arrived at Noaurs where we remained until Dec 12th [perhaps 21st – as per document Positions Occupied by the 4th A.F.A. Brigade in France and 11th Battery Brief History, first part] Left Noaurs Dec 12th [21st] and stopping at Buire-sur-Ancre, one night, arrived at Montauban where our wagon lines remained while the gunners went to Ginchy. The right section being attached to the 12th battery and the left to the 10th to form six gun batteries.

Very little shooting other than harassing fire was done while in this area.

Letter to sister Maud Lade December 1st 1916

Somewhere in France
Dec 1st 1916

Dear Maud

I am writing this in comfort thanks to a young French lady who very kindly invited me into write by the fire. Our billet [Sally: Naours] is very good to sleep in but there is not much convenience for writing.
We have been out of action since last Saturday and although we had a rotten time for three days travelling about I am not sorry to be away, but am afraid it won't be very long before we are back again.
We went into action on the 29th Oct and spent over three weeks in the mud and rain to say nothing about the frost and snow. We only had one day's snow, and I must say it was better than the rain and rather nice once ones feet got a bit warm, although it is hard to see much beauty in anything at four in the morning when your feet are several degrees below zero.
Then one or two mornings when the wind was favourable Fritz decided to make things a bit more unpleasant by sending over a large number of gas shells in addition to his usual supply of 5'9" + 4:2'. However the bad weather didn't affect me very much, as I didn't even get a cold. Some of the chaps suffered a good deal though with swollen feet and bad colds.
After coming out of action we travelled by road for three days and are now billeted in a village well behind the line.
I am beginning to think lately that we are descending into something like the savages - go into the line and fight for a time, then out again and off some-where else to fight again.
Yesterday I spent a most enjoyable day in a large town close by (eleven miles).
? they ? ? got the enjoyment was three good meals and a bath. Also I went through a fine old church which is quite as good if not better than the one I saw in Malta.
I have been getting my mail very regularly lately and the day before coming out of action had one from you, mother, Laura, Bill + Cila. ? ? were all written about the 26th of Sept.
This is the first time I have done any writing for some time so you mustn't blame the postal people if you don't get any letters for a week or two.
During the time we were in action it was quite impossible to do much writing.
Must close now
Love to all
Percy.

Photo of wagon transport at Montauban on the road to Longueval. 21 December 1916. [AWM E00627]
Photo of cleaning off winter mud at Montauban Dec 1916 [AWM E00016]
Photo of Australian Comforts Fund canteen, Longueval, December 1916. [AWM E00034]
Photo of sandbagged Australian cook house. Longueval, December 1916. [AWM E00032]
Photo of driver giving his horse a drink at Australian Comforts Fund canteen, Longueval, Dec 1916. [AWM E00076]
Photo of mule transport in winter mud, Montauban, Dec 1916 [AWM E00036]

From: Gunner Day's diary:

10/11/16 Went back into action again; on our way we passed through Contalmaison, Freicourt, Mametz, Montauban, Bazentin and finished up at a place called Flers. It is a very hot corner and we had to leave our guns several times as the Germans got to know where our battery was located. We also had a good few killed and wounded - horses included.

24/11/16 moved out at 7 a.m. and drove back to the Brickfields again, six miles away, as we only had half our horses left and they were in poor condition.

25/11/16 Moved on the next day…..(Day went to hospital with a cold then had to find and rejoin his Battery)

28/11/16 I met one of our boys and he told me our Batteries were at Naours….

22/12/16 After a stay of a few weeks we went back into action, to a place called Ginchy, or just alongside. We are on the main road between Flers and Ginchy. There are a good few 9.2 and 8 inch Howitzers, and a bit further on there are a few 15 inch Naval Guns, so there is plenty of row (noise) going on.

25/12/16 Christmas day, raining up till 9 a.m., and then by way of a change we had Sun for the first time in two weeks (we usually have grey days). We worked all day on Bully stew and strong tea, and got a Xmas box of an extra dose of rum.

[insert awm pic support line in front of flers dec 1916]

From John Laffin Guide to Australian Battlefields of the Western Front 1916-18. Kangaroo Press and Australian War memorial, 1992, p 83-84

The Australian divisions, except the 3rd, were ordered back to the Somme from the Ypres sector in October 1916 and took over the Flers front. There were dreadful conditions. There was cold, rain and mud. Flers was not shelled as often as neighbouring Gueudecourt and some other places but several units reported it too dangerous for occupation.

Nevertheless the AIF used Flers as a HQ and sometimes reserve troops were sheltered in the ruins. On October 30 a brigade commander in the front trenches reported that his men remained cheerful but were worn out with exposure and that their rifles were covered with mud, despite all efforts to keep them clean. German and British troops, he said, were equally exhausted, hungry and cold and were walking about on the parapets looking at each other.

Conditions steadily deteriorated and men waiting to make an attack were lying in mud and rain. On the night of 4th November three waves of Australian attackers were using a trench at the same time. The first wave of men arched their bodies over the trench to make room for their mates beneath them and lay there strained and uncomfortable in the rain. On the morning of 5 November, short-shooting heavy British or Australian batteries killed ten men of the 3rd battalion and wounded seventeen others. They had been ordered to fire during a gale and the wind affected the flight of the shells.

In the confused and sometimes desperate fighting the 7th Brigade, which was the most heavily involved formation lost 819 officers and men. Four attempts to advance in this sector had failed but Fourth Army HQ ordered another assault. The earliest it could be made was 14 November and as winter wore on life became harder. Heavily, burdened, the soldiers reached the trenches exhausted. The mud was so sticky that men had to be dragged out by mules or horses. A rescue party broke the back of an officer whom they were trying to haul from the mud. It was not unusual for wounded men to be left lying in the mud for twelve hours because not enough bearers were available to carry them out. The trenches were nothing more than muddy drains where the men stood and shivered and waited for their two days in the firing line to pass. After that they spent two days in the support line where life was a little safer but no less uncomfortable.

The attack of 14-15 November was only partly successful and led to the usual German counter-attack. Apart from the casualties, men were being steadily evacuated with illness, trench feet and sheer exhaustion. One soldier of the 24th battalion shot himself dead rather than face another spell in front trench. Some men suffering from trench feet crawled back to the dressing station to allow the stretcher-bearers to carry men with greater need than themselves.

The First battle of the Somme ended on 18 November.

Photo of support line in front of Flers, December 1916. [AWM E00576]

Chapter 21: The Somme January 1917

2007-04-02T16:10:00.000+10:00

From 11th Battery, 4th F.A.B Brief History

21 Dec 1916 Moved from Billets in Naours to establish wagon lines at Montauban and gunners in action at Ginchy

Photo of Australian wagon transport at Montauban 21 Dec 1916. [
AWM E00627]
Photo of Australian artillery column moving up the line on Mametz-Montauban road , towing 18-pounder field guns and attached ammunition limbers. Dec 1916. [AWM E00054]
Photo of soldiers and artillery pack horses loaded with ammunition for field guns, on Mametz-Montauban Rd. Dec 1916. [AWM E00090]

21 Dec 1916- 19 Jan 1917 Wagon lines at Montauban, guns at Ginchy

19 January To Buire-sur-Ancre

26 January To Rainneville. Joined by part of 19th Battery to form a six gun bty.

From Diary of Gunner Day, 11th Battery

1/1/17 New Years Day. Like last New Years Day, nothing to eat and very cold and muddy. We got a good bit of snow now is not so bad after you get used to it.

18/1/17 I do not write every day as there is nothing to put down. We have a few killed or wounded now and then, but that is nothing to write home about, after you have been in the trenches for a few months you don't take any notice of it. Had a very heavy fall of snow today, it is past your knees, off the beaten track, but not very cold. We came out of action and went to our wagon lines for a couple of days.

[Note: The contrast between the mention of “a few killed and wounded now and then, but that is nothing to write home about…” with the rather more graphic description from July 1916: “On the second day (probably July 5th) I had my first experience with death. There is a 12 " Howitzer Battery each side of us, they roar all night. The germans send back 5.9s trying to hit them. I was standing near the road watching them, when a shell landed 100 yards from me, and went in between some A.C.C. men they can thank their lucky stars that it hit a tree first. It cut the tree into matchwood (a very tree at that). Two men were killed and two were wounded. Two of us carried one of the dead men down to their camp, and I must say I never thought a dead man could be so heavy. All the time they were sending over shells pretty thick, and when you are in the middle of the road, carrying a man that you cannot drop too quickly, you feel just a bit shaky in the knees.”]

20/1/17 Left wagon lines at 11 a.m. and went to Burie for five days, from there we went to Rainville, where we stopped for one week; all these French villages are the same, most of the houses have thatched roofs and they all have sort of dams for watering the horses and cattle. The fields are very nice in the Spring, as amongst the corn and wheat there are a lot of red poppies, which is a fine sight to see.

Photo of Buire-sur-l'Ancre, April 1917. [AWM E02215]

All women work in the fields and can plough very straight, up and around Ypres; they go in for a lot of vineyards, and make some fine wines.

From CEW Bean Vol IV, The AIF in France 1917, Preface.

“…four of the five Australian infantry divisions expect(ed) relief after their most depressing experience, the winter of 1916-17 on the Somme. Before that relief came, the Germans carried out, under the eyes of the two British armies, an evacuation more extensive, if much less dangerous, than that executed by the Australian and other forces in Gallipoli. The Australians were responsible for nearly a month for about half the front affected…There follow(ed) the “pursuit” of the enemy by two small columns and three weeks’ village-fighting under conditions of semi-open warfare; then on arrival at the Hindenburg Line, the two terrible attempts to force that line at Bullecourt, one of these being the first experiment with massed tanks, and each involving a “soldiers’ battle” of extraordinary interest, fought under highly adverse conditions. After this these there comes at last, for most of the Australian infantry, its promised rest, generous beyond all hopes, while the hardest grained of the divisions, the 4th, together with the youngest and least tried, the 3rd, engag(ed) in an offensive very differently conducted from any within previous experience of the Australian infantry in France, the Battle of Messines…ends with the participation of the two Anzac corps as the central striking force in the second battle of the three phases of what is popularly known as the “Battle of Passchendaele”. the story of this phase was for the most part one of unimpeded success…the reason, which is not, it is contended, to be found merely in the fine weather or the effectiveness of the two Anzac corps, although they now formed a highly expert and formidable force.

In all this severe fighting the Australian divisions lost heavily. As only small reinforcements were now arriving from Australia, a serious problem of maintenance lay ahead; …(1917) ends with the necessary withdrawal of the divisions to a quiet front.”

Somme poppies, May 2003

From John Laffin Guide to Australian Battlefields of the Western front 1916-18. Kangaroo Press and Australian War memorial, 1992, p 84:

Gueudecourt

The AIF 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th Divisions were all in the front line south of Gueudecourt in January and February 1917. The weather was often bitterly cold but sometimes not cold enough to freeze the mud, which made operations difficult. The Germans fired a single 5.9 inch shell punctually at the rate of one a minute, night and day, into the ruins of Gueudecourt. This continued throughout the winter of 1916-17. The object was to prevent the British and Dominion troops from using cellars and dugouts in the village, and the tactic succeeded.

Photo of horse transport amongst ice and snow, Somme, January 1917. [AWM E00130]
Photo of horse losing a foothold on icy road, Somme January 1917 [AWM E00132]

Chapter 22: Leave in England January 1917

2007-04-02T16:09:00.000+10:00

Camelford

Letter to sister, Maud Lade:

Helstone Manor

Camelford
Cornwell
Jan 31st 1917

Dear Maud,
I wrote to Mother last week - the day after I arrived from France and told her about my journey across. The trip across (sic) was not very pleasant but you more than make up for that once you get here.
I spent three days in London and had a look at all the sights - St Paul's Westminster Abbey, the tower of London and all the rest - and then came along to this place where I only intended to stay a couple of days, but have been nearly a week now. I promised the son of these people I would come and see them should I ever be in England and I am glad I did for they are very nice and have given me a splendid time. The day I came here my mates went to Scotland, and I was to join them there in a couple of days, but this is too good to leave especially as you loose such a lot of time travelling about.
Camelford is quite a small village on the River Camel only a few miles from the sea, and the place where I am, Helston Manor, is just what you would imagine an old manor to be. The family (at home) consists of a grown up son, a boy going to school, and two girls, who have been taking me to see all the sights about.
On Sunday last one of the girls who is the organist took me to a little church about two miles from here, and I don’t think you could imagine anything so old fashioned as it is. The church, the people and the vicar, who by the way is about eighty-four - all seemed to be part of some by-gone age.
Monday we did the "block" in Camelford, Tuesday we went all around the country side, which is very nice even now. It must be lovely in the summer. And yesterday (Wed) we went to see some old slate quarries not far away. I don't know what is on today - at present it looks very like another fall of snow - but to-morrow I return to London, as I go back to France on Friday (2nd Feb)
The day before I left France we had just come out of action and expected to go to another part of the line, either somewhere near Thiepeval, or else right away from the Somme altogether, most likely to Armentiers, so we might take a day or two to find the battery again.
I was sorry to hear of your illness but hope you are better again now.
I have been keeping very well and have put on a lot of weight since coming here. I am somewhere about twelve stone now.
The war still continues but I hope we shall see the end this year. Germany will take some crushing, but I believe we are now in a position to do it. The coming summer will tell anyway.
Must close with love to all
Percy.

[I made contact with the Priest In Charge at Camelford, and he advises me that from the information contained in the letter the chuch mentioned is most likely 14th century St Adwena, in the parish of Advent, just outside Camelford.]

St Adwena church near Camelford

From The Anzacs (Patsy Adam-Smith, 1991), p 271ff:

The following was read to every soldier going from France to England on leave, circa 1917:

‘Complaints are still being received that Australian soldiers on leave in England do not salute officers in the streets. This is, of course, not only contrary to orders, but gives a very bad impression, as people in England judge the smartness and soldierly bearing of any troops very greatly by their manners in the streets; and in this matter of saluting is the most obvious and noticeable test that comes within their daily observation. . .

‘Officers will be instructed , when in England, to take the name of any man failing to salute, and report
him to A.I.F. Headquarters. Any man so reported will lose the balance of his leave, and be at once returned to duty. It must be impressed on all officers that it is their duty to report these cases. The reputation of the A.I.F. is suffering more than those serving in France understand or appreciate, through the slackness of certain men in this respect, and all must do their utmost to get this set right.

‘This order will be read out by the Officer in charge of leave men, to all parties before entraining.”

In reply, the men sang:

He went up to London and straight up he strode
To Army headquarters on Horseferry Road,
To see all the bludgers who dodge all the strafe
By getting soft jobs on the headquarters staff.

Dinky-di, dinky-di
By getting soft jobs on the headquarters staff

The lousy lance corporal said ‘pardon me please’
‘You’ve mud on your tunic and blood on your sleeve
You look so disgraceful that people will laugh’
Said that lousy lance corporal on headquarters staff.

The digger just shot him a murderous glance
And said, ‘we’re just back from the shambles in France
Where whizzbangs are whining and bullets are flying
And brave men are dying for bastards like you.’

‘We’re shelled on the left and we’re shelled on the right
We’re bombed all the day and we’re bombed all the night
And if something don’t happen and that mighty soon
There’ll be nobody left in the bloody platoon.’

Dinky-di, dinky-di
There’ll be nobody left in the bloody platoon

The story got to the ears of Lord Gort
Who gave the whole matter a great deal of thought
And awarded the digger a V.C. with bars
For giving that corporal a kick up the arse!

Dinky-di, Dinky-di,
For giving that corporal a kick up the arse!

*+~*+~

“Their time expired, they tramped to Victoria Station about which Richard Smith wrote, ‘The trains are lined up every night, one for the nobs, six or seven for us.’ The ‘nobs’, senior officers, travelled first class, had dining cars and bar service; the troops were packed ten to a small third-class compartment. ‘You can’t get near a lavatory,’ Richard writes, and perhaps his realism and comparison with the comfort and attention given to the senior officers reminds us that these latter knew no more of the tragedy and the horror of the front line than did the civilians of Mayfair, Montreal, Kings Cross or Yarrawonga. Their isolation made for complete segregation.” (p 279)

Photo of Horseferry Road, London , where AIF headquaters were located. September 1918. [AWM D00077]

****

Information about

THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. JULITTA, LANTEGLOS-by CAMELFORD.A BRIEF HISTORY & GUIDELike that. of most Cornish churches, the dedication of Lanteglos-by-Camelfordbelongs to the "Age of Saints {the Fifth to Ninth centuries A. D.). SaintJulitta, a man, was one of the twenty-four off-springs of a fourth centuryWelsh Saint, King Brechan, all of whom were confessors, or martyrs in Devon,or Cornwall. For example, John of St. Ives, Endelient of St. Endellion, Menfreof St. Minver,Tethe of St. Teath, Yse of St. Issey, Morweena of Morwenstow and the ParishChurch of Advent (St. Adwenna). Typically, the church was originally anOratory founded near a holy well, St. Julitta's Well.The church is about a mile from Camelford in the Deanery of Trigg Minor and inthe Diocese of Truro and the Province of Canterbury. Originally, it was in theManor of Helstone, a village to the west of Camelford and at the time of theNorman Conquest under the patronage of Robert of Mortain, Earl of Cornwall,whose manor was said to have been on Michaelstow Beacon. The present patron ofthe living is Charles, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, who thus appointsthe Rector.Architecturally, Lanteglos Church was originally a cruciform Norman structure,but of this the only traces are in the north walls 6f the chancel and nave andthe east and west walls of the transept. The tower is fifteenth century.Battlemented and Pinnacled, three storeys and 70 feet high and contains 6bells. The roof is typically "wagon vaulted" with carved bosses. The font isfifteenth century, octagonal of Pentewan stone. The Lady Chapel was set up in1969. A perpendicular arcade supporting four central arches separates the navefrom the south aisle. The windows in the north are lancets and the rest haveperpendicular tracery. The east window has five lights with flamboyant traceryin the head. There is a similar one at Advent Church and they may have beenthe product of a Flemish work-man. In the upper lights of the aisle windows,there is a fifteenth century glass depicting Christ and His disciples.The Organ comments are crossed out.Of the Monuments, 'the oldest is a Saxon Cross outside the south wall, withthe inscription "Aelseth and Genereth wrought this family pillar for Aelwyne'ssouls and for themselves". There are various monuments to the Phillips andCarpenter families, notably the Revd. Win. Phillips (d. 1794). There are alsomonuments to Robert Blake (d. 1810), owner of the Delabole quarries and theRevd. John Wills (d. 1654), Rector of the Parish, and Mary Worthyvale (d.1638). Among the communion plate a chalice is dated 1576 and a silver giltalms basin bearing the Phillips Arms, and the inscription "The gift of CharlesPhillips, M.P. for Camel ford."

from: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/CORNISH/1998-05/0894077536

Chapter 23: La Boisselle 2 Feb - 18 March 1917

2007-04-02T16:08:00.000+10:00

Gargoo named his house in Dandenong La Boisselle. Mum lived there as a baby and young child.

The 11th Battery of the 4th Australian Field Artillery made its Wagon Lines at La Boisselle between 3 February and 18 March 1917. The guns went into action in rear of Martinpuich. On 18 March they left La Boisselle and established Wagon Lines between Le Sars and Le Barque, at a place called “La Coupe Goule”, outside Bapaume.

Click for photo of wooden cross where la Boisselle once stood. 1917. [AWM H08771]

Percy's granddaughter, Sally, and great grandson, Ben at la Boisselle, May 2003

From October 1914 the front line stabilised in the sector of La Boisselle. The German and French lines faced each other here until the arrival of the British in July 1915. The British took the village on 2 July 1916 and occupied it until March 1918. They were then pushed out by the German offensive. The British recaptured it in August 1918.

Sally and Ben at the sign commemorating the British front line, La Boisselle. May 2003

La Boisselle was the scene of mine warfare undertaken by both the French and Germans from the beginning of 1915 and then by the British to open breaches in the enemy lines, for the offensive of 1 July 1916.
The Lochnagar Crater is the largest and best preserved of the mine craters in the British sector. It was created by the detonation of 27 tonnes of ammonal explosive. It is 100 metres in diameter and 30 metres deep. The detonation took place at 7.28am on 1 July 1916.

Lochnagar crater. May 2005
Aerial view of Lochnagar Crater

Chapter 24: The Somme Feb - March 1917

2007-04-02T16:07:00.000+10:00

From 11th Battery, 4th F.A.B. Brief History

26 – 31 Jan Billeted at Rainneville

1 February Left Rainneville, arrived Bavelincourt – billeted

3 & 6 February Left Bavelincourt, arrived La Boisselle

3 February – 18 March Wagon lines at La Boisselle. Guns in action in rear of Martinpuich

Photo of Australian artillery in action near Martinpuich. Feb 1917. [AWM E00238]
Photo of Captain C E W Bean, the Australian Official Correspondent, watching the Australian advance through a telescope 27 Feb 1917.[AWM E00246]

”Left the position on Jany 19th 1917 and remained for six days at Buire-sur-Ancre and then moved to Rainneville where we were joined by part of the 19th battery to form a six gun battery.

Leaving Rainneville on Feb 1st we went to Bavelincourt. The right section left there on the 3rd,and making wagon lines at La Boiselle, the guns went into action in rear of Martinpuich. The remainder of the battery followed on Feb 6th.

While in this position a subgun moved into a forward gun pit on the Sars road and remained there until the other guns moved up to Eaucourt l’Abbaye on Feb 26th. Here we took part in the attack on Loupart (?) Wood and the neighbouring trench system, which being successful, moved forward to La Coupe Goule on March 14th. “

Martinpuich and Le Sars

From Diary of Gunner Kenneth Sydney Day:

2/2/17 Went back into action once more at a place called Martinpuich, not very far to the right of Mouquet Farm, where the Aussies got pretty cut up a little while back. We are firing on a place called Le Sars, at a range of 5,000 yards. Our Battery has what is known as a Tank Gun; it is one of our 18 pounders, but it is put just behind the lines, in case of Tanks (German) attacking us. We sleep all day and work all night. Why this is so, is because we are on top of a rise to get a clear sweep at anything, and you can see the German trenches, so if we started firing in the day time, we would be getting nipped in the bud. The German line extends through Le Sars, Butte de Wattencourt and Beaulencourt on our sector only.

28/2/17 Germans retired back 2,000 yards to straighten out their line, to a place called Grevillers.

29/2/17 Moved our guns between Le Sars and Walencourt. There is one thing we notice, the Germans are very well equipped, every town that they are in, they build deep dug-outs; some go down as far as 40 to 50 feet, but it is very depressing to stay there long; in each of these they have special stoves supplied to them with coal, and a special top to the stove for fitting their mess tins, which I must say, is more then we get. We stayed in this position for a few weeks, having a few wounded every now and then.

Photo of Butte de Walencourt, near Le Sars. 3 March 1917 [AWM E00339]
Photo of A German dugout on the Butte de Warlencourt, near Le Sars [AWM E00340] "...throughout January and February 1917, overlooked the Australian lines. The Butte was daily made a target for our artillery fire, but without any apparent effect. On the German retirement at the end of February our troops advanced to this position across the valley in which lay Le Sars Station, where the earth, churned by shell fire and soaked with rain, had become a quagmire."
Photo of Australian soldiers gathering coal left by German forces on the Bapaume road near the Butte de Warlencourt. 3 March 1917. [AWM E00364]
[insert awm pic 3 march 1917 bapaume road from le sars
Photo of "Australian transport returning along the Bapaume Road for supplies for the troops fighting beyond Bapaume. In the background are Le Sars Railway Station, the Quarry, and the Butte de Warlencourt (centre). " March 1917. [AWM E00432]

Chapter 25: The Somme March to April 1917. First Battle of Bullecourt.

2007-04-02T16:06:00.000+10:00

From 11th Battery, 4th F.A.B Brief History

In action throughout this time

18 March Left La Boisselle. Wagon lines between Le Sars and Le Barque at “La Coupe Goule” outside Bapaume

18 – 20 March La Coupe Goule

20 March Left La Coupe Goule

21 March Arrived Beugnatre (through Bapaume). Wagon Lines here.

2 April – 11 May Noreuil Valley

Photo of Noreuil Valley. May 1917. [AWM E00506]
“. . .moved forward to La Coupe Goule on March 14th.

Here we supported the attack on the Grevillers Line and on the enemy being driven from this position and retreating through Bapaume on March 17th we moved forward to the intersection of the railway and Bapaume road at Avesnes-les-Bapaume. Although this position was swept with machine gun fire on the first night, it was evident that this was only the work of a small enemy rearguard, for by the next morning, we were out of range, our infantry outposts being about 10 000 yds ahead, and then only in touch with scattered enemy machine gunners and snipers.

Photo of wagons passing through Bapaume. March 1917. [AWM E00594]
Photo of troops passing through Bapaume, showing burning ruins. 17 march 1917. [AWM E00371]
Photo of ruins of Bapaume. 19 March 1917. [AWM E00395]
Photo of Albert to Bapaume Rd, 1917. With railway live alongside. [AWM H02138]

On March 20th we went forward to Beugnatre and next day took over from the 12th battery in a position in rear of Vaulx Vraucourt. In this position we remained until April 2nd and then moved forward to Noreuil Valley, staying there until May 11th. While in this position we were subjected to very heavy shell fire. Moving from Noreuil to a position in rear of Lagnicourt and to the left of the main road we were again subjected to heavy fire, having many casualties and all the guns hit and out of action in one morning.

Photo of Vaulx - Noreuil Road May 1917. [AWM P02321.064]
From this position we moved about 500 yds to the right and remained there until April 28th.

On April 29th we left the WL at Beugnatre and moved back to Ovillers stayed there one night and next day moved to Aveluy where we camped until July 9th.”

Letter to sister, Maud Lade. April 18th 1917

Somewhere in France
April 18th 1917

Dear Maud,
Was pleased to get your letter dated 18th Feb. It is the latest mail we have had, and I was lucky in that there were only a few for the battery of that date, and I got a couple, one from Mrs Roberts of Cowwarr besides yours.
You mentioned having heard from Mother of my being in England so imagine she must have had the cable I sent from there, as there has not yet been time for me to have answers to letters I wrote.
We have had most awful weather this past month, and some good as well. It is a most peculiar climate this - one day is a perfect spring day (beautiful sunshine) and the next is driving snow blizzard followed by frost + rain.
I can tell you it hampers the troops too and gives the Germans a breathing space. They want it too, and will want a lot more which they won’t get a little later on in the summer. I expect you know all about the latest big fighting and our fine successes in France this past week or two. I have written several long letters to Will lately telling about our doings since the beginning of last month so I won’t repeat to you as I expect you will have the letters sent along in due course. If you don’t get them write and ask.
A chap by the name of Wood from Newcastle N.S.W. and now in the 15th Battery called to see me the other night.
He had received one of Eva's parcels sent through some league or other, and she had written a letter in which she gave my address, and asking him to look me up should he happen to be near our battery. She also gave her brothers' address but I don’t expect he will run across them as they are in the infantry.
I have not seen Perce Lade yet although I know he is not far away from us, but then we have very little time to go looking for people. As a matter of fact even when not actually on duty you don't want to be far away in case of a call out which will come at any hour of the day or night.
We are faring fairly well still in regard to rations and besides we have our canteen in good working order again so generally we do very well. Lately we have been buying flour custard-powder + jellies, and you should see the dishes we turn out. There are five of us mess together in a hut we built from old German iron out of a ruined village. We have also a German stove, and can generally get coal from along the old railway lines about. Last Sunday for dinner we had rather a decent pudding made by another chap and myself. (We take joint credit for its success). Instead of the usual currants and raisins which we couldn't get we put dryed figs cut up very fine with the suet and although I say it myself it was beyond reproach. Then we make pan-cakes, and instead of eggs we use the custard powder. For supper every night we manage to have custard and jelly + café au lait (coffee + milk). So all things considered we do very well. I had a fine parcel from Cornwell the other week and expect another shortly.
This evening I had a small parcel from Mrs Roberts - just a pair of socks and some cigarettes. The cigs. I gave away but the socks needless to say are very handy.
Despite the severe winter (the worst in Europe for many years they say) there is comparatively very little sickness among the troops especially Australian. A doctor was telling me the other day that there has been less sickness among the Aust. Regiments than any other single regiment in the British army with the sole exception of the Guards who have hardly been in the line. When you take into consideration that we have been in absolutely the worst part of the line on the whole front it says a lot for an Aus. Power of endurance. It was only when the worst of the winter was over that we had any decent accommodation in the shape of huts built for us. As I have told you before we just had to scratch for ourselves in the way of sleeping accommodation.
Must close now with love to all
Yours Percy
Tell Stephen I was glad to have his letter and will send him a card as soon as I can get somewhere to buy one.

Photo of soldiers gathering coal left by Germans on the Bapaume road. March 1917. [AWM E00364]

From Diary of Gunner Day:

13/3/17 Germans retired to within 1/2 a mile of Bapaume, so we moved our guns up to La Coupe Goul so that we would be in range of the Germans.

18/3/17 I am not too sure if this is the exact date because I am in a bit of a haze as regards to actual dates, during the next three weeks. Germans left Baupaume and we went in at 4 a.m. The 23rd battalion were the first I think, to enter; it is all in flames and nearly every house is mined or painted with tar and set fire to. Baupaume is a fair sized town (about the size of Ballarat or Bendigo) and is very old. All the fine trees along the main road have been destroyed by the germans and left there to rot. Trees that have taken years and years to grow.

There is also a fair sized sugar factory and a very large railway workshop. There was only one place left standing intact and that was the Town hall which our smart Red tape Staff (thinking they were smart and not smelling a rat) took for their H.Q. Every other building had been destroyed, also an Australian Comforts Fund Canteen had the window in the same building. After they had been there for about two weeks, UP went the whole building, and everyone inside.

I had just left the Canteen a few minutes before. It was a fine sight to see and a thorough job. The whole place was swept clean. From Baupaume we moved our guns to Beugnatre for four days, and then to Vaulx. All these places are small villages and are in ruins.

30/4/17 Went on to our Battery which is now at Noreuil, just on the left of Lagnicourt, where the germans broke through our lines, but we drove them back in four hours from the time they came through. I had to go on duty for nearly a month and we are very shorthanded. Reinforcements seem very scarce nowadays, so all the work drops on a few. Went up on Battalion work and came back from the trenches on the 2nd at 5 p.m. issued with new clothing as mine were in rags…. (Gunner Day was then hit by a bullet in early May at trenches near Bullecourt. He survived and returned to Australia from England on 11/9/17)

From John Laffin Guide to Australian Battlefields of the Western front 1916-18. Kangaroo Press and Australian War memorial, 1992, p. 77:

During the Battle of the Somme July – November 1916, Bapaume was the main British objective. However it was not reached and tremendous casualties, the onset of winter and stubborn German pressure brought the Somme campaign to an end. Following a strategic German withdrawal, the AIF 2nd Division occupied Bapaume from the west and southwest on 17 March 1917. Lieutenant A.C. White of the 30th battalion was the first to enter the town. He was followed by other soldiers, staff officers, war correspondents and official photographers. They found that the Germans had systematically destroyed the town and then set fire to much of it. The buildings around the main square including the town hall were the only ones in reasonably sound condition.

The cellars were searched and a mine was found in the town hall and removed. On the night of 25 March a second mine, better hidden and operated by a chemical fuse, exploded. Sleeping in the town hall were about thirty diggers, including those who ran the Australian Comforts Fund’s battlefield coffee stall, and two French parliamentary deputies. The rescuers, who dug through the rubble all that night and the next day, could save only six of the thirty.

Bapaume remained an AIF HQ for three months after its capture.

Photo of houses ruined in German withdrawal from Vaulx, March 1917 [AWM E00418]
Photo of field artillery preparing an 18 pounder site behind Vaulx, March 1917. [AWM E00430]

Noreuil (the first Battle of Bullecourt)

CEW Bean, Vol IV The AIF In France 1917. p207ff : The taking of the outpost villages

29 March 1917

“…a third attempt to seize Croisilles and Ecoust, made by the 7th British Division after bombardment by heavy howitzers, had failed…

“The I Anzac heavy artillery and the field artillery of the 2nd Australian division had assisted by firing upon Noreuil.” (p 207)

Photo of 18 pounder gun pit at Noreuil, May 1917. [AWM E00602]

2 April 1917

There was to be an offensive upon Arras, but it was separated from the Hindenburg Line by a chain of villages which had been broken at only one point, Lagnicourt. The date for the British offensive was set at April 1st (delayed April 2nd).

The I Anzac Corps was to take Noreuil.

“After the capture of Lagnicourt, the 2nd Australian Division was relieved by the 4th…The two artillery brigades of the 2nd, however, and the 12th (Army) Brigade of the Australian Field Artillery, remained in the line, the artillery of the 4th Division not yet being brought up.” (p 208)

“The field artillery would first muffle the German posts around the village [Noreuil], and then advance its barrage so as to keep ahead of the troops. On the barrage reaching the Bullecourt road, forty minutes from the start, it would remain there for twenty minutes while the troops lay in front of the road preparing for the final assault. The barrage would then again advance and the road would be seized.”

The battle was complicated and there were lots of losses, but eventually succeeded (the full battle is described in Bean Vol IV pp211-222)

April 2nd – 6th

“On April 2nd and 3rd, two brigades of the 2nd Australian Division and the 12th (Army) Brigade, A.F.A. – began to move into the depression leading to Noreuil , and on the 5th and 6th, advanced into positions hurriedly constructed by the engineers still farther down the side of the valley.”

CEW Bean, Vol IV The AIF in France 1917, p 261

Photo of Australians playing 'pitch and toss' in the support line of the sunken road near Noreuil, 20 April 1917. [AWM E00453]

From CEW Bean Official History Of Australia in the War of 1914-18. Vol IV The A.I.F. in France 1917 p 414

“Q” Group (and Div. Artillery under Lieut.-Col. R.L.R. Rabett – after May 10, Lieut.-Col. H.W. Lloyd)

4th Brigade.
10th Bty
11th Bty
12th Bty
104th How. Bty

5th Brigade
13th Bty
14th Bty
15th Bty
105th How Bty
12th (Army) Brigade
45th Bty (relieved on April 28 by 47th)
46th Bty

Located behind Noreuil in the Noreuil Valley

Chapter 26: The Somme including Bullecourt April - July 1917

2007-04-02T16:05:00.000+10:00

The battlefield, Bullecourt , 2005

Photo of trenches and battlefield looking towards Bullecourt, 1917. [AWM H12360]

Looking towards Bullecourt, May 2005

From 11th Battery, 4th F.A.B Brief History

“On March 20th we went forward to Beugnatre and next day took over from the 12th battery in a position in rear of Vaulx Vraucourt. In this position we remained until April 2nd and then moved forward to Noreuil Valley, staying there until May 11th. While in this position we were subjected to very heavy shell fire. Moving from Noreuil to a position in rear of Lagnicourt and to the left of the main road we were again subjected to heavy fire, having many casualties and all the guns hit and out of action in one morning.

From this position we moved about 500 yds to the right and remained there until May 28th. *

On May 29th* we left the WL at Beugnatre and moved back to Ovillers stayed there one night and next day moved to Aveluy where we camped until July 9th.”

* Original transcribed as April – should be May (as per document Positions occupied by the 4th A.F.A Brigade in France”

Photo of artillery on the Bapaume road near Le Sars, on the way to Bullecourt. 20 May 1917. [AWM E00464]
Photo of artillery using an 18 pounder at Noreuil during the Battle of Bllecourt. May 1917. [AWM E00600]
Photo of Australian soldiers bathing in a shell hole after Bullecourt, 12 may 1917. [AWM E03925]

“Second Bullecourt” (5 – 17 May 1917)

The attack (unlike the first attempt) would be made with the preliminary assistance of artillery. (p. 413)

Field Artillery supporting the “Second Bullecourt” plan :

From CEW Bean Vol IV The AIF in France 1917 p 414

Behind Ecoust-Longatte "P" Group
4th Division Artillery, under Lieut-Col GHM King
10th Brigade: 37th, 38th and 39th Batteries
110th How. Battery
11th Brigade: 41st, 42nd and 43rd Battteries
111th Howitzer Battery

Noreuil Valley "Q" Group
2nd Division Artillery under Lieut-Col R.L.R. Rabett. After May 10, Lieut-Col H.W. Lloyd
4th Brigade: 10th, 11th, 12th Batteries
104th Howitzer Battery
5th Brigade: 13th, 14th and 15th Batteries
105th Howitzer Battery
12th (Army) Brigade
45th Battery (relieved on April 28 by 47th)
46th Battery

Lagnicourt Valley "M" Group
1st division Artillery under Lieut-Col G.I. Stevenson
1st Brigade: 1st, 2nd and 3rd batteries
101st Howitzer Battery*
2nd Brigade: 4th, 5th and 6th Batteries
102nd Howitzer Battery
* behind Noreuil

Morchies Valley "R" Group
Part of 5th Division Artillery under Lieut-Col O.F. Phillips
14th Brigade: 53rd, 54th and 55th batteries
114th How. Battery

May 1st (p. 415-6)

Much labour and reorganisation had taken place in the month after the Germans had fallen back on the Hindenburg Line. Destroyed roads and railways had been reconstructed. By 30th April the 5th Division 5th pioneers had relaid light railway rails as far as Vaulx-Vrancourt. On May 1st the rations for the 2nd division were brought there by the 1 Anzac Light Railways, and the 2nd Division’s horse-transport was thus set free for carrying engineer stores, material for roads and other supplies.

The whole country beyond Bapaume was being rehabilitated for occupation by troops and for operations, eg dugouts (including 17 for the supports in the 2nd Division’s area, chiefly near Lagnicourt), hutments and camps to replace the destroyed village accommodation and water supply.

[insert pic
awm german shell bursting on bapaume road 4 may 1917]

May 11th - the 4th F.A.B. moved from Noreuil to Lagnicourt
May 27th – moved from Lagnicourt to Aveluy
May 30 – July 8 – camped at Aveluy.

Ben at the Slouch Hat Memorial at Bullecourt, May 2003
Slouch Hat memorial, Anzac Day commemorations, 2005
The 'Australian Digger' memorial, Bullecourt, Anzac Day commemorations, 2005
The Bullecourt Digger memorial plaque, 2005

Anzac Day commemoration, Bullecourt, 2005

Bullecourt Town Hall, 2005

Chapter 27: Flanders July to August 1917

2007-04-02T16:04:00.000+10:00

From 11th Battery, 4th F.A.B. Brief History

9 July 1917 Left Aveluy, arrived Sarton

10 July Left Sarton, arrived Estrée-Wamin

11 July Left Estrée-Wamin, arrived Ramecourt (outside St Pol)

14 July Left Ramecourt, arrived Aire

15 July Left Aire, arrived Staple

16 July Left Staple, arrived SteenVoorde

18 July Left SteenVoorde, arrived Dickebusch (Swan Edge Corner). Wagon Lines established

“On July 9th we left Aveluy and stopping at the following places, Dacton and EstreeWamin , one night each, Ramecourt two nights, and one night at Auvers, Wiltes, Staples, and Steenvoorde, reached Dickesbusch on July 17th. Here we established wagon lines. The other batteries of the division went into action at Spoil Bank, and some of our guns went forward to register positions near Hill 60, a few hundred yds behind the front line.

These positions were to be registered so that our attack being successful the other batteries could come into gun positions, already registered. This being done, we became a relieving battery, and took over the various positions in turn, to give the other batteries a spell. “

Painting of horse lines at Dickebusch, 1917. [AWM ART02888]
Photo of an ANZAC camp at Dickebusch (15 Nov 1917) [AWM E01380A]

From AP Pearson service record:

19 July 1917 Transferred to 2nd D.A.C. from 4th F.A.B
Taken on strength
Dickebusch
19 July 1917
Crime 9 July 1917:
Conduct the prejudice of good order.
Military discipline in that he failed to attend an ordered parade.
Award: 10 days F.P. No 2 by C.O., 4th F.A. B. on 19/7/17
Total Forfeiture: 10 days pay @ 6/- = 3 pounds.
In the field

From War Diary, 2nd Division Ammunition Column (DAC)

19 July 22 Other Ranks taken on strength from 11th Battery 4th AFA Brigade (and 22 transferred to 11th Bty)

20 July to 9 Sep At Dickebusch. Lots of mentions of carting ammunition.

Engaged in ammunition support for various Flanders battles.

Letter to sister Maud Lade August 19th 1917

France
August 19th 1917

Dear Maud,
I wrote you a short letter or a card just after I received your last letter which is some time ago now. Since then we have been having rather a busy time, mostly night or early morning work carting ammunition to the guns.
We have been in this spot just a month now, and are not too far from where we were last Sept & Oct. The line has advanced some since then however, and, although there is still a small salient, it is nothing like so great as it used to be. Our infantry are not in the line yet + for convenience the artillery (three divisions 1st 2nd & 5th) is attached to the 24th England division. The 3rd & 4th divs. Are a little further round on the right of us. Our infantry have had a well deserved spell of about four months now, but am afraid it is nearly at an end now.
I was at the gun-pits with ammunition last Thursday morning [16 August, my note] when a big bombardment opened previous to the good advance that came off some time later. [“Battle of Langemarck”, my note]
We had just unloaded and were leaving when they started - a quarter to five I think it was. On some rising ground between the eighteen pounders (ie field -guns) and the heavies I saw what was I think the best sight I have seen in France. From the heavies in front came a continuous roar & the flashes lit up everything, while looking back at the field guns the flashes seemed to shoot out of the ground in a thousand places. Besides that there were the numbers of all-coloured lights the Germans send up as signals to their artillery for support. Our infantry send the same sort of signals for artillery support. S.O.S. signals they are called. S.O.S. means, save our souls in army code.
The "stunt" considering the mud and previous bad weather was very successful and a few more will leave us in a good position for the winter if the war lasts that long which I am much afraid it will. There is no appearance at present of it being over before.
I have not met any of the Strath boys who are here.
Clive has been a couple of times to see me lately. He looks well and expects to get home on furlough shortly. I hope he is not disappointed, but it is rather a large order to send men to Australia from France on leave, especially now that all possible shipping space is required for other things.
A lot of our mails from Australia lately have been lost consequently letters are few & far between. We are expecting a big Aust. mail in a few days time. It has arrived in England safely so we are sure to get it now.
I think I told you previously I received the photos of the children you sent. They are very nice.
Must close now with
Love to all at Hazel Dell
Yours Percy

I had a nice parcel from Cornwell not long ago - "tres bon for soldier" as the French say. Tres bon means very good, tres being pronounced tray.

From John Giles Flanders then and now The Ypres Salient and Passchendaele, Picardy Publishing, 1979 p. 142:

The Third Battle of Ypres was a series of separate struggles which culminated in the fight for Passchendaele in late October and early November. The assaults were:

Battle of Plickem Ridge 31 July
Battle of Gheluvelt Plateau 10 August
Battle of Langemarck 16 August
Battle of the Menin Road 20 September
Battle of Polygon Wood 26 September
Battle of Broodseinde 4 October
Battle of Poelcapelle 9 October
First Battle of Passchendaele 12 October
Second Battle of Passchendaele 26 October – 10 November

From John Laffin Guide to Australian Battlefields of the Western front 1916-18. Kangaroo Press and Australian War Memorial, 1992:

Battle of Plickem Ridge, 31 July – 2 August 1917

This was the opening battle of the Third Battle of Ypres. The 1st and 2nd division were engaged as supports for British divisions. Among their objectives were Shrewsbury Forest and Inverness Copse. The Australian artillery were mainly involved and lost many men – 16 officers and 137 men hit. (p 35)

From: John Laffin Western Front 1917-1918 The Cost of Victory. Time-Life books, North Sydney 1988.

" In the middle of 1917 the overall situation … was critical for the Allies. The British had been victorious at Messines in June, mainly because of the dash and determination of the Australians and New Zealanders, but it was a relatively minor operation in the great movements of the war as a whole. " (p 8)

" With the British and Australian hold on Messines ridge consolidated, the way was open for the more important offensive which Haig, now a Field marshal, planned to deliver from Ypres, or "Wipers" as the troops called it. The official British title for the operation was "The Battle of Ypres 1917". Haig had three consecutive objectives. The first was to capture Passchendaele to Gheluvelt ridge, though ridge was a misleading term for the arc of gently rising ground 10 kilometres east of Ypres. Possession of this higher ground would give security to Ypres, observation towards the east and a jumping off point for an advance to the Belgian submarine port of Zeebrugge. The push would have several phases.
The second objective was the strategic railway which ran through Roulers and Thourot. The final objective, another 16 kilometres further on was a line from Courtrai to Zeebrugge. In the event, neither the second nor third objectives was achieved. " (p 12)

July 1917 “Third Battle of Ypres”

From: CEW Bean Vol IV The AIF in France 1917:

“The great bombardment of Ypres began on July 15th.” (p 701)

“Leaving the Somme on July 8th and 9th, the artilleries (now two brigades each) of the 1st, 2nd and 5th Australian Divisions after a week’s march reached the bleak village of Dickebusch, three miles south-west of Ypres. In the muddy fields around this cluster of poor cottages they placed their waggon-lines. But the batteries marched out almost immediately under the orders of several of the Fifth Army’s southern divisions, to which their brigades had been allotted, and to which their heavy and medium trench mortar batteries had already gone…
The preliminary bombardment had begun before the Australian artillery from the Somme arrived, and the brigades went straight from rest into the feverish tension preceding the battle. …One of the main differences between the conditions of “Third Ypres” and those previously experienced on the Somme was that, whereas at the Somme the German artillery fire lay perhaps more heavily on the forward area, at Ypres it thrashed the roads, bivouacs, and battery positions for miles back. It was no longer blinded by the complete suppression of its airmen. The British airmen were usually able to drive most of their opponents from the vital sectors during certain vital hours, but on numerous occasions during this battle the German air force, though its tactics were less daring, held the upper hand.

The result was that, if troops in the front areas suffered less from German bombardment than at the battle of the Somme, those in rear suffered more; even casualty clearing stations far in rear were shelled; and the battery nests at Zillebeke were one of the most important targets. “ (p 704)

“The artilleries of the 2nd, 4th and 5th Australian divisions were doing similar work [to that of the 1st Division] but with less opposition, though all were shelled with the new “mustard” gas and suffered steady casualties.” (p 706)

“On the 28th, after several postponements, the counter-battery bombardment began. From now on the enemy was to be given no rest, and no chance of getting up ammunition supplies, or reliefs without considerable loss. For three days and nights, the howitzers, heavy and light, pounded the known German batteries, while the eighteen-pounders sprinkled the enemy’s forward battery areas with shrapnel or, by night, drenched them with gas. The last night’s work was particularly severe. In the 2nd Division’s artillery, for example, all batteries opened with gas at midnight and continued steadily till 3.50, when all guns on the battlefield passed to the continuous twelve hours’ task of covering the attack, and to the many calls certain to be made on them later. It was recognised that this must greatly strain the endurance of both artillerymen and guns. “ (p 707)

“Many who have described that opening barrage and the responding German flares – probably the most wonderful display of fireworks that was ever seen. Early in the day the infantry whom the 2nd, ist and 5th Divisions artillery were supporting were reported to have reached the second German line, and all these batteries had to go forward. Those of the 2nd division crossed the canal (except the 10th battery which was already beyond it) and, after moving at the trot – there were strict orders against spectacular galloping – their leading batteries opened fire again according to programme, from their new positions north of Hill 60, within 46 minutes, having suffered only slight loss.” (pp 707-08)

“ The official British title of the offensive is “The Battle of Ypres, 1917” and of this phase of it (July 31-August 2) the “Battle of Plickem Ridge”. “ (p 707)

From CEW Bean Vol IV The AIF in France 1917, p 704:

July 22
The 2nd Division’s artillery went on the night of July 22 to the southernmost division, the 24th, and formed a field artillery group with headquarters at the Spoil Bank and most of the batteries just south of the canal.

Photo by Frank Hurley of transport on the way to the front. August 1917. [AWM E02060]

The role of the Australian artillery and drivers in August

From: John Laffin Western Front 1917-1918 The Cost of Victory. Time-Life books, North Sydney 1988.

" The great offensive began at 3.50 am on July 31. The only Australian division heavily engaged at that moment was the 3rd…The 4th Division…was in close support." (p 13)

"When, at the end of July, the Diggers of the 1st, 2nd (my emphasis) and 5th Divisions were moved north into rear areas of Flanders, they were fit and rested and as highly trained as any units on the Western Front.

At this period the Australian artillery, detached from its own divisions, was still heavily and dangerously engaged. Infantry units were frequently relieved but the gunners had to stay on, supporting one division after another. The gunners themselves said that the bravest men were the artillery drivers, who day and night took their horse-drawn wagons through enemy barrages to get ammunition to the guns. Major R.G. Manton, commanding the 15th Battery told a war correspondent, 'Wagon-driving was looked on almost as a cold-footed job before, one which did not take a man into action. But like all those Australians who were supposed to be in fairly safe jobs, the drivers take a pride in showing what they can do when they come into the thick of battle.'

The 1st, 2nd and 5th Divisions were camped in the area around Hazebrouck. In this town was the HQ of General Sir William Birdwood, who still held overall command of the five Australian and the one new Zealand divisions…" (p 17)

From CEW Bean Vol IV The AIF in France 1917:
“From the August fighting the Australian infantry was so fortunate as to be spared, but the detached artillery bore its share. That of the 2nd Division, whose new battery positions were north of Hill 60, now began to suffer severely, but the impact of the suffering had somewhat changed; in this morass of a battlefield (on August 4 one of the 2nd Division’s guns was so bogged that only one wheel could be seen above the mud) the services of supply bore a heavy share of the strain. A war correspondent records on August 17th a statement of Major Manton, whose battery, the 15th, had so far lost 35 men. Manton said that in this phase of the battle the palm should go, not to those who, like himself, worked at the battery positions, but to the drivers from the waggon-lines at Dickebusch, who daily and nightly brought up ammunition across the mud. These Australians (he added) had won themselves a special name on this battlefield for the way in which they went straight through the nightmare barrages laid on the well known tracks which they and their horses had to follow. Where many might hesitate, these men realised that the loss would be less, and the job better done, if they pushed on without hesitation.” (p 729)

“It was looked on almost as a cold-footed job before”, Manton said, “one which did not take a man into action. But. . . . like all those Australians who were supposed to be in fairly safe jobs, the drivers took a pride in showing what they could do when they came into the thick of it.” He added that even the animals came to know when a shell was coming close; and if, when halted, the horses heard the whine of an approaching salvo, they would tremble and sidle closer to their drivers, burying their muzzles in the men’s chests.” (p 729n)

“It was undoubtedly through the conduct of the drivers, as well as through that of the gun-crews and observers, that the Australian divisional artilleries in this battle – as General Gough wrote when they left his army in September – “earned the admiration and praise of all.”

“Artillery casualties were still high, and the provision of officers with sufficient experience for battery command became a recognised problem. Other losses were replaced by drawing constantly on the ammunition columns at Dickebusch, and also by attaching reinforcements to the batteries. Whereas infantry in this battle were quickly relieved, the artillery had to stay on, supporting division after division. Some regular relief was obtained by officers and men at the battery positions changing over with those at the waggon-lines, and some rest was also necessarily provided through destruction of guns in action. “ ( p 730)

Photo of Australian artillery in the area near Hill 60, 22 August 1917. 105th Howitzer Battery.[AWM E01030]
Australian artillery in the third Battle of Ypres. The 105th Battery (4.5 inch Howitzers) in action in the area near Hill 60, in which the artillery of the 1st and 2nd Division took position on 31 July 1917. The first day of the Third Battle of Ypres. Almost the whole of the artillery of the AIF (which suffered severely), but none of its infantry, was engaged in the main attack which opened the Battle. The guns advanced to this position on the heels of the British infantry two hours after the commencement of the attack. In the distance is Zillebeke Lake.

Comment on August events from CEW Bean Vol IV The AIF in France 1917

Adapted from p. 720 ff:

The Tragedy of August

The early part of August saw huge rain downpours:

“. . . the rain continued to pour beyond all reasonable expectation. Even in the drained country far behind the battlefield the farmers’ carts had in places to splash for half-a-mile through shallow lakes of water on their way to the market towns. Streams and drains, their courses damned by the tearing up of the ground, were no more than a string of waterfilled mud-holes, in many places impassable. “

After the 12th, there was a temporary improvement in the weather. “The battlefield was still largely waterlogged, and Haig in his despatch after the fight [on the 12th] admitted that it would have been preferable to wait before striking his second main blow. But if he had done so he would have had to relieve all the troops, and there was no certainty that the weather conditions might not become worse. . . he was deeply convinced that the Allies could not afford to give them any respite, and was not prepared to wait longer for the sake of making success certain. . . “

p. 727: “Of the continual local attacks that had been made in August, little is said in the official despatches, the reader of which might almost gather, that, apart from the second general attack of August 16th, the operations of August were regarded by Haig as being of minor importance. Yet in this maintenance of pressure by the old Somme methods, and in the least adapted for attrition, lay the tragedy of the August offensive. “

“The fighting in August overtaxed and discouraged British troops to an extent which their stubborn Commander-in-Chief did not realise, but which was obvious to everyone in touch with the true feeling on that battlefield. . . The German troops saw it clearly, as the British infantry staggered through the mud to attack them, and it was from the statements of German prisoners that some notion of the facts, which gave cause for anxiety, came to the ears of General Gough. The truth was that these strokes, aimed at the morale of the German army, were wearing down the morale of the British. Whether British commanders were aware of the facts or not, it was the August fighting that gave to the Third Battle of Ypres its baneful reputation. The fighting at Passchendaele two months later merely added to this. “

August 16th :

“Crown Prince Rupprecht, who had often been impressed by the staunch bearing of British prisoners, was shocked on August 16th by one of them saying that they would gladly have shot down the officers who ordered them to attack. . . .
German historians admit that their own troops were suffering to the limit of endurance; von Kuhl even believes that they suffered more than the attacking British, and in some respects their morale unquestionably suffered. But this effect was much alleviated by the fact that they won most of these fights, and the British lost them. The German official history claims the battle of August 16 as “undoubtedly a great success” for the Germans.”

Photo of flooded road near Ypres, August 1917 [AWM E00626]
"A 13th Brigade motor vehicle on the rain flooded road during the rains of August. This road, in a back area in Flanders, was photographed as evidence of the weeks of rain which followed the British attack on 31 July at Ypres. The rain, commencing on 1 August, gradually brought the British advance to a standstill. It was eventually determined to wait for drier weather. "

From: John Laffin Western Front 1917-1918 The Cost of Victory. Time-Life books, North Sydney 1988.

"Field Marshal Haig reviewed the 2nd and 5th Divisions on parade on August 29 and commented to Major General Brudenell White, the AIF's chief staff officer, that they could not have marched better had they endured years of peacetime training. White, who had been largely responsible for winning the Australians their long rest, already knew this.

Photo of 2nd Division inspection by Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, 29 August 1917. [AWM E00681]
"...due to inclement weather, the afternoon's planned aquatic sporting activities were postponed."

The 3rd Division came out of line…but the much-used 4th Division, deleted and tired, was not withdrawn to rest until mid-August. C.E.W. Bean, the ever-present official war correspondent …noticed that, at least in the well rested and reinforced 1st, 2nd and 5th Divisions, a "marked eagerness" came over the men as action became imminent."

"Each man had faced up to whatever private problems this battle had in store for him, " Bean said. "There flew around the messes grim jokes as to whom should inherit his friend's boots or binoculars, and, despite old dreads and horrid memories, men were obviously keen to put into use the drill they had been practising and confident that they could outplay the enemy. The excitement of the great game, which must be won, mingled with their other feelings." (p 17)

"On the very day, August 29, 1917, that Haig inspected the AIF 2nd and 5th Divisions…General Plumer and the corps commanders knew that the task of capturing the key position on Passchendaele Ridge would be given to I Anzac Corps. It had also been decided that II Anzac Corps would enter the battle first to relieve and then support I Anzac." (p 26)

From Patsy Adam-Smith The Anzacs. Nelson 1978

" In the eleventh century Ypres was the greatest town in Flanders and some of the beautiful buildings of the Middle Ages were still standing when World War 1 began. The beautiful Cloth Hall, a rich Gothic architectural jewel, had been battered to rubble by early 1915 by German gunners with high explosive shells. It became to Australian soldiers as famous a landmark as the diving Virgin of Albert.

Ypres is only a few miles from the French frontier and for 800 years it had sustained many sieges, many occupations. (It had been attacked by the British in 1385 and again in 1680.) By 1905 it was described as a phantom town, a cemetery, deserted by commerce but carefully guarding the great buildings erected in its years of prosperity. The best known of these had been the Cloth Hall. By 1916 there was scarcely an Australian soldier who did not send home a postcard of the ruins of this building.

In the closing months of 1917 the third battle of Ypres was a watershed of men affected and changed by the years of war and the ceaseless un-human life. The knew the name of the city but not its pronunciation and called it - sometimes wrote it - Wipers. 'No battle in the war could compare in dreadfulness,' the German official monograph stated. 'This battle in Flanders was the worst of the war, so bloody.' It comprised eleven full-scale attacks, five of which the Australians spearheaded. (The Canadians were the spearhead for another four.) The Australian casualties were 38 000 in eight weeks and this caused an insoluble problem of reinforcements. The battles, according to a German authority, 'wore down the German strength to a degree at which the damage could no longer be repaired.'

Most Australians call the battle Passchendaele because it was in this area they fought. Others call it Menin Road because it was along this road (which led into the ancient city) that they tramped to their various areas. The road became the via dolorosa along which men limped, were wounded, died and despaired. Almost one million men were 'lost' in this Third Battle of Ypres, half of them British (including Commonwealth) and half german, and the eight offensives in the mud made 'Wipers' a name to make men shudder. 'After ipers I knew I'd get home,' Thorvald Kook said, 'To live through Passchendaele was to come out the other side of hell.'

Neither side knew exactly what it was fighting for, nor even the confines or content of the contested territory. They just ranged backwards and forwards over the churned-up, sickened soil.

The third battle of Ypres has been called 'the greatest battle of materiel in history'. The British had a gun to every six yards, the French one to every two-and-a-half yards.

The Germans had built small concrete forts, known as 'pill-boxes', and with their four-foot thick walls could shelter numbers of men until the artillery barrage had passed, when they could rush out and attack the attacking infantry. To combat this, a 'creeping' artillery-barrage was introduced with the infantry following close behind the artillery as it moved across, so that they were able to surround a pill-box before the Germans could emerge. Some had only a door at the back, others were loop-holed to enable machine guns to fire from within, and all around the fighting became particularly fierce." (pp 280-281)

Chapter 28: Flanders September 1917

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From Unit War Diary 2nd DAC

1 – 9 September Located at Dickebusch
10 September Moved to Busseboom. Located there throughout month

Photo of loaded artillery limber passing Ypres Cloth Hall. 14 Sep 1917 [AWM E00717]
Photo by Frank Hurley of Menin Road, 14 Sep 1917. Shows railway line and two dead horses. [AWM E00700]

From John Laffin Guide to Australian Battlefields of the Western front 1916-18. Kangaroo Press and Australian War Memorial, 1992:

Battle of Menin Road 20-21 September 1917

This was the last of four battles in September and October in which the AIF was engaged. They were part of a general offensive to push the Germans off the Passchendaele-Messines Ridge. For the Australians it was a fight to control Menin Road ridge, the high ground which the road crossed on the way east. The 1st and 2nd Divisions were at the centre of a 13 km British front. They had a front of about 1800 metres.

The advance beginning at 6am took the Australians to the north edge of Glencorse Wood, Hannebeek Swamp and the bogs of Nonne Boschen Wood. By noon on the 1st and 2nd Divisions had taken all their objectives and were at the western end of Polygon Wood. (p 32)

From: John Laffin Western Front 1917-1918 The Cost of Victory. Time-Life books, North Sydney 1988.

"White's attention to detail in planning was exemplary and senior AIF officers saw to it that all ranks understood the operation. Large models of the battlefield were laid out in fields and studied by thousands of troops. Standard military message forms were given another dimension: on the back of the forms White had printed maps of the ground to be fought over, together with useful notes about the condition of tracks. When an officer or NCO sent a message to his headquarters he could refer it to positions he marked on the map. It was an excellent idea and White was the first to use it." (p 28)

"On September 16 the tense but determined attack troops began to enter the forward zone and were bivouacked in all available shelter, including a captured German tunnel under Menin Road. Others sheltered behind the battered but still stout ramparts of Ypres…it was the battle to control Menin Road ridge, the high ground which the road crossed on the way to Menin…

Soon after dark on the eve of battle, signals, engineer and pioneer officers put up signposts for each unit and laid tapes for direction finding and for the start line. The front tapes were less than 150 metres distant from the nearest German positions. Everything that could be done to make the offensive a success had been done. British and Australian artillery had been pounding the German lines for five days…

Shortly before the start time an officer of the 2nd Division's 7th Machine Gun Company was misdirected and ran into a German patrol. He desperately tried to tear to pieces an operations order he was carrying, but the Germans overpowered him. Thus warned, the German command bombarded the sector shown on the map at 5.35 am (5 mins before it was due to start at 5.40) Some casualties occurred but the start was not delayed and at 5.40 am on the the fine, dry morning of September 20 no fewer than 11 divisions of the Second and Fifth Armies struck the Germans on a 13-kilometre front. The AIF 1st and 2nd Divisions, with a combined front of 1,800 metres, and a Scottish division, were at the centre of the assault force along Westhoek Ridge and facing Glencorse Wood. This was the first occasion in the war on which two Australian divisions attacked side by side an the men were excited about it. AIF officers had difficulty explaining this elation to British and other Allied officers. It was a matter of extended mateship, of knowing that other battalions of Australians were in support and relying implicity on them.

As General White had planned all waves of the Australian infantry advanced in a single line just behind the heavy protective barrage of bursting shells. With one gun to every four-and-a-half metres, the rolling barrage churned up curtains of dust, and to C.E.W. Bean, who was yet again present to record the AIF's operations, it looked for all the world like an Outback dust storm blowing up. Following the remorseless battering ram of shells, the Australians overcame enemy infantry opposition and advanced steadily for almost a kilometre to their first objective, known as the Red Line. It ran along a sunken road, the north edge of Glencorse Wood to Hannebeek Swamp and bogs in the Nonne Boschen Copse. After an hour's pause, while each unit was reorganised and resupplied by the carrying parties which followed them, they followed their artillery's barrage another 500 metres to the second objective, the Blue Line. This was fixed from Iron Cross redoubt in the north to Albert Redoubt, Verbeck Farm and part of Polygon Wood in the south which they also captured with spirited efficiency. It reflected their rehearsals.

Now they had a two-hour wait until they attacked the Germans' Wilhelm Line, which was roughly parallel to and 200 metres beyond the Blue Line. ..

Inevitably German counter-shelling caused casualties…

Where the Australians were held up, decisive action at junior level kept the momentum going…(Second Lieutenant Fred Birks' actions earned him a posthumous VC)

The fighting on September 20 was a victory for the entire British force involved and especially the 1st and 2nd Divisions…By noon that hot day they had taken all their objectives and were at the western end of Polygon Wood. White's orders stressed that no troops were to go further than this, but adventurous individuals and small groups of Diggers crept forward in search of more prisoners and souvenirs. Many officers had by now given up trying to prevent this practice of "prospecting", which the soldiers of the other Allied armies regarded as lunacy, because of the risks.' (pp 29-32)

Photo by Frank Hurley of view from Stirling Castle, 23 Sep 1917 [AWM E01409]
"23 September 1917 View from Stirling Castle which commanded an extensive sweep over the Australian lines, showing two derelict tanks and, in the distance, Sanctuary Wood. Churned by shells and flooded with heavy rains, the ground became a quagmire, a condition that was almost general through the Ypres Sector during the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917. "

Photo of artillery limbers in silhouette on Ypres Road. 25 Sep 1917. [AWM E00829]

From CEW Bean Vol IV The AIF in France 1917

Field Artillery supporting 1st Division for this battle:

“A” Group (Lieut-Col H.E. Cohen) – 3rd, 6th and 12th Aust Army F.A. Brigades
“B” Group (Lieut-Col W,G. Allsopp) – 7th and 8th A.F.A Brigades (3rd Aust Div Artillery)

Supporting 2nd Division

“C” Group (Lieut Col T.I.C. Williams) – 10th and 11th A.F.A Brigades (4th Australian Div Artillery)
“D” Group (Lieut Col J.L. Shellshear) – 4th and 5th A.F.A. Brigades (2nd Aust Div artillery) (p 744)

“The battle of September 20th (Menin Road), like those that succeeded it, is easily described inasmuch as it went almost precisely in accordance with plan. The advancing barrage won the ground; the infantry merely occupied it, pouncing on any points at which resistance survived. Whereas the artillery was generally spoken of as supporting the infantry, in this battle the infantry were little more than a necessary adjunct to the artillery’s efforts. The barrage was the densest that had ever yet covered Australian troops. ‘Excellent – the best ever put up’, ‘as near to perfect as possible’, ‘magnificent in accuracy and volume’ were descriptions applied to it afterwards by Australian officers. Nevertheless it may fairly be claimed that infantry such as the Australian gave the artillery the best prospect of success. Provided the going was good , the difficulty was, never, to keep Australians up to the barrage, but, almost always, to keep them out of it.” (p 761)

From John Laffin Guide to Australian Battlefields of the Western front 1916-18. Kangaroo Press and Australian War Memorial, 1992:

Battle of Polygon Wood 26-28 September 1917

Began at 5.30am on 26 September when the British and Dominion guns opened on a 10 km front. The intention was to build on the gains made during the battle of Menin Road. 4th and 5th Divisions. The 4th Division’s battalions captured all their objectives – woods, blockhouses, trenches and suffered 1717 casualties. The more heavily engaged 5th div. Suffered 5471 dead and wounded. (p 36)

Today the wood is smaller than in 1917 but still large. The remains of three German pillboxes captured by the Australians lie deep among the trees but few trenchlines remain. (p 38)

Photo of 2nd Australian Divisional Artillery Column moving along Poperinghe Road 30 Sep 1917. [AWM E00871]

Chapter 29: Flanders October 1917 to 8 April 1918

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From Unit War Diary 2nd DAC
Located at Busseboom.

3 October 2nd Australian Division YMCA established for convenience of troops at 1. Menin Gate. 2. A.D.S 3. Lille Gate

7 October Congratulatory message was received from the Commander-In-Chief respecting the notable achievements of the 2nd Australian Division in the operations of 4 /10/17. Similar messages were also received from the Army Commander and 5th Australian Division Commander.

9 0ctober General Birdwood despatched the following message:-

“Well done again 2ND AUSTRALIAN DIVISION! Please convey my heartiest congratulations to Brigade and Battalion Commanders, and to all officers and men alike on magnificent work done after the hardship they have suffered.”

Other messages of a similar nature were received from the Prime Minister of Australia. An appreciative reply, with further highly complementary references to the achievement of Australian Troops sent by General BIRDWOOD.

19 October 100 Other Ranks transferred to 4th and 5th Bdes respectively – 50 to each Bde.

From Service Record

19 October 1917 Transferred to 4th F.A.B from 2nd D.A.C

20 October 1917 T.O.S. posted to 11th Battery 4th FAB ex 2nd D.A.C.

9 November 1917 Letter to 3rd echelon re-conf of rank.

8 January 1918 To England on leave [Sally - did he visit the family in Cornwall again?]

27 January 1918 Rejoined ex leave

8 February 1918
Crime: England 23 Jan 1918 W.O.A.S.
Absent without leave (overstaying leave) From 7.30am 23.1.18 till reported to AIF Hdqrs on 24.1.18
Award: Forfeits 2 days pay by C.O. 4th Aust F.A. Bde, on 8.2.18
Total forfeiture: 4 days pay.

From 11th Battery, 4th F.A.B. Brief History

11 September Left Dickebusch and arrived Ouderdoorn. Wagon Lines made at Howe Dump (Belgian Battery Corner), taking 5 days to establish.

Rest of September, October to 20 November Wagon Lines at Howe Dump

4 October Took part in Broodseinde attack

8 October – 21 November Hannebeke Wood. Positions at Zonnebeke

21/22 November Guns Left Howe Dump, arrived Le Petit Mortier (outside Sailly). WL remained at Howe Dump

22 November Left Le Petit Mortier, arrived Le Romarin

22 November – 21 December Le Romarin. 4th FAB Camped Sailly

21 December – 31 January 1918 Wagon Lines at Le Romarin. Guns In Action “Stinking Farm” near Messines

Photo of 4th Field Artillery Brigade' camouflaged 18 pounders near Ploegsteert, 26 Dec 1917 [AWM E01454]

31 January 1918 Left Le Romarin, arrived Vieux Berquin

3 February Left Vieux Berquin , arrived Le Croix

4 February Left Le Croix, arrived Wauraus (?)

5 February Left Wauraus, arrived Jourry

5 February – 7 March Jourry – billeted

8 March Left Jourry, arrived Wauraus

9 March Left Wauraus, arrived Malt House Farm

10 March Left Malt House Farm, arrived outside Ballieul

12 March Left Ballieul, arrived Le Romarin

12 March – 3 April Le Romarin. 4th F.A.B. in action Messines

Messines road sign [AWM RELAWM10718]

4 April Left Le Romarin, arrived Vieux Berquin. Movement back to The Somme

8 April 2am. Left Vieux Berquin, entrained at Strazeel railway station, arrived St Roch station (outside Amiens), disentrained, by road to Villers Bocage, arrived same day

“The attack on Sept 20th being successful we moved forward to a position in rear of Westhoeke Ridge and remained there until Oct 8th, taking part in the Broodseinde attack on Oct 4th.

We then moved forward to Hannebecke Wood where we remained until Nov 21st. During this time positions were taken up near Zonnebeke, but it was impossible to use them owing to the intense evening fire and we returned to the Hannebeke Wood position. Returning to the Wagon Lines , which had been moved up to Howe Dump, on Nov 21st, we moved from there to Sailly the next day and remained there until Dec 22nd, when the WL was established at Le Rom… [Sally: Messines in margin note] the guns going into action at “Stinking Farm” near Messines where they remained until Jan 31st on which day we moved to Vieux Berquin and from there moved, on Feb 3 to Le Croise, near Staples, stayed there one night, and for the next night at Wouvraus, arriving at Jourry on Feb 5th, were billeted there until March 8th.

Leaving jourry on march 8th and staying that night at Wovraus and the next night at Malt House farm and two days near Balieul, arrived back at Ros… (Messines) on the 12th, the guns again going into action at Stinking Farm where they remained until April 4th, when we moved back to L-Vieux Buquin and entrained at Strazeel on April 8th, detrained the same day at Amiens and went by road to Villers Bocage …”

From John Laffin Guide to Australian Battlefields of the Western front 1916-18. Kangaroo Press and Australian War Memorial, 1992:

Battle of Broodseinde Ridge, Ypres 4 –5 Oct 1917

This was the most important of the Australians’ actions of late 1917 and potentially the most decisive. After the Battle of Polygon Wood the 1st and 2nd Divisions replaced the 4th and 5th in the front line and were joined by the 3rd. The 4 Aust and NZ Divisions were in the centre of a line of 12 divisions. Broodseinde Ridge was the Germans’ main defensive line and from its greater height the German staff viewed most of the Allied salient.

The Australians reached their start positions on the night of October 3 and lay in shell holes under a steady drizzle.

Unknown to the British command, the Germans had planned an attack for 4 October at precisely the same time as the British attack. At 5.20am the German guns opened, to be followed by a trench mortar bombardment. About one Australian in seven was hot. The Australian barrage began at 6 am and the surviving Diggers scrambled up and moved forward. At that moment 30 metres in front of them, infantry of the German 212th Regiment rose in front of them to begin their advance. The Australian Lewis gunners fired first, the enemy broke and few survived the Australian bayonet charge.

The action continued, and the taking of the ridge was one of The AIF’s great successes, despite losses. (p 25-26)

Battle of Passchendaele (Passendale) 9-12 October 1917

NB The entire Third Battle of Ypres is sometimes called the Battle of Passchendaele.

For the AIF the battle began on 9 October when the 2nd Division formed the flank for an attack by the British 66th Division. It was a desperate fight and there were many casualties. The Australians were forced to withdraw that night.

The second phase began on 12 October with the 3rd Division and the NZ Division attacking side by side. One unit carried an Australian flag to be planted in Passchendale when they captured it. After a night of rain and gas-shelling the attack went in after inadequate British shellfire. After much confusion, great loss and great gallantry, the attack came to a halt. About 20 Australians, mostly of the 38th Battalion, actually reached Passchendaele Church. Completely isolated and unsupported they were forced to withdraw to their own lines.

The 4th Division, itself under great pressure and having suffered terribly, pulled back.

The attack had failed. The 3rd Division suffered 3199 casualties in 24 hours. (p 35)

Photo of Australians resting on Menin Road with a cup of cocoa at an Australian Comforts Fund canteen 21 oct 1917. [AWM E01083]
Photo by Frank Hurley of Australians on the way to the front line with the ruins of Ypres in the background 25 Oct 1917 [AWM E04612]
Photo by Frank Hurley of 10th Field Artillery Brigade soldiers on duckboards in Chateau Wood near Passchendaele 29 oct 1917 [AWM E01220]
Photo by Frank Hurley of soldier rescuing a comrade on duckboards, Chateau Wood, 29 Oct 1917. [AWM E04599]
Photo by Frank Hurley of debris lined road through Chateau Wood 5 Nov 1917 [AWM E01233]

From CEW Bean The Australian Imperial Force in France during the main German offensive, 1918. C.E.W. Bean. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1937:

16 Dec - 29 Jan and 8 Mar - 3 Apr 2nd Division : Ploegsteert

“Throughout the winter of 1917-18, the back areas at Messines were extremely quiet. The British were expected to have a renewed offensive in spring, and the artillery were ordered to harass the enemy by all means. Also meant to push on with a system of defences. But the attitude of the British command suddenly changed. Instead of themselves training for an offensive, all corps were to prepare for a German offensive in the spring. Order from Haig Dec 14th - construction of a formidable defensive system, and conservation of the troops and training of them for a defensive battle.” (p 36)

“On March 9th and 10th the activity of the German artillery on the Messines front began noticeably to increase, and the impression spread that this activity was connected with the approach of the date for the main German offensive.” (p 48)

Photo of two soldiers in Ploegsteert Wood, in front of a sign reading "Picadilly". 1917 [AWM H02093]

Chapter 30: 2nd Conscription Ballot 20 December 1917

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From: John Laffin Western Front 1917-1918 The Cost of Victory. Time-Life Books, North Sydney 1988.

For 1 015 159
Against 1 181 747

Among the Armed Forces the vote in favour was 103 789 and 93 910 against, but as in the earlier referendum the majority of front-line troops rejected conscription.

Photo of men at polling station at Neuve Eglise 8 Dec 1917 [ AWM E01605]

From Australian War memorial website: http://www.awm.gov.au/1918/recruitment/index.htm

The second and last Australian referendum on the divisive issue of conscription was held in December 1917. This movement for conscription was defeated by a larger majority than in the first referendum of October 1916. There continued to be many recruiting drives throughout 1918, although numbers of volunteers steadily decreased, and the debate surrounding the issue remained a bitter and emotional fight.

By 1918, many wounded men had already been sent back to Australia from the front. Their visible wounds, and talk of conditions on the Western Front, may have acted as a deterrent to some of those who had not yet enlisted. Yet despite the feeling of war weariness, a few thousand Australian men enlisted in 1918, primarily because they had reached the age of 18 or they satisfied the necessary physical requirements.

Private Charles Carpenter, 23rd General Service Reinforcements, enlisted in August 1918, despite the fact that his two brothers pleaded with him not to enlist. Both brothers had already been in service on the Western Front, and one had lost a leg and the other had been badly gassed. As it turned out, much to his dismay, Carpenter never saw active service (apart from having his nose broken on the voyage over!). However, at the same time, he was understandably relieved that he wouldn't have to face what his brothers had.

Conscription and the Front

An Australian recruitment poster from 1918, by Norman Lindsay.
[ARTV00020]

The new generation of 1918 recruits were serving alongside many veterans of the war. Because of the decreasing numbers of Australian volunteers in 1918 (despite the gradual lowering of entry restrictions), many of the men who fought in Australian divisions had been wounded, evacuated, and later sent back to the front. A few existing Australian battalions had to be disbanded because of the lack of replacements.

Captain Francis Fairweather commented on 12 September 1918 that

if we are to maintain effective units further amalgamation of battalions will have to take place and certain famous battalions will go out of existence Reinforcements simply don't come and one can't maintain an effective fighting unit on paper alone one can only go on and see one's men, tired and weary as they are, going on indomitably and carrying the burdens of these wasters as well as their own.

The reality of the number of original recruits that had been killed or wounded by 1918 was illustrated by Gunner J.R. Armitage- a new recruit at the beginning of the year- in a story he wrote on 10 April at a new camp at Portnoyelles, France:

A most unfortunate thing happened while entering our names. One of our reinforcements was named Flannagan, a rather delicate and very young boy. S.M. McMurray, the battery sergeant major, a very decent chap, commenting on the name, said rather jokingly "I don't want to scare you or anything like that, but its rather a coincidence, a namesake of yours came to the battery only a fortnight ago, and he was killed a few days ago!" It turned out to be the young reinforcement's brother. The poor kid was shattered and the S.M. horrified at what he had done. The incident made the rest of us realise we had arrived at the war.

Some men who had been serving for a long time felt resentful that volunteers were not forthcoming, and felt that they had been betrayed by those men in Australia who had chosen not to enlist. Private Ronald Simpson wrote in October 1918:

There is a good few 1914 men leaving here for home, the majority say they will never come back and I don't blame them, it's time some of the loafers came to do a bit.

However, others believed that the strength of the Australian Corps lay in the fact that every man had volunteered to be there, and that this psychological distinction had an important influence on morale. All German males between the ages of 17 and 45 had a military obligation under the German system of conscription, and some felt this may have contributed to the Germans' eventual loss in 1918 because "their heart wasn't in it". Lance Corporal A.H. McKibbin wrote in October 1918:

I rejoice every time I remember that neither of my brothers came here to go through what most of us have.

From Patsy Adam-Smith, The Anzacs, p. 390:

In the second conscription ballot the results were:

For: 1 015 159
Against: 1 181 747

The Armed Forces vote was:

For: 103 789
Against: 93 910

This high percentage of men ‘at the Front’ voted against conscription for many reasons ranging from ‘nobody should be made to come to this’, ‘every man should be able to make up his own mind’ and ‘If they have to be forced to come they won’t be much good over here’. Many had written home earlier criticising ‘mt friends who stayed at home’ but just as many had written to say , ‘ Tell Bob not to join up. The game’s up to mud.’

Lieutenant H.R. Williams (56th Battalion) had written. ‘It was amazing to me that most of our men seemed resolved to vote “no”. The main reason was the reluctance of the men (all volunteers and still willing to fight for the cause that brought them overseas) to vote in favour of forcing their countrymen to join up and help in the fight. It was typical of the Australian soldier that he could face all the dangers that came his way, but would not vote to compel others of his countrymen, who had just a smuch to fight for as he had, to risk their lives in the common cause.’ And Eddie Johnson said: ‘During a special parade one day, we were informed that voting on conscription would take place after dinner, and we were told to give it thought while having dinner. . . the conclusion from conversations heard was vote No – let people please themselves.’ (Strangely, one of the best wise-cracks was about men who didn’t enlist. They called them ‘Would-to-Godders’ from ‘Would to God I could go to the war’.)

Say No To Conscription leaflet, c. 1917. [AWM RC00328]
"Colour leaflet against conscription. "To Win the War. The Effect of Conscription. Conscription in Australia cannot alter the result of the war. If Conscription was necessary, Canada, whose population is 3,000,000 more than Australia and is within four days' sail of the frontier, would have adopted it. If what Mr. Hughes says is correct, why has Russia twenty million men of military age who are not serving? The enemy is in Russia! Conscription in Australia will make it easy for other races to capture our industries, and the wives and daughters of the absent conscript will be forced to beg bread from an alien race. Conscription will make it possible for the Military Authorities to pay the conscript what wages they think fit. The British conscript get one shilling (1s.) a day. Vote 'NO CONSCRIPTION'. "
Pro conscription leaflet 1917 [AWM RC00317]
Australian Labor party Anti Conscription leaflet [AWM RC00336]
Pro conscription leaflet targetting women [AWM RC00319]
Pro conscription leaflet: "The Sweatshops of Germany" [AWM RC00311]

There are many other examples of Conscription referendum leaflets on the Australian War Memorial website ; these are just a few.

Chapter 31: German Offensive on The Somme March 1918

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The 11th Battery, 4th F.A.B. were at this time in Flanders (Messines). However, it is useful to understand what happened in the Somme at this time, as it sets the conditions for what happened next.

From: John Laffin Western Front 1917-1918 The Cost of Victory. Time-Life books, North Sydney 1988.

" At dawn on March 21, 1918, Ludendorff unleashed Operation Michael, and British troops between Arras and St. Quentin were smothered by a storm of gas shells and hammered by high explosive and shrapnel. Trenches and dugouts were obliterated, whole fields of barbed wire were uprooted and jumbled and few telephone lines remained intact…Within the space of only four days all the British and Empire blood and struggle of the past year went for nought. On the part of the front attacked, the troops were back where they had been at the end of 1916 and the German drive was threatening to spread behind the Allied lines, in the way that floodwater does after breaching a dam.

One hundred kilometres to the north the AIF men at first heard the news without real concern, but when the seriousness of the breakthrough became clear they were eager for action." (p 57)

[The 3rd and 4th Divisions were heavily involved - the 3rd had not previously fought in the Somme, only Flanders. All 5 Divisions were brought in. The 1st was the last brought south from Flanders but only 3 days later it was being rushed north again as Ludendorff struck again with Operation george I - at the line across the Lys river valley south of Armentieres held only by two understrength Portuguese Divisions]

"The strategically vital city of Amiens was firmly in the sights of General Ludendorff, but first he had to break through the high ground and woods around Villers-Bretonneux which the Allies considered the key to Amiens' defence. German tanks and infantry easily broke the British lines on April 24, but the AIF's 15th and 13th Brigades entered the battle and forced back the enemy in a series of wild charges.

A German war correspondent wrote after this fight, "The Australians and Canadians are the best troops that the English have." Months later, a similar tribute was found to have been paid by German soldiers, who buried a soldier of the 48th at Dernancourt. On a wooden cross they had written with an indelible pencil, Hier liegt ein tapferer Englischer Krieger ("Here lies a brave English warrior) " (p 63)

Chapter 32: The Somme April to October 1918

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April to October 1918

After leaving Flanders on 8 April, 1918, the 4th Australian Field Artillery Brigade returned once more to the Somme. Gargoo was transferred to the Reserve Brigade Australian Artillery (RBAA) on May 1, 1918. He arrived at the Heytesbury (near Warminster, Wiltshire) camp on 6 May 1918 and remained there until embarking for Australia on 2 February 1919.

However, the Second Division 4th Artillery Brigade remained very active, taking part in the major battles from May to October as the allies advanced on the Hindenburg Line. These battles are covered in following chapters - Le Hamel, Villers-Bretonneux, Mont St Quentin and Peronne.

8 April 1918
2am left Vieux Berquin, entrained at Strazeele Railway station, arrived St Roch Rway Stn (outside Amiens), disentrained then by road to Villiers Bocage, arrived same day.

9/10 April Left Villers Bocage, arrived in Querrieu (?) (outside Frechencourt)

10 April – 14 July Quarry. Guns in action near Bresle (May 14)

Photo of Field Artillery Brigade soldiers camouflaging blast marks scorched on the grass by an 18 pounder gun. Bresle, 21 April 1918 )church spire in background) [AWM E04783]

1 May

GARGOO TO RBAA

7 May Wagon Lines shifted back to Frechencourt

14 July Left Bresle, Wagon Line to Glisy, guns to near White Castle (Villers Bretonneux)

Watercolour sketch by Louis McCubbin of horse lines at Glisy. 1918 [AWM ART03074]
"Watercolour sketch depicting a view of horse lines and tents for stores and men near Glisy with observation balloons visible in the skyline. AIF Headquarters were located at Glisy during 1918. Louis McCubbin enlisted with the 14th Battalion AIF in 1916, serving in France from November 1917 with the 10th Field Ambulance. He undertook a camoflage course and was appointed as an Official War Artist working as Officer in Charge of Camouflage for 3rd Division AIF in 1918. His appointment was terminated in 1920, in which year he returned to Australia and joined the staff of the Australian War Memorial to paint backgrounds for dioramas and to perform a variety of other duties. McCubbin remained in the position until 1930."

Photo of dugouts for horses, Glisy [AWM P00098.004]

4 August Guns taken out of action

5 August Guns recalibrated

6 August Guns in position Villers Bretonneux [See Chapter 33]

8 August Advance commenced. Limbers and wagons went forward to old gun positions, the limbers going from there taking guns forward and the wagons following later. In the afternoon the guns took up position on the NE side of Bayonvillers with the wagon lines about 400 yds in the rear, on the outskirts of the village

10 August Moved forward the gun pits being between Harbonniers and Rosiers and the wagon lines in a sunken road south of Harbonnieres

20 August The guns moved across to Vauvillers

28 August Advance to Maricourt

29 August Guns into action near Clery. Supported attack on Mont St Quentin [See Chapter 35]

04 September Moved back to Cappy. Rested til 12 September. Artillery positions held.

12 September Wagon Lines established at Buire.

18 September Attack on Hindenburg Line defences. Successful. Battery moved forward to valley in front of Templeux. Wagon Lines to Roisel.

27 September Again moved forward to Harpicourt

28-30 September Took part in attack on Hindenburg Line covering 30th Division American troops

1 October Guns moved forward to Bellicourt and kept advancing

11 November Moving through Peronne and received news of the Armistice being signed.

Chapter 33: Villers-Bretonneux

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Above: The mairie (town hall) at Villers-Bretonneux, featuring kangaroos over the door. May 2003.

From April-May 1916 this village was involved in the preparations for the Somme offensive.

The Germans reached here in early April 1918. The Australian army stopped the German army on 25 April 1918. The Australians had been in Ypres and were moved here.

From Australian War memorial website http://www.awm.gov.au/1918/battles/dernancourt.htm:

By 18 April (1918), it was clear that the Germans would attempt to push on to Amiens again. On 24 April, the Germans captured Villers-Bretonneux- which just a few weeks earlier the Australians had fought so hard to defend. The town's defence had been given over to British troops while the Australian divisions regrouped. The enemy attack was spearheaded by tanks which pushed through the British defences. This battle was unique in that it was the first involving tank-against-tank fighting, demonstrating the significance that tanks had increasingly come to assume in 1918.

Orders for the immediate recapture of Villers-Bretonneux were met with a plan to launch an attack by two brigades, the 13th and the 15th. The unconventional night attack began on the 24th. One brigade approached from the north and one from the south, meeting at the village's eastern edge, thereby surrounding the Germans and driving them from Villers-Bretonneux and the adjacent woods.

Although it is clear that Australian troops played a very important role in halting the German offensive at Villers-Bretonneux, some claim it has been exaggerated. By the time the Australians arrived, British troops had borne the brunt of the German offensive attack, and the Germans were exhausted. Regardless, it is at Villers-Bretonneux that France and Australia hold the main annual commemoration of Anzac Day.

“Never Forget Australia”

The victorious Australian troops formed close links with the people of Villers Bretonneux.

Today there is a Franco-Australian Museum on the first floor of the Victoria school, which was built with funds raised by the school children of Victoria.

[insert own pics of V-B school, mairie, and Anzac Day celebrations]

Australian National Memorial and Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery

Nearby is the Australian National Memorial, honouring the Australian soldiers who died and who have no known grave.

On 25 April 1918, the two Australian brigades which encircled Villers Bretonneux met. The memorial here commemorates the 10 797 Australians who died on the Western Front and who have no known grave. The wall of the main memorial consists of a wall carrying the names of all the missing and a 100 foot high central tower. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who also designed the British/South African memorial to the missing at Thiepval.

The Australian memorial - Anzac day commemorations, April 2005:

Not sure if this headstone above belongs to a distant relative of mine.

The school at Villers-Bretonneux was re-built through donations of Victorian school children. It looks just like a typical Victorian school - includign the shelter shed; here champagne and cake are served after the Anzac Day commemorations at the Australian Memorial :

The school hall, which features beautiful wooden carvings of Australian animals and birds:

The British monument at Thiepval (May 2003):

Chapter 34: Le Hamel and the Australian Memorial

2007-04-02T15:57:00.000+10:00

From: Australian War memorial website.
http://www.awm.gov.au/1918/battles/hamel.htm

"The Aim

Map of Hamel, showing the limit of German advance at April 1918. Taken from Journal of the Australian War Memorial, no. 18, April 1991, p. 5) Hamel had been captured by the Germans on April 4th after the March German offensive “Operation Michael”

The capture of the town of Hamel and its surrounding areas was thought to be a significant and strategic boon to the Allied cause in 1918. Capture of these areas would provide an important foothold around the Somme area, as well as adding depth to defences on Hill 104 - the Villers-Bretonneux plateau. Perhaps most importantly, this area was the key to the defence of nearby Amiens. Unless they gained control over this area, Allied movements would be blocked between Villers-Bretonneux and the Somme, and mounting an offensive would be much more difficult.

The Plan

The Hamel operation was under the command of Lieutenant General John Monash (his first as a corps commander), who stated:
It was high time that the anxiety and nervousness of the public, at the sinister encroachments of the enemy upon regions which he had never previously trodden, should be allayed by a demonstration that there was still some kick left in the British Army. I was ambitious that any such kick should be administered, first, at any rate, by the Australians.

The attack would primarily take the form of an infantry assault, but with significant tank and artillery support. Monash wanted to attack as early as possible, to avoid light, decreasing enemy visibility and protecting the troops from fire for as long as possible.

Planning was conducted in strict secrecy. Dummy installations were created to throw the Germans off, harassing fire was maintained while troops were getting into positions, and no daylight movement of troops was allowed - nothing that would warn that an attack was about to take place. Monash also asked for 18 planes to bomb Hamel, as well as older, noisier ones to distract attention from the noise of the tanks' whereabouts and movements. Several arms of attack were coordinated through the detailed and organised planning of Monash and his senior officers. All decisions and strategies were outlined, refined and formalised in group meetings.

The Attack

Of the attack, Gunner J.R. Armitage wrote in his diary:
The earth shook and the mind boggled at the concussion.

On 4 July, operations by the Australian Corps against Hamel and surrounding areas were launched. For the first time in the war, American troops acted as part of an offensive. Four companies were sent as attachments to the Australians, in an effort to give the Americans some first-hand battle experience. [It had been planned that the recently arrived 131st and 132nd Regiments would take part, but General Pershing ruled this out. Four companies participated anyway].

The Hamel confrontation was described as a brilliant success. In two hours, all objectives were obtained, and 1,400 German prisoners were captured, as well as many weapons. Australian troops suffered 1,062 casualties, with 800 killed. Although Hamel was a great success for Australian troops, they had entered into battle already holding some strong cards. By July, the German offensives had been all but stopped. New techniques and weapons, such as the successful use of tanks at Cambrai in 1917, an artillery that was more comprehensive and had improved accuracy, and more Lewis guns (light machine-guns), had significantly improved AIF performance by 1918. Better and faster communications were also an integral part of Hamel's success, such as the use of reconnaissance planes. Movements of German as well as Australian troops were marked on maps identical to those held by command below, and dropped down to motor bike riders who then dispatched the maps to the relevant section area. Consequently, Monash and battalion leaders had current information on the progress of the battle in minutes, compared with earlier laborious systems of communications.

Planes were also used to drop ammunition and supplies to troops on the battlefield below by parachute- the first time in a battle on the Western Front that aircraft were used for this purpose. Use of the Mark V tank was also pioneered at Hamel, and would continue to play a prominent role in 1918 battles. Sixty Mark V tanks and four supply tanks were used. In preparation, Monash made the men from the different tank and infantry divisions mix and form friendships, and each infantry battalion painted its insignia on a tank. As well as fostering camaraderie, this made it easier to plan movements, as each tank and battalion were colour-coded and would advance together. In the fighting, only three tanks were disabled, and many Germans troops surrendered when faced with them.
Artillery was used heavily at Hamel to hit German batteries, ammunition dumps and installations. Two-thirds of the artillery power was directed at German counter-batteries, causing many German casualties, and destroying their artillery capability to hit advancing infantry. Combinations of artillery, high explosives, shrapnel and smoke were employed, as well as heavy fire-power (Lewis and 46 heavy machine-guns) to move with the attack.

Infantry, artillery, tanks and planes worked together for over 2 kilometres, with relatively few losses. Monash wrote:

A perfect modern battle plan is like nothing so much as a score for an orchestral composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases.

A civil engineer by profession, Monash perhaps better understood these precepts, and could see their best application when looking at a map of a battle plan. Monash's ability to realise the potential of these weapons when used in combination is what is said to have distinguished him from other commanders in the battlefield.

French President Georges Clemenceau visited Australian troops who had fought at Hamel and said in a speech:
I shall go back tomorrow and say to my countrymen: "I have seen the Australians, I have looked into their eyes. I know that they, men who have fought great battles in the cause of freedom, will fight on alongside us, till the freedom for which we are all fighting is guaranteed for us and our children." "

Photo of Australian and American troops together. 4 July 1918, Hamel [AWM E02690]

Here's a fantastic website by Nicolas Goret, all about Hamel, and the Australian memorial there: http://hamelfriends.free.fr/start.html

The Australian Memorial, Le Hamel, May 2003:

Trench at Le Hamel:
Looking towards the village:

* Gargoo was in England when this battle took place - se Chapter on RBAA Heytesbury.

Chapter 35: Mont St Quentin and Peronne

2007-04-02T15:56:00.000+10:00

Australian Second Division Memorial, Rue des Australiens, Mont St Quentin. It replaces the original monument which was removed by German troops in 1940. It depicted a Digger bayonetting a German eagle. It has bronze bas relief plaques of Australians in action on each side of the base. May 2003

From the Australian War memorial website
http://www.awm.gov.au/1918/battles/mtstquentin.htm

The Aim

The end of August found German troops at their last stronghold at Mont St Quentin - overlooking the Somme River and the town of Péronne. Mont St Quentin stood out in the surrounding country, making it a perfect observation point and a vital strategic area to control. This area was key to the German defence of the Somme line. As it was such an important area, Lieutenant General Sir John Monash was keen to capture it and thus possess a valuable position.

The Attack

Painting by Fred Leist, Capture of Mont St Quentin [AWM ART02929]
Painting by Louis McCubbin, Péronne, heavy artillery advancing through the town 1918. [AWM ART03043]

This Australian operation is sometimes regarded as the finest achievement of the AIF. The 2nd Australian Division crossed the Somme River on the night of 31 August, and attacked Mont St Quentin at 5 am, from the unexpected position of northwest. It was a difficult position as it was an uphill fight for the troops, across very open ground where they were vulnerable to attack from the German-held heights above.
Rifle grenades and trench mortars were employed to outflank outpost positions. The battalions positioned to the right made a lot of noise to distract the Germans, while the centre and left battalions got a foothold on the hill and in Feuillaucourt.

By 7 am, the troops had gained the village of Mont St Quentin and the slope and summit of the hill, by working in small groups. The five German divisions were confused and dispersed, and many had fled. By midnight on 31 August, Monash's troops had captured 14,500 prisoners and 170 guns since 8 August. Allied troops also broke through lines to Péronne by 8.20 am on 1 September.

However, the Germans quickly regrouped and launched a counter-attack, and the first day of September saw fierce fighting and heavy losses. Germans attacked and heavily shelled Péronne. Much of the fighting was hand-to-hand combat.

The outnumbered Australians were pushed back off the summit of Mont St Quentin, and lost Feuillaucourt. Relief battalions were sent, and with their reinforcement, all the areas were retaken by the Australians, but at the cost of 3,000 casualties. Private Alex Barclay of the 17th Battalion was shot in the head by a sniper's bullet during the attack. Miraculously the bullet passed right through his skull, and he survived to re-enlist in the Second World War!

After heavy and exhausting fighting, the Australians established a stronghold on the area and forced the complete withdrawal of the Germans from Péronne. By the night of 3 September, the Australians held Péronne. They captured Flamicourt the next day, and advanced 2 miles to the east.

Monash said of the Mont St Quentin and Péronne campaign that it

furnished the finest example in the war of spirited and successful infantry action conducted by three divisions operating simultaneously side by side.

The fight had also included battalions from every Australian state. British Commander General Lord Rawlinson remarked that this feat by the Australian troops under Monash's command was the greatest of the war.

Forced out of Péronne, the Germans had to retreat to their last line of defence- the Hindenburg Line.

Photo of Soldiers from a machine-gun position established in the fighting in the ruins of Péronne, 2 September 1918. [AWM E03183]

Peronne

This has been a fortified town since the Roman invasion. The massive ramparts were built in the ninth century. It was heavily damaged in 1870 in the Franco Prussian war, and taken over by Germany in 1914. Peronne was to the Germans what Amiens was to the Allies – a centre of activity and leisure.

The Allies took the town on 18 March 1917, then re-occupied by the Germans during the March offensive of 1918, before being retaken by the Australian Second Division on 2 September 1918.

Photo of Peronne, 4 October 1918. [AWM E03501]

"The Wireless Section of the 3rd Australian Divisional Signal Company, marching through the main street passing an American Division making its way to a sector of the fighting area from which the Australians had just been withdrawn. Two days later, on the relief of the 2nd Division, who had succeeded in penetrating to the entire limits of the Hindenburg Defences, the whole of the Australian front passed to the 2nd American Corps, and the Australian Corps, with the exception of Artillery units, which continued operations until the Armistice, returned to a rest area behind Amiens. "

Photo of Peronne 7 September 1919 [AWM E05601]

"A panorama looking northwest along Bapaume Road towards Mont St Quentin, showing the extensive shell damage to the village buildings and surrounds. In the background (left) is a ruined factory, probably the St Denis Sugar Factory. Note a sign on the right, with an arrow directing to the right, the towns of Aizecourt-le-Haut, Nurlu, and Fins."

Above: Peronne, May 2003

Housed behind the façade of a medieval castle is the Historial de la Grande Guerre a marvellous museum which opened in 1992. Web site: http://www.historial.org/us/home_b.htm

Chapter 36: Albert

2007-04-02T15:55:00.000+10:00

Approaching Albert by train, April 2005

Albert from the Bécourt Road, April 2005

Known in ancient times as Enk, the town became ENCRE and then ANCRE until 1620, when letters patent of Louis XIII decreed that it be called ALBERT, for its then lord, Albert de Luynes.

The Ancre River between Albert and La Boisselle. May 2003.

The town was occupied by the Germans from 29 August to 14 September 1914. In October 1914 the German and French lines stabilised a few kilometres to the north-east at La Boisselle.

Albert then became the rearguard town for the French, and from August 1915, the British. The town suffered heavy shelling. In January 1915 a German shell damaged the bell-tower of the basilica. From then until March 1918 the gilded Madonna hung out horizontally above the town, giving birth to the legend of “The Leaning Virgin”. Australians commented that she looked like swimming star of the time, Fanny Durack.

The town was taken by the Germans again in March 1918. It was liberated by the British on 2 August 1918.

At the end of these battles, nothing was left of the town. The basilica was rebuilt as an exact reconstruction of the original neo-Byzantine style.

Albert Basilica after bombardment created the “Leaning Madonna” aka Fanny Durack as she was known to Australian troops (after an Australian swimming star of the time - it looks as if she is about to dive off the blocks.

The Golden Madonna restored to the Basilica. (Photo May 2003)

Interior of the Basilica, during the war, and 2003.

In Albert it is worth visiting the The 1916 Somme Shelters Museum (Musee des Abris), located in the WW2 bomb shelters under the basilica and the centre of the town. They were able to accommodate 600 people. The back exit of the museum opens out to the Albert public gardens.
The museum presents along its corridor galleries scenes of life in the trenches.
From the museum entry, you will discover a 200 meter-long gallery that leads you to the public garden. This gallery accommodates about 15 alcoves that present scenes of life in the trenches during the Somme Battle.

We stayed at the Hotel de la Paix in Albert, where the rooms are comfortable and the food magnifique!

Chapter 37: Amiens

2007-04-02T15:54:00.000+10:00

Amiens cathedral, May 2003

Amiens was occupied by the Germans between 31 August and 11 September 1914. They left at the beginning of the Battle of the Marne . With the arrival of the British in 1915 Amiens became a vital centre of military activity. As the front line moved beyond Bapaume in 1917, activity slowed down here.

In 1918 the German counter offensive brought German artillery close to Amiens and it suffered air bombardment. The cathedral was protected by sandbags and escaped shelling which severely damaged the city. The Germans did not reach Amiens again; they were stopped at Villers Bretonneux.

During WW1, Amiens was known mostly as a place of relaxation for Allied soldiers.

Plaques in the cathedral commemorate the Australian, Canadian, British, American, Newfoundland, South African and New Zealand troops.

Chapter 38: Belvedere de Vaux

2007-04-02T15:53:00.000+10:00

A natural balcony overlooking the Somme valley. It was a highly prized viewpoint and was used as an observation point by French soldiers.

At the end of 1914, the front line stabilised here in the valley bottom, at the heart of the river marshes and lagoons.

This chapter is mainly here because I like my pictures.

Chapter 39: Reserve Brigade Australian Artillery (RBAA) Heytesbury

2007-04-02T15:52:00.000+10:00

From service record:

1 May 1918 Dvr: Detached to R.B.A.A England
(Reserve Brigade Australian Artillery)
France

6 May 1918 Dvr: m/In from France to R.B.A.A. Heytesbury
England

3 June 1918
Driver. Offence: Heytesbury 3.6.18 from m/n 2.6.18 till 8.45am 3.6.18
Award: 3 days C.B. by Lt Col B.W. James
Forfeits: 1 days pay

From: Standing Orders RBAA (AWM 25 Control 709/24)

Part 1 Organization

The reserve brigade Australian Artillery is established for the purpose of training reinforcements for Australian Field Artillery on their arrival from Australia, and for re-training personnel who have been evacuated from the front through wounds or sickness.

The Personnel of the Brigade consists of:-

(a) A Permanent cadre composed of Officers and others who are normally sent to the Brigade from Units overseas for a period of six months.
(b) Reinforcements arrived from Australia
(c) Personnel marched in from O.T.B. &c. prior to return to the Front (“Casuals”)
(d) Personnel medically unfit for service at the front but employed at the R.B.A.A (“Class men”)
(2) Such Officers and Others as may be attached for special duties.

NORMAL DAILY TIMETABLE

Reveille 6.30 a.m.
Morning Stables 6.40 to 7.30
Breakfast 7.45 a.m.

Boot & Saddle 8.30 a.m.
Quarter 8.45 a.m.
Short Warning 8.55 a.m.
Morning Parade 9 a.m.
Morning Break 10.15 to 10.30
Midday Stables 11.30 to 12.30
Orderly Room Noon (Sat 10.30 a.m.)
Dinner 12.45 p.m.

Boot & Saddle 1.30 p.m.
Quarter 1.45 p.m.
Short Warning 1.55 p.m.
Afternoon Parade 2 p.m
do Break 3 to 3.15 p.m.
do Stables ? to 5 p.m.
Quarter for Guard 3.45 p.m.
Five Minutes for Guard 3.55 p.m.
Guard Fall In 4 p.m.
Feed 4.55 p.m.
Turn Out 5 p.m.
Tea 5.30 p.m.
Defaulters 6 p.m. (Every half hour 6 to 9.30 p.m)
Retreat 6 p.m.
First Post 9.30 p.m.
Tattoo 10 p.m.
Lights Out 10.15 p.m.

Photo of group outside their hut, early 1918 [AWM J06315]
Photo of group and some of the huts, early 1918 [AWM J06317]
Photo of group waiting for a parade, early 1918 [AWM J06316]
Photo of billiard tournament in YMCA hut [AWM H01177]
Photo of Heytesbury Camp, early 1918 [AWM J06314]
Photo of Lt Col TBW James, 22 Aug 1918 [AWM D 00012]

War Diary May 1918

Friday 24 May “Empire Day”. The afternoon was observed as a half holiday and Sports were held in the grounds of Heytesbury House. The mounted events being keenly contested by all competitors. Prizes were presented by Lieut.-Colonel T.B.W. James, D.S.O. [Heytesbury House was owned by the Holmes a Court family who were Barons of Heytesbury. In the 1930s it was bought by poet Siegfried Sassoon, who lived there until his death in 1967]

War Diary June 1918

6 June Major General Sir J.M. Brunker, KCB inspected the Brigade.

26 June The usual monthly Sports Meeting took place in the Heytesbury grounds; a general half holiday was granted and the sports were pronounced success. Lieut. Colonel T.B.W. James, DSO presented the prizes.

War Diary July 1918

4 July Independence Day, July 4th was observed by a half-holiday and Sports in honour of the United States of America.
18 July On Thursday 18th July, General Sir William Robertson, G.C.B., K.C.V.C., D.S.O, A.D.C., inspected the Brigade mounted at Sherrington.
The G.O.C. in Chief expressed his appreciation of the excellent appearance and conduct of the troops he inspected, and his pleasure in noting the business like look and turn-out of the R.B.A.A. This parade was held in conjunction with the R.F.A. Brigade.

War Diary August 1918

A regimental Laundry has been established for the use of members of the Brigade.

21 July A Sports meeting was held on 21st instant under the auspices of the A.I.F. Depots in U.K. , on Victoria Park Grounds, Salisbury. This Brigade won 1st Prize for highest aggregate points won by competitors from Depots competing.

27 July The usual monthly Sports Meeting was held on 27th instant by permission from Lieut.-Colonel T.B.W. James, DSO, on the Heytesbury Estate ground. During the afternoon Sir Joseph Cook paid a visit to the Sports.

War Diary September 1918

His Majesty King George V passed through the R.B.A.A. Capm Heytesbury on Monday 16th Sept en route to witness Artillery demonstration at Chapperton Downs Artillery Range. The personnel of the R.B.A.A. lined the route from a point some 200 yards west of the Camp to the Eastern Boundary.
His Majesty detrained at Heytesbury Station and was met at Head of Column by Brigadier-General J.P. McGlinn, CMG V.B.- G.O.C. A.I.F. Depots in the U.K. and Lt. Colonel T.B.W. James D.S.O. C.O.R.B.A.A.
A mounted escort of 4 officers and 8 Cadets proceeded with His Majesty’s car through the camp.
The number on parade for this event were 19 officers 18 Cadets and 1265 other ranks.

Remarks by C.O.

Training proceeded according to Syllabus during the month except that during the last week it was intensified to allow of a larger number of trained Reinforcements going Overseas early in October in view of the large draft requirements anticipated by the release of 1914 men on leave to Australia.
The same cause also led to the whole of the St. John’s Wood graduates referred to in my remarks in August War Diary being commissioned and sent to France rather earlier than would otherwise have been the case. No others have yet arrived to take their place.
The additional Guns asked for for training purposes, have not yet been received.
State of Equipment and Discipline is normal.
Health is good, though a few cases of measles occurred toward the end of the month.
Messing is satisfactory, though considerable trouble is experienced in combating flies, which are a great pest in the cookhouses, probably due to the proximity of a number of the latter to the stables.
State of horses is still satisfactory, and Veterinary Officer’s reports are uniformly good.
The only outstanding event during this month was the visit of his Majesty the King to Heytesbury on 16th September. Copy of Brigade Orders giving details of arrangements for this is attached. Everything was carried out according to programme, and his Majesty, before leaving, expressed to the C.O. his satisfaction at seeing the personnel of the R.B.A.A. and with their appearance and turn out.

War Diary October 1918

Owing to large drafts sent overseas and to the Influenza epidemic football and other sports was seriously hampered at the beginning of the month but is now receiving due attention. A new Sports Committee has been appointed.

Remarks by the C.O.

. . .

The standard of Reinforcement now arriving is not as good as hitherto. This is mainly attributable to the fact that recruits now arriving are not specially selected for Artillery. It is probable that owing to this minimum period of training at R.B.A.A. must be lengthened by three weeks.
The extensive withdrawal of 1914 personnel to go on leave threatens to seriously hamper instruction owing to the number of trained Officers and NCOs thereby lost to the Brigade.
Early in the month the influenza epidemic was serious, though mainly confined to reinforcements just arrived from Australia. By the end of the month great improvement was shown and medical conditions were normal.

War Diary November 1918

Towards the end of the month, as it became more certain that hostilities were concluded, instructional training was in some degree relaxed and the time thus made available devoted to Sports and Recreation. Training is still being continued on these lines.

The conduct of troops in the Camp on , and subsequent to, announcement of the Armistice was excellent in every way and the interest that is still taken in training is most creditable to men, who might reasonably have been expected to slacken off a great deal in this respect.

On Thursday, 13th, a general holiday was given by the G.O.C., A.I.F. Depots in celebration of the Armistice. A Sports Meeting and Concert were held.
. . .

Notification was received that it was intended to concentrate all 1915 Personnel at R.B.A.A. prior to return to Australia. This has since been done and will be dealt with in the December remarks.

War Diary December 1918

It was decided to utilise R.B.A.A. Camps vacated for concentration of personnel enlisted before June 30th, 1915, prior to their embarkation for Australia. The first draft of such personnel arrived on 7.12.18, since which date drafts of varying strengths have been moving in and out.
A special wing known as “1915 Company” was formed with a small staff from R.B.A.A. personnel to deal with these drafts. Captain Snodgrass, 2nd Div. Artillery was placed in charge.
Artillery training was greatly reduced owing to technical stores being collected for return to Ordnance, and also at the end of the month to large numbers of men being sent on special Christmas and New Year Leave. . . Sports were given much prominence.

Christmas and New Year Leave was granted to all ranks.

On Christmas Day, Dinner and entertainments were provided for the men. Pantomime was played at 1700 and 2000 at Anzac Theatre.

Concerts at Anzac Theatre by various parties of Entertainers. Pictures were run at Y.M.C.A. and also interesting lectures.

Health The health of the Camp has been excellent. There have been very few cases of Influenza, and these are doubtfully real Influenza. The prevailing complaints have been common coughs and colds.

Sanitation Until the onset of Christmas Leave, this was very good, but for a time with the shortage of men the condition of the camp for a time deteriorated. There is even now a slight general untidiness – rags, paper, tins, but nothing grossly insanitary throughout the occupied lines.

Chapter 40: Return to Australia

2007-04-02T15:51:00.000+10:00

From Service record:

2 January 1919 Returned to Australia from England per "Berrima".

Chapter 41: After The War

2007-04-02T15:50:00.002+10:00

Percy Smith married Ella Gertrude Pearson
on 25 October 1921
at Heyfield Methodist Church.

They travelled to the Blue Mountains for their honeymoon

Their first child, Nancy Margaret was born on 20 October 1922, seen here in the yard of “La Boisselle”, Dandenong.

From a letter from his father-in-law, Joseph Henry Pearson, to Mr Frank Dedman. Heyfield 19 Nov 1922.

"After posting my other letter to you, I remembered omitting to give you Ella's name. Mrs A.P.Smith, "La Boiselle", Melbourne Road, Dandenong. Her husband's full name is Albert Percival Smith (called Percy). They have adopted the French name for their house. The original is a village in France where Percy was stationed whilst at the front. If I did not mention it previously, he is a contractor and has had some rather large jobs on the Melbourne-Gippsland road from Garfield towards town, also at Lyndhurst & is completing one at Beaconsfield now. All under the Country Roads Board. His brother & partner at present lives at Beaconsfield. On 20th October a little daughter arrived (their first child) and everything turned out well. Ella has been back in Dandenong for a couple of weeks or more. Ida is still with her. They are all coming up to Heyfield at Christmas. Ida will remain at Dandenong so as to accompany Ella and the child up about 18th Dec.
(23rd) A letter from them today states Percy has just acquired another contract, the one at Beaconsfield is about done and one in progress at Koo-wee-rup they have been asked to suspend & get on with the new one. "

Ross Stuart followed on 3 August 1925

And Alison Elizabeth on 19 September 1928

Nancy, Alison and Ross

Percy ran a road-building contracting business with his brother, Bill, pictured here with his wife Eva and son Russell. They had a team of horses.
Bill Smith, with wife Eva and son Russell

Eventually he worked as a grader-driver with the Country Roads Board in Victoria. He helped build the Great Ocean Road along Victoria's southern coast, and during World War Two, the road from Alice Springs to Darwin. This took him away from his family for long periods of time.

Link to a fabulous website about the history of the building of the Great Ocean Road: http://www.greatoceanroad.org/history/theworkers/index.asp

Construction of Great Ocean Road, Mount Defiance, 1922
Construction of Great Ocean Road, Fairhaven, 1921

Website about the construction of the Alice - Darwin road: http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/ww2/bfa/dusty_track.html

Albert Percival - Perce - Smith, "Gargoo" to his grandchildren, died on 17 September 1966 in Melbourne, aged 75.

This is how I remember him:

[insert mum wedding pic]

Helen Gleeson, Mum and Gargoo on Mum and Dad's wedding day. 31 December 1955

Gargoo was a good man whom I remember with great affection. My clearest memory of him is that he would take me down to Caulfield station when I was little to watch trains (especially steam trains) go through. He was a gentle man, who never fought or argued with anyone. Neither did he talk about the war. He mentioned to Mum once that he had been at Passchendaele and Ypres. He only started attending Anzac Day services later in his life. He had one friend that Mum remembers him visiting, a man named Toogood (probably Gunner Frederick “MM” Toogood - 11906 - of the 4th Field Artillery Brigade, enlisted 20 Aug 1915, returned to Australia 29 May 1919)

Gargoo didn’t win any medals or decorations. He was one of 7000 of the 50 000 men who went to Gallipoli who served throughout the entire war. He apparently saved someone’s life once when, contrary to rules; he let an officer ride his horse, while he walked. He was a solicitor named Ramsay (probably Lieutenant Alan Hollick Ramsay 2nd Divisional Artillery Column, enlisted 21 July 1915, returned to Australia 27 April 1919)

In March 1967 the PM, Harold Holt announced that a commemorative medallion to be issued to those who had served on the Gallipoli peninsula. It is inscribed on the back with his name and regimental number.

Chapter 42: Siegfried Sassoon Poem

2007-04-02T15:49:00.000+10:00

Siegfried Sassoon who lived at Heytesbury House, and wrote this poem in 1915 about Scratchbury Hill which lies just to the north of Norton Bavant in the Wylye valley.
(Scratchbury - the name is probably from the old west country word for the devil and burh - meaning ancient camp)

On Scratchbury Camp
Along the grave green downs, this idle afternoon,
Shadows of loitering silver clouds, becalmed in blue,
Bring, like unfoldment of a flower, the best of June.

Shadows outspread in spacious movement, always you
Have dappled the downs and valleys at this time of year,
While larks, ascending shrill, praised freedom as they flew.
Now, through that song, a fighter squadron's drone I hear
From Scratchbury Camp, whose turfed and cowslip'd rampart seems
More hill than history, ageless and oblivion - blurred.

I walk the fosse, once manned by bronze and flint head spear;
On war's imperious wing the shafted sun ray gleams:
One with the warm sweet air of summer stoops the bird.
Cloud shadows, drifting slow like heedless daylight dreams,
Dwell and dissolve; uncircumstanced they pause and pass.
I watch them go. My horse, contented, crops the grass

Heytesbury House

Website about Heytesbury: http://www.heytesbury.org.uk/HISTORY.HTM