Western Australia in World War One
During the course of World War I, over 330,000 Australians served overseas. What is unique is that all of them were volunteers. Many of them enlisted out of a sense of patriotism, to do their ‘bit for the Empire,’ but many others enlisted for simplistic reasons, perhaps because their mates did.
The continuing tradition of Anzac Day ensures that their sacrifice will not be and should not be, forgotten.
I have been researching and writing Australian Army battalion histories for over twenty years. During that time, I have visited hundreds of families across our state. All of them willingly gave access to whatever information, photographs, diaries or letters that they had.
Many people were apologetic and stated that one photograph or postcard or letter was all that they had. What was apparent, however, was how important those faded photographs and dog eared letters were to the descendants.
Many people claimed ‘Dad never spoke of the war.’ Others had a few memories. One lady claimed ‘dad walked half of France and dug the rest.’ Another said ‘dad coughed incessantly and no-one had any peace at night. We had to move him to the verandah.’ I did not feel it necessary to tell her that he had been evacuated from gas poisoning, because clearly he had never told his family.
Several said ‘dad was haunted on Anzac Days and became very melancholy.’ Another said ‘dad took to the drink and it was a blessing for mum when he was gone.’ I did not try to explain the horrors of the barraging he survived at Mouquet Farm as a stretcher-bearer with the 51st Battalion. Or the one and a half kilometre carry through smashed trenches with a stretcher.
Author of this article, and Historian Guide and author Neville Browning OAM on the Western Front tour
32,038 Western Australians volunteered for overseas service. By the end of the war, ten of them had won the Victoria Cross and 6,000 of them had been killed.
Upon the outbreak of World War 1 on August 4th 1914, the Federal government offered the services of 20,000 men to Great Britain. In Western Australia, the 11th Battalion was raised at Blackboy Hill near Greenmount. After training the 11th Battalion departed with the First Convoy from Albany.
Subsequent units to depart from Western Australia were the 10th Light Horse, 8th Battery and 16th, 28th and 44th Battalions.
All of these units and many others that contained Western Australians served overseas with distinction. Units such as the 32nd and 48th Battalions.
The Australian 1st Division landed on Gallipoli on 25th April 1915. Lieutenant Aubrey Darnell of the 11th Battalion was there and wrote:
Very slowly we crept towards the shore and watched it loom up clearer as the pale dawn blushed in the east. The excitement was tense and electrical.
About 3.45 a.m. we were about 400 yards off the shore when suddenly the crack of a rifle rang out, followed by a roar of machine guns and rifles, and the bullets came like hail, sighing and whining over our heads. Instantly all was life, picquet boats full steam ahead and a gun in the bow of ours let drive and silenced a machine gun first shot. Within a hundred yards of the beach we were cast loose and those at the oars rowed like men possessed. Some were shot and others at once took their place and not a word was uttered. Presently we grounded and in an instant we were in water up to our waist and wading ashore with bullets pinging all around us. A brief pause on the beach to fix bayonets and singing “This bit of the world belongs to us”, much swearing and cheering we charged up a hill so steep in places we could only just scramble up.
The Turks reacted quickly and trench warfare ensued. Both sides launched futile attacks that gained very little and resulted in heavy casualties. An offensive was launched in August in a last ditch attempt
to break through. The Western Australian 10th Light Horse was annihilated in an attack at The Nek. Corporal Maitland Hoops was a witness to the attack.
At about 3.30am our officer called us and we put on our equipment and filed up into the saps. We got to our place and had to wait a bit until it got lighter. Then the first line charged, but they never got 20 yards before they were all shot down, as a perfect hail of lead opened on them from the rifles and machine gun, and bombs were falling amongst them in dozens as well as shells. The fire from rifles and machine guns was like a heavy shower of rain on a roof. Well, with a cheer, the second line charged, but this got no further than the first, and then we charged but they dropped like flies. We did not advance further than the first line. I can tell you it looked terrible to see your chums toppling over on the ground and lying in all sorts of attitude. I dropped down and a chum put out his hand and shook hands and said “Good-bye” as he said he was done.
Soon after the failure of the August Offensive, the 28th Battalion landed on Gallipoli and deployed into the trenches.
However, the campaign had reached a stalemate. Gallipoli culminated with a withdrawal to Lemnos in December and relocation to Egypt shortly after. The campaign in the Dardanelles had achieved nothing and had cost 8,709 Australian lives.
In Egypt the Australian force was reorganised and expanded to five divisions, each at full strength containing approximately 18,000 men. The all Western Australian 51st was raised from the 11th Battalion and the 48th Battalion was raised from the 16th.
The war was clearly going to be decided in France. In March 1916 the Australian Imperial Force moved to France and by July four divisions of Australians were heavily involved on the Western Front around Armentieres.
The Somme Offensive commenced further south on 1st July 1916. The 5th Division was the first to be involved with a diversionary attack against the Germans on 19th July near Fromelles in Northern France, with 5,551 casualties in one night.
Shortly after, the 1st Division became embroiled in the Somme offensive, at Pozieres. The attack on the village was a success, with the 11th Battalion playing a major role.
Further attacks were launched towards Pozieres Ridge and Mouquet Farm, which lay slightly to the north. The 28th Battalion attacked the Windmill on Pozieres Ridge on the night of 28th July. The men encountered unbroken barbed wire and it became a massacre. Thomas Young (stretcher-bearer from the 27th Battalion) wrote:
‘The 28th behaved magnificently. They marched across No Man’s
Land as if they were on the parade ground with their own shells screaming in droves over their heads and the German shells blowing them to bits. The men dropped like flies, the German wire remained intact and they could go neither forward nor back. They tore at the barbed wire with their hands, searching for openings under one of the most intense machine gun barrages Australians ever faced.
The 28th suffered 467 casualties in a few hours for no result. The ridge was taken in subsequent attacks and the 4th Division continued the advance towards Mouquet Farm. The 16th and 51st Battalions were decimated in the fighting for the Farm.
Private Martin O’Meara from the 16th Battalion was awarded the Victoria Cross for rescuing casualties under raging shell fire. Sergeant Les Parsons of the 51st wrote of the fighting at Mouquet Farm:
We have just come out of the firing line, it was absolutely the worst experience I have been in. In fact, I would sooner be on Gallipoli for another six months than spend a week more where we have just come from in the Big Push.
Les Parsons was fatally wounded at Mouquet Farm the following week. With the last of his strength he wrote a short note in his own blood pointing out where his officer and various mates were in the area. He then tried to crawl back to his own lines but died on the way. The note was found on his body passed to his brother, who was in the same battalion.
In six weeks of operations around Pozieres, the Australian divisions suffered approximately 28,000 casualties in an area just over 600 acres. Meanwhile, in Australia, recruiting was maintained at staggering proportions, but it was never enough to replace the enormous attrition rate.
In November 1916 the 3rd Australian Division arrived in France from England where it had been training since its arrival from Australia four months previously. The division deployed in the sector around Armentieres.
Meanwhile, the other divisions deployed around Flers and spent the winter of 1916-1917 consolidating the front line in mud and ice. It was the coldest winter in forty years and the conditions in the front line were horrendous. Private Jack Stuart of the 28th wrote:
It took us fully nine hours to wade through the mud. Arrived back in the trench in the early hours of this morning minus my boots having lost them in the bog coming out. It was an awful job trying to get back home in the mud with sore feet, falling over dead men and stumbling into shell holes up to my waist in water. It was indeed an awful experience.
In 1917, the Australians were again heavily engaged: in March at Bapaume during the German withdrawal. At Lagnicourt, where Lieutenant Harold Pope from the 11th Battalion was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for defending a post, despite overwhelming odds.
In April and May, the Australians advanced over the killing fields of Bullecourt on numerous occasions. Major Percy Black of the 16th Battalion, reputed to be one of the bravest of all, was killed in front of the German barbed wire near the village of Riencourt. The 4th Brigade, of which the 16th Battalion was a part, was practically destroyed at Bullecourt, with 2,400 casualties out of 3,000 men engaged.
In June, the 3rd and 4th Divisions fought in Belgium at Messines, which was hailed as a major breakthrough and the keystone for an attack to the east of Ypres.
Private Jack Carroll of the 33rd Battalion was awarded the Victoria Cross for attacking a machine gun posts to the east of Ploegsteert. Casualties were light during the battle of Messines, but increased dramatically as British, Australian and New Zealand troops garrisoned smashed trenches on the far side of the ridge. Lieutenant Roy Maddeford of the 44th Battalion wrote:
I am looking forward to the time when we shall be relieved and get back to billets for a spell. We reckon on being here for another twelve days, so in twelve days time I hope to have a bath!! My uniform is covered in mud from top to bottom. The whole of the countryside is just a vast dreary barren area pitted thickly with shell holes. For three square miles hereabouts Ill swear theres a shell hole for every two square yards. You cannot possibly imagine the awful desolate appearance of this battlefield for we are on the forward slope of the Messines Ridge. Five or six miles back everything is quiet and green,
but here is chaos, desolation and ruin. All around are farmhouses with everything shot away - just here and there a wall or skeleton of a house standing. Going through our trenches, you are nearly knocked over with vile smells. Just in the sector my platoon occupies (40 yards) there are no less than four dead Fritzes buried in the parapet. The thing that I marvel at is the grand cheerful spirit of our boys. Tis the finest honour that could ever befall me to command a body of Australian troops.
After Messines, the Ypres offensive raged for four months, with Australians being committed to the battles of Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde and Passchendaele. Private Alan Barber of the 51st Battalion wrote:
Slowly we advance, keeping behind the creeping barrage, which churns up the whole country. The red flashes of bursting shells markits progress. The men advance, not altogether as on parade, but sections grouped. As the creeping barrage reaches the first line of enemy trenches, the standing barrage lifts and falls on his support trenches, while the creeping barrage maintains its rate of 100 yards to
the minute. As we approach the enemy front line, those who have survived that hell come running towards us, all their equipment gone, hands above their heads, crying “Kamerad!” Hastily they are grouped together, put in charge of one of our chaps and sent off to the rear. The front line simply doesn’t exist as a trench. Recognisable mostly by arms and legs showing above the surface, we can just make out its position.
The battle of Ypres attenuated due to wintry conditions, which reduced the battlefield to an impassable morass, several kilometres in width, with over 30,000 Australian casualties.
In November 1917, the five divisions were formed into the Australian Corps, although it would not be until May 1918 that this amalgamation was completed and an Australian – John Monash, was appointed to command it.
During the winter of 1917, the Australians garrisoned the lines between Messines and Ploegsteert Wood. The men were ensconced in open trenches in sub-zero conditions for days at a time. Predictably, the health of the men deteriorated.
In March 1918, the German Spring Offensive exploded rolled across the Valley of the Somme and destroyed the British 5th Army. The Australians were sent south, without heavy artillery to help stem the onslaught. This they did on a line from Hebuterne to Sailly-le-Sec, which assisted greatly in saving the vital rail city of Amiens.
In April, a brilliantly executed counter attack by Australians, including the 51st Battalion, recovered Villers-Bretonneux. Lieutenant Cliff Sadlier of the 51st was awarded a Victoria Cross for his role in the attack. He subsequently wrote:
Fritz had pushed us back from Villers-Bretonneux and orders came through that we were to counter attack. I was a Lieutenant in charge of a platoon and second in charge of my company. We were to push forward over three miles of country we had never seen to join up with the 15th Brigade. The officers were given a ten-minute glimpse of a map of the area and then we were given our orders. My platoon was to cover the left flank of the battalion. On the left was a thick wood, which unknown to us, sheltered as many Prussian Guards as we had Diggers in our whole battalion.
Half of the Western Australians of the 51st were new reinforcements and had not been in action before, but despite this, they swept through the German lines at bayonet point in the face of concentrated machine gun fire. This was particularly intensive from the left flank in the Bois dAquenne.
Lt Cliff Sadlier and Sergeant Charles Stokes led a few men into the woods and cleared the enemy machine gun posts. Lines of barbed wire were reached, but the attack continued as men forced their way through in a desperate bid to get at the enemy.
After the battle, the silent bodies of Diggers were found heaped in front of and amongst the wire. A commemorative cross was erected on the site – it is today enshrined in St Georges Cathedral in Perth.
After several defensive battles, the German offensive was halted and the Allies went on the attack in July, with a resounding victory at Hamel, during which Private Jack Axford of the 16th Battalion was awarded the Victoria Cross.
The turning point of the war was the Battle of Amiens in which the Australians featured prominently, with an advance that completely broke the German front line and resulted in 10,000 prisoners. Lt Alf Gaby of the 28th Battalion was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery and killed by a sniper three days later.
The Australian Corps was engaged in a number of battles through the Somme Valley which drove the Germans backwards towards eventual defeat. Lt Dominic McCarthy of the 16th was awarded the Victoria Cross at Madame Wood in an action that was described as a Super VC. McCarthy singlehandedly cleared 350 metres of German trenches. During this feat he killed twenty men and captured fifty men and five machine guns.
A particularly brilliant battle was fought at Mont St Quentin and Peronne at the end of in the first few days of September. The battle, fought by two understrength Australian divisions, was described as one of the most remarkable feats of arms of the entire war. Private Edgar Morrow of the 28th Battalion wrote of the attack:
There was a prolonged roar behind us, and in front of us flashes, flame, smoke and noise. All colours of flares were being sent up from the enemy lines. There was a rattling of machine guns and I knew a spasm of surprise when I saw dust being kicked up at my feet…
Men were shouting, some were falling; bayonets shone dully on the end of rifles slung on one shoulder, and twenty or thirty yards in front of us the ground was being torn and tossed and tortured. I lit my pipe as we strolled forward, and I felt a little better. Most of the men were smoking. The air was full of shrapnel, and there was the continual hiss of machine gun bullets. I wondered how they missed…
The advance continued through the Hindenburg Line in early October during which Private Jim Woods of the 48th was awarded the Victoria Cross.
The Australian Corps, which had been fighting continually since March, was withdrawn for a rest. A few weeks later, the Armistice was signed on 11th November 1918.
The Australian divisions move east to Belgium and were billeted in towns for the winter. Early in 1919 they were concentrated around Charleroi, prior to demobilisation and a return to Australia.
Australian battle casualties on the Western Front amounted to over 181,000 men, of whom more than 46,000 died.
By the end of the war the Australian divisions were numbered amongst the finest. They fought with tenacity and carved an eternal name for themselves in France and Belgium, which has survived to this day.
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WW1 Western Front 1916 – 1918 tour: Belgium & France
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This article was kindly supplied by Neville Browning OAM. You can read more about him here, or order his book here.
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