Our Darkest Day

by Patrick Lindsay

  David and Colin Barr, both came from Richmond, Melbourne, and attended Hawthorn West State School. Both were tanners and served with the 60th Battalion. David was 25 and Colin just 19, and both were Lewis gunners when they charged at Fromelles. A witness who saw David fall said:

  just before crossing over, he and his brother shook hands, kissed one another and said ‘Goodbye’. Directly he crossed a shell struck him, killing him instantly in the presence of his brother.

  Colin was hit in the back in the attack and eventually evacuated to England, where he died from septicaemia on 31 August in the Brook War Hospital. He was buried in London’s Greenwich Cemetery. A copy of a bitterly sad letter he wrote to his family while in hospital sits in his file:

  Dear Mother, father and all, I am in the hospital wounded and happy. I got hit in the back by shrapnel. I didn’t know I was hit. I’m sorry to say that Dave got killed. I was lying down when he was speaking to me, he said he wanted father to forgive him for what he done some time back, he died a hero Mother. Visitors come here they are very kind. One girl said when I get better she will take me out for motor rides. The worst of it all mother I never fired a shot at them. We was in the trenches only for about 2 hours, then we done a charge. I was lying in No Man’s Land for two days and two nights. How is Bob and Richmond getting on. All the Richmond boys done their best with the 60th. I don’t know how G. Collins got on. The nurses are very nice and will do anything for you, your loving son, Colin, Ward 32, Brook War Hospital.

  Private David Barr and his brother Colin shook hands, kissed and farewelled each other before charging against the Sugar Loaf with the 60th Battalion. David was killed by a shell in no-man’s land in front of his brother. (AWM PHOTO H05659)

  Private Colin Barr charged with his brother David with the 60th Battalion. After David was killed, Colin was hit in the back and evacuated but died from septicaemia in England on 31 August 1916. (AWM PHOTO H05658)

  Geoff and Rolf Jones also charged against the Sugar Loaf, Geoff with the 60th Battalion and Rolf with the 59th. Geoff was a sergeant, who had taken command of 7 Platoon B Company. Formerly an engineer from Box Hill, Victoria, he was one of the original members of 8th Battalion and had survived Gallipoli after sustaining a gunshot wound to the scalp there. He was transferred to the 60th Battalion in Egypt and had been promoted to sergeant in February 1916. A witness saw him fall at Fromelles:

  I saw him lying in a little ditch just outside our wire, as I came back out of the charge. He was shattered all below the thighs. I was alongside him for a bit. He was almost dead and could hardly talk. He must have died soon afterwards.

  Geoff is remembered at VC Corner. His younger brother, Rolf, was 24, formerly a florist of Tunstall, Box Hill. He was grievously wounded in the attack – a gunshot wound to the face resulted in his nose being blown away. Infection set in after he was evacuated to England and he died at Aldershot on 15 February 1917 and was buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey.

  Alf and Ed Phillips were born in Carlton, Melbourne, but lived in Richmond. They were both farm hands before joining up. Alf was with the 59th Battalion and Ed the 60th Battalion at Fromelles. Alf was 32 and a Gallipoli veteran and Ed was 34 when they both died in no-man’s land on 19 July 1916. Little is known of the circumstances of either brother’s death. They are both on the wall at VC Corner.

  Colin and Eric Perkins had both survived Gallipoli when they attacked at Fromelles with the 59th Battalion. They came from St Kilda in Melbourne. Col, 23, was an assistant at a chemical works and Eric, 25, an engineer. Both brothers were killed near the Sugar Loaf. No details of their deaths are recorded and they are remembered at VC Corner.

  Sergeant Geoff Jones was a Gallipoli veteran who commanded 7 Platoon of B Company 60th Battalion at Fromelles. He led his men against the Sugar Loaf and died in no-man’s land. His younger brother Rolf was grievously wounded as he attacked with the 59th Battalion alongside him. (AWM PHOTO H06658)

  Private Rolf Jones was shot in the face during the assault against the Sugar Loaf. He made it back as far as England but died of his wounds in February 1917. (AWM PHOTO H06651)

  The Mitchell family from Gippsland, Victoria, is another to have tragedy visited on them three times. Trooper Bill Mitchell, a 28-year-old shearer, died in the famous charge by the 8th Light Horse at the Nek on Gallipoli on 7 August 1915. His younger brothers, Alf, 21, and Sid, 23, attacked with the 59th Battalion at Fromelles and both fell somewhere in no-man’s land. No details of their fate were recorded and their names are on the wall at VC Corner.

  Harry and Vivian Clements came from Healesville, Victoria. Harry was 26 and a teacher and Vivian was 23 and a linesman, both working in Bairnsdale. Both died in the attack by their 59th Battalion at Fromelles. Again, no details have emerged of their final moments. Harry is remembered at VC Corner and Vivian was buried at Rue Petillon.

  Bill and Jim Daly were country boys from Ballarat, Victoria. Bill was 24 and Jim lied about his age to enlist. He said he was eighteen and half when he joined up but he had just turned sixteen. Both served with the 58th Battalion at Fromelles. Bill was hit in the arm and side during the attack. He made it back as far as the Canadian Casualty Clearing Station where he died of his wounds on 22 July. He was buried in the Bailleul Communal Cemetery. Jim was killed in the attack and was buried by Padre Williams on 20 July at Rue-du-Bois Cemetery.

  Hector and Bill McLeod, from Rockdale, Sydney, served with the 55th and 53rd Battalions respectively at Fromelles. Hec was a 21-yearold plumber and Bill a 29-year-old labourer. Hec was killed outright by a shell burst in no-man’s land and buried at Anzac Cemetery at Sailly-sur-la-Lys. Bill disappeared during the battle and is commemorated at VC Corner.

  Rod and Alex Fraser came from St Kilda in Melbourne. Rod, 26, was a carpenter and Bill, a year younger, was a coachsmith. Rod attacked with the 60th Battalion and Bill with the 59th. Both were listed as missing after the battle and no information could be found as to their fate, other than they left the Australian parapet with their comrades. Their names are at VC Corner.

  Gustave Hosie and his brother Russell came from Bairnsdale, where they worked as a butcher and a tanner respectively. Gus was with the 59th Battalion and Russell with the 60th at Fromelles. Gus disappeared during the battle and no details exist on his fate. Russell’s file reveals the usual confusion after the battle, as different witnesses gave differing versions of his death:

  Private Bill Daly and his younger brother Jim attacked side by side with the 58th Battalion against the Sugar Loaf. Bill was badly wounded and died in a Canadian Casualty Clearing Station. (AWM PHOTO H05841)

  Private Jim Daly was only sixteen when he lied about his age and joined up with his 24-year-old brother Bill. Jim was killed outright in no-man’s land during the 58th Battalion’s charge against the Sugar Loaf. (AWM PHOTO H05840)

  he was hit three times in the advance and I tried to rouse him but I couldn’t.

  I was near this man during the big attack on Fromelles, and I saw him killed instantly by a shell. He was really blown to pieces. It was near Laventie Front. Hosie had just got over when a shell caught him. Ground was not held. It was not possible to bury him, fire was too heavy. Hosie was a brave man who would not remain in rear but pushed to the front.

  At VC Avenue, Armentieres Front, about the 22nd or 23rd of July, I was in the line after the attack which took place on the 19th July, and saw Pte. Hosie buried. I am sure it was Hosie, as he was well known to me, having served with me in the 8th Battalion.

  The Hosie brothers are honoured on the wall at VC Corner.

  The Spooner family of Brunswick, Melbourne, was particularly shattered by the Battle of Fromelles. It lost a father and a son. Ted Spooner, 45, had served with the 7th Battalion on Gallipoli before being transferred to the 60th Battalion in Egypt where he joined his 25-year-old son Jim.

  Both father and son took part in the attack at Fromelles. Jim was killed while attacking the Sugar Loaf. A witness said:

  I saw him
fall, hit by a shell out in the open by Fleurbaix. He was badly wounded; nothing could be done for him. I took his pack off and made him a little more comfortable. We had orders to go back and did not hold the ground. He was about 5’ 9”, dark and came from Carlton, Victoria.

  Ted suffered gunshot wounds to both shoulders and died of his wounds in Queen Mary’s Royal Naval Hospital in Chatham England on 31 July 1916. He was buried at Southend-on-Sea Cemetery in Essex. His son Jim’s body was never identified and he is remembered at VC Corner.

  A number of families lost at least one son at Fromelles and another who was taken prisoner: Fred Parry of Brunswick, Melbourne, was killed with the 29th Battalion on 19 July. His brother Reuben was taken prisoner on the same night. Fred is on the German death list and was likely among those buried at Pheasant Wood. This was confirmed in May 2010. Reuben was released at war’s end and returned home in March 1919.

  Private Ted Spooner was 45 years old and a Gallipoli veteran when he joined his 25-yearold son Jim in the 60th Battalion. Jim was hit by a shell during the attack and died on the battlefield. Ted was wounded in both shoulders and made it back to England before succumbing on 31 July 1916. (AWM PHOTO H06136)

  Private Jim Spooner served, and died, with his father Ted in the 60th Battalion. He was killed when hit by a shell in the open as he attacked the Sugar Loaf. His mates were forced to withdraw before they could retrieve him. His body was never found. (AWM PHOTO H06135)

  The Wilkin twins, Ernie and Harry, of Canterbury, Victoria, were also with the 29th at Fromelles. Ernie was killed and Harry taken prisoner. Ernie is among those at Pheasant Wood. He was named in the May 2010 identification announcements. Harry remained a POW for the duration of the war and returned home in March 1919.

  Maurie and Ted Claxton of St Arnaud, Victoria, suffered a similar fate serving with the 32nd Battalion. Maurie was killed and Ted captured. No sign was ever found of Maurie. Ted was repatriated to Australia in early 1919.

  Both the Antrobus brothers, Aub and Harry, were captured attacking with the 29th Battalion. They both returned home on the same ship in early 1919. Similarly, Dan and Bernard Neill, of the 32nd Battalion, ended as POWs after the battle. Dan lost a leg and was repatriated by the Germans in early 1918. Bernard was held for the duration but returned home safely in April 1919.

  Both Reg and Syd Purdon and Horrie and Alf Bolder, all of the 55th Battalion, spent the war as POWs after being captured at Fromelles. All made it home safely in early 1919.

  Today it seems almost incredible that so many brothers could have been sent into battle together. Surely there can be no greater illustration of the shattering impact of the Battle of Fromelles on Australian families than the loss of so many siblings, most in a single night.

  Epilogue

  HARRY WILLIS’ STORY

  Descendent Tim Whitford, who was present at the Cemetery

  Dedication Ceremony in Fromelles and part of Lambis’ research

  team, tells of his personal quest to find his great great uncle and

  the soldiers that went missing in the Battle of Fromelles.

  Henry Victor ‘Harry’ Willis was born in 1895 in the South Gippsland town of Alberton in Victoria. Photos of him are cherished by his family as they show him with the faint glimmer of a smile. Harry was a 20-year-old soldier in the 31st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force (AIF), which was allotted the task of being the right-forward assault battalion of the 8th Brigade in the Battle of Fromelles.

  The designated time for the attack to commence, zero hour, was set for dusk, which General Haking had decided was at 6 pm. However, in France in July the sun sets hours later – anywhere between 9.30 pm and 10 pm – so when the battalion filed through the sally ports into no-man’s land at 5.58 pm, the boys of the 31st Battalion had to endure three hours of daylight under the eyes of the German machine gunners and artillery forward observers. Being in the battalion’s second wave, Harry didn’t leave with them. As the two assault companies hopped the bags, Harry and the second wave moved up from the 300-yard line to the now vacant front line to endure another quarter of an hour of nerve-shattering waiting under artillery fire, not only from German guns but also short-firing Australian guns which, despite urgent pleas to lift their fire, continued to fire on the Australian parapet. The nervous tension among the waiting troops of the second wave would have been exacerbated by the cries of the wounded and the constant crackling of small-arms fire and the dull crumps of the merciless grenade duels as the first wave tried to clear the enemy troops from their stronghold.

  At 6.14 pm the order for the second wave to attack came. Harry was a member of a Lewis gun team. His gun-crew mate, 20-year-old Private Henry Rogers, a former draper’s assistant from Taree was part of that team and they went through the sally port together heading toward the muzzle flashes and gunfire just under 120 yards to their front. The need for hand-grenades and machine-guns had become desperate. The Battalion was holding on by its fingernails and was slowly being bombed and sniped out of existence. Lieutenant Colonel Toll realised that his position was almost untenable as the fierce fight to keep a toehold in the enemy line in front of a strongly fortified farm ruin, known as the Grashof, reached critical point. It was possibly fire from this position by German machine gunners that killed Harry. Harry’s mate Private Henry Rogers was certain that he had seen Harry shot.

  Harry was killed and his body went missing in battle in 1916.

  Thousands of Australians suffered the same fate and thousands of families all over the country have a tragic memory of their own soldier who went to war and simply disappeared. Thousands of our Diggers remain lost and often forgotten, in fields and ditches all over the world, wherever Diggers have fought and died. So Harry is no different to thousands of others, but Harry is a relative, my great great uncle, and he’s special, very special to me.

  Sadly, as with many of our soldiers of World War I, their names are all that will remain of them after those who were able to share life with them have gone. But the stories bring them back to life for us.

  I grew up in the South Gippsland town of Yarram, just three kilometres from the old Willis house in Alberton. Mum and dad were wonderful parents and hard workers, they had to be; they were battlers always with an eye on the bottom line. Dad was a rural merchandise man and mum a nurse. Both worked full-time and it was my grandparents who became a constant in my early life.

  My nan and pa would mind me during the day and I’d sometimes eat tea at their house. Nan would dote on me and pa was always deconstructing some object or machine just to find out how it worked.

  His shed was an Aladdin’s cave of paint cans, strange machines, typewriters and jam jars full of old nails and screws. One night we were sitting at the kitchen table when nan asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I was eight years old and immediately replied ‘I want to be an army man, nan’. She immediately shot back with ‘don’t you dare be a soldier! You’ll be killed like my uncle Harry. He got shot up and we don’t know where he is.’ This reaction from a loving and gentle woman cut to my core and has stayed with me ever since.

  My nan was born the year Harry died. Growing up in the postwar environment, nan could not possibly avoid being imprinted with Harry and his legacy. ‘Harry’ was passed directly to me by her. It’s something that only she and I share. There was no formal handover, or even many words spoken, but as I grew up and my interest in Harry grew deeper and stronger, I know nan was quietly and deeply pleased.

  I have re-visited the site of his death in France more times than I can count. I’ve followed him for 30 years to where a German burial party threw his lifeless body into a hole and covered him with clay. Like Harry, I enthusiastically volunteered to serve Australia, and despite the world-wise warnings of my own grandmother, I served as an Australian soldier for over 14 years. Like Harry, I’ve felt the pride of wearing the slouch hat and the rising-sun badge of my country.

  I first visited Fromelles in 1996. We drove down to VC Corner Cemetery in
the centre of the old Australian battlefield. The burials at VC Corner are unidentified except for their nationality. All 410 burials in the cemetery are Australian, buried in two large grave plots overplanted with 410 roses. This makes it the only all-Australian cemetery in France and the only Commonwealth Cemetery in France without headstones. Along the back of the cemetery is a memorial wall made from black flint and white Portland stone. This wall commemorates the men killed at the Battle of Fromelles who have no known grave. Reaching the wall I quickly sought out the panel commemorating the Diggers from the 31st Battalion. There were many names up there on the panel that had become familiar to me from my years of research but as my eyes moved down the list I despaired of finding my relative’s name. The disgrace and bungling of the Battle of Fromelles was affecting me personally, decades after the event itself. Walking out onto the battlefield, I couldn’t stop asking myself: Where are you, mate? I know you are here, but where?

  The significance of my first visit to Fromelles wasn’t lost on me. I was the first family member to have gone to Fromelles to pay tribute to a missing soldier. For that reason alone, the pilgrimage was entirely worthwhile. However, there were far too many unanswered questions. Why did Harry and the names of a couple of dozen other men of the 31st Battalion end up on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, hundreds of kilometres from Fromelles, out of context and separate from their mates, when the rest were commemorated at VC Corner in the centre of the battlefield?

  In March 1997 I returned to Fromelles with a mate and fellow Great War history buff, who was also my Troop Sergeant, Graeme Walker. We spent eight or 10 days following in the footsteps of the Diggers in what was probably my most enjoyable trip to the battlefields. In that week, we walked the hallowed ground of Pozières, Mont St Quentin, Bellicourt, Villers-Bretonneux, Passchendaele, Ypres (Ieper), Bullecourt and Albert. After laying a poppy on the VC Corner Cross of Sacrifice in Harry’s memory and walking the battlefield, we went to the Gallodrome Café in the centre of Fromelles. We were having a good time and we decided that, having eaten and conversed with the Fromellois in our limited French, we’d say our farewells and be on our way. But Madame behind the counter had decided that we weren’t to leave and wildly gestured that we sit down again. We had no idea why Madame didn’t want us to leave; but we weren’t in France to be rude so we just accepted that we had to wait. Soon after, we were introduced to Henri Dellepierre, who had parked his equally elderly bike against the wall of the café.