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Baker-C-M-Pte--15

Page history last edited by Lenore Frost 3 years, 4 months ago

Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington, 1914-1918

 

Baker C M Pte  15    Charles Malcolm   39 Inf Bn    21    Salesman    Single    C of E        

Address: Kensington, Tennyson St, 24    

Next of Kin: Baker, George Walter, father, 24 Tennyson St, Kensington    

Enlisted: 19 Feb 1916        

Embarked: A11 Ascanius 27 May 1916                

 

Private Charles Malcolm Baker

 

Rod Martin

 

Some men went to war and came home without even a scratch.  Some men went and never came home at all.  Some came home suffering grievous physical and/or psychological wounds, and some came home after fairly constant suffering throughout their time at the front.  Malcolm (as he evidently preferred to be called) Baker could well be classed in the last-mentioned category.  No sooner did he reach the battle zone in Belgium than he began to suffer, and this continued until he was finally invalided back to Australia in mid-1918.  What happened after that, how he fared with the effects of his war service, seems to be unknown.  We do know from his war record that he was still alive in August 1940 and living in Moonee Ponds, so he was obviously able to get on with some kind of life.  Just how productive and enjoyable that life was is open to conjecture.  It is important to note, however, that no record of any pension granted exists in his military record, so perhaps he was lucky.  After what happened to him overseas, he deserved a bit of good fortune.

 

Malcolm was almost twenty-one years old and working as a salesman when he enlisted on 19 February 1916.  He already had substantial military experience before he signed up, having spent two years in the senior cadets when at school and then two and a half years in the militia. He lived with his parents at 24 Tennyson Street in Kensington.

 

(reproduced with the permission of view.com.au)

 

 

Malcolm was quite a tall lad for the time, standing 177 centimetres tall and weighing sixty-three kilos.  He was a salesman by trade and had fair hair and blue eyes.  He was assigned to the recently created 39 Battalion, trained at Broadmeadows and sailed for Europe on A11 HMAT Ascanius on 27 May 1916.

 

Troops on board Ascanius, Port Melbourne 27 May 1916  (AWM PB0132)

 

Ascanius sailed via South Africa to avoid German submarines in the Mediterranean.  Being part of the newly created 3 Division, under the command of Major-General John Monash, Malcolm trained intensively on Salisbury Plain in England until he was shipped to France with his comrades on 15 September that year.  Once he reached there, and for unknown reasons, he was transferred to the much more established and by then battle-hardened 7 Battalion.  Given that many of the lads from the Essendon district were in 7 Battalion, it may be that Malcolm made a request to join it in order to be with one or more mates.  We have no way of knowing for sure.

 

By the time Malcolm joined his new battalion, it was situated in southern Belgium, not far from the Ypres salient.  1 Anzac Corps, of which 7 Battalion was a part, had been fighting at Pozières and Mouquet Farm in the Somme Valley of France since late July, and had been very badly mauled, losing 138 men killed and many more wounded or missing.  In late August, being able to muster only around half of its official complement, the battalion was moved to Belgium, taking up position in trenches near the Ypres-Commines Canal.  There it sent out patrols into No Man’s Land at night, establishing listening posts in order to gather intelligence.  On the last day of September, the battalion, along with 8 Battalion, had been involved in mounting a raid on the German line at Hollebeke.  It was considered a great success, the defenders being overwhelmed, thirteen of them being killed, and a section of their line being captured for a short period. 

 

In October, 7 Battalion returned to the Somme, moving into reserve trenches near Bernafay.  At the start of November, the men moved into front line trenches at Guedecourt, immediately losing a lieutenant in the process.  The battalion commander noted in the war diary that the ground was soft and muddy.  As winter was coming on, a winter that would be described as the worst in Western Europe for forty years, conditions would only deteriorate.  Standing in muddy and waterlogged trenches for hours on end could lead to a man succumbing to ‘Trench Foot’.  This affliction can lead to loss of blood circulation and resultant gangrene, and more than one soldier died from it on the Western Front.  On 24 November, while the battalion was in reserve, Malcolm was sent to hospital with what must have been a severe case of Trench Foot. He was later transported to a hospital at the Etaples training camp, near Boulogne, and was not released until 28 December. He was then attached temporarily to the 1 Anzac Corps headquarters, no doubt to recuperate further.

 

Australian troops crossing a frozen trench, Bernafay, January 1917 (AWM E00144)

 

Malcolm must have been at headquarters until late March, as there is no indication in his war record of him having returned to 7 Battalion in the meantime.  He was not destined to rejoin his comrades for quite a while as, on 21 March 1917, he was sent to hospital suffering from diphtheria, a very serious disease.  Over the next month, his condition worsened and, on 22 April, he was transferred to Addington Park War Hospital in Croydon, England, afflicted with both diphtheria and enteritis.

 

Addington Park.  Today it is a country club.  https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/addingtonpark.html

 

On 26 June, fortunately on the mend, Malcolm was transferred to the Royal Herbert Hospital in Woolwich, eastern London, and was then granted a furlough until 13 July.  He probably took advantage of this break to see some of the sights that London and other parts of the country had to offer.

 

Malcolm was supposed to report to the overseas training battalion at Perham Downs on 29 July.  However, two days earlier, he had gone missing for twenty-three hours, reason unknown.  When he finally returned to his base, he was sentenced to seven days of field punishment number two (hard labour), and he also forfeited eleven days’ pay.  The military may well have thought that, with the time he was absent without leave added to his furlough, he had had too much of a good thing, and he was punished accordingly.

 

As a result of his sentence, Malcolm reported to Perham Downs later than expected.  He was involved in training there until he returned to 7 Battalion in France on 28 August 1917.  At that time, the men were in reserve in the area of Bailleul and undergoing training.  Malcolm’s arrival was noted in the unit’s war diary as ‘1 O.R. [other rank] from hospital.’  Earlier that year, the Germans had staged a strategic retreat to their ‘Hindenburg’ reinforced line in order to remove dangerously exposed salients and save on what was a dwindling amount of manpower.  The allied troops had moved north-east into the area of the Somme to occupy the space now available.  Bailleul had been occupied briefly by the Germans soon after war broke out in 1914, but was quickly recaptured by British troops in October of that year.

 

7 Battalion stayed in training until 13 September, when it began moving northwards towards Belgium.  The Third Battle of Ypres had begun on 31 July, the aim of the British commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig, being to capture the German submarine pens on the Belgian coast, thus removing the threat that submarines presented to the all-important convoys crossing the Atlantic, and demoralising the Germans in the process.  The first important target of the allied attack was the village of Passchendaele, and the battle quickly assumed that unofficial title.  7 Battalion arrived at Zillebeke, near Ypres, on 19 September and moved into the front line there almost immediately.

 

(Gibbs: From Bapaume to Passchendaele 1917)     

 

Progress against the Germans had been painfully slow, caused by almost incessant rain that turned the naturally marshy land in the area into large, often impassable bogs.  However, the battalion was in the line for three days and participated in the short, successful but bloody Battle of Menin Road, which began on 20 September, before being removed and moved into reserve at nearby Steenvoorde.  The men stayed there until the beginning of October, when they travelled to the vicinity of Westhoek Ridge and prepared for a supportive attack that became part of the equally successful but also costly Battle of Broodseinde Ridge.  This came on the fourth of the month and continued until the ninth.  In that time, the battalion’s numbers shrank from 1020 0n 2 October to 750. 

 

Stretcher bearers resting at a dressing station, Westhoek Ridge, October 1917  (AWM P03631.176)

 

In contrast to the successful but limited Anzac attacks at Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde Ridge in late September/early October, the attack by 4 Division on 12 October, aiming at the capture of Passchendaele, was a dismal and expensive failure. The village would finally be captured by Canadian troops.  However, it was a pyrrhic victory: Third Ypres was degenerating in the winter mud and rain, and would peter out soon after.

 

An indication of the end of the Third Battle of Ypres was the fact that 7 Battalion returned to the area of the Somme in France late in October, and was destined to spend the winter in that area.  On 26 December, while based in the front line near Denys Wood, the battalion was bombarded with gas shells by the Germans.  According to the battalion commander, about 300 shells were sent over, covering an area of around 500 square yards (metres).  Seven officers and four other ranks were gassed.  It is likely that Malcolm was one of those O.R.s.  If not, then he came into contact with a pocket of residual gas the next day, as nine men were reported as being adversely affected at that time.

 

Troops suffering from the effects of a gas attack, France 1918   (AWM E04851)

 

Malcolm was removed to a field hospital and then transferred to a war hospital in England on 5 January 1918. He remained there until 6 February.  He was then given a furlough until 11 March.  His war was over.  He sailed for Australia on 15 April and arrived in Melbourne on 12 June.  He was then discharged from the army the following month.

 

Many of those gassed suffered from a variety of complaints in their later lives, most notably chest complaints – some of them serious and debilitating, often bringing about early death.  Just how badly Malcolm was affected is hard to gauge.  Perhaps his case was not so bad.  As noted early in this story, there is no evidence in his war record of an invalid pension being granted and we know from a letter he wrote to the war department that he was still alive in 1940.

 

Sources

Australian War Memorial

En.wikipedia.org

Gibbs, Philip: From Bapaume to Passchendaele 1917, London, William Heinemann, 

                       1918

http://www.anzacsinfrance.com

http://www.ezetis.myzen.co.uk

http://www.view.com.au

National Archives of Australia

Travers, Richard: Diggers in France: Australian soldiers on the Western Front,  

                             Sydney, ABC Books, 2008

 

War Service Commemorated

Essendon Gazette Roll of Honour Wounded

Essendon Gazette Roll of Honour With the Colours

Kensington Methodist Church (M)    An item in Baker's B2455 record suggests that he was known as

                                                        Malcolm. Although his religion was given as C of E, it is possible

                                                        that his parents were Methodist, and had their son's name added

                                                        to their Church Honour Board. At present there is no other known

                                                        candidate for "M Baker".

 

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