Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington, 1914-1918
Private John Yates of Moonee Ponds.
http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/H05810
Yates J Pte 6848 John 5 Inf Bn 29 Fireman Single Pres
Address: Moonee Ponds, Hopetoun St, 10
Next of Kin: Yates, J, Mr, father, 10 Hopetoun St, Moonee Ponds
Enlisted: 1 Sep 1916
Embarked: A71 Nestor 2 Oct 1916
Date of death: 29/04/1917
CWGC: "Son of John and Frances Ann Yates, of 10, Hopetown St., Moonee Ponds, Victoria".
MORCHIES MILITARY CEMETERY
Private John Yates
Rod Martin
When the First World War broke out in August 1914 and the recruiting offices were engulfed by enthusiastic volunteers, one the major criteria used by the recruiters was dental health. Bad teeth equalled unacceptable. If twenty-eight year-old railway fireman John Yates from 10 Hopetoun Street, Moonee Ponds did attempt to enlist at that time, he would have been rejected because he had dental caries. When he was accepted on 1 September 1916, the government had liberalised the criteria because of the decline in the numbers volunteering. Dental issues were no longer a barrier. John was signed up, and his enlistment form noted that he needed dental treatment (provided by the military) before he could be sent overseas. We can presume that this was done.
There could have been other reasons for John's enlistment, however. He may have been appalled by Australia's losses at Fromelles and Pozières in July and August 1916, and decided that he had to go and help. He may have been sent a white feather (the symbol of cowardice) and been stung into action. As with so many others who volunteered, his motives are unknown. What we do know is that he volunteered despite the lengthy casualty lists and thus became a 'Dinkum Aussie' - a man who knew that his chances of survival were questionable at best.
John was assigned to 22 Reinforcements of 5 Battalion, did his basic training, and then boarded A38 HMAT Ulysses on 25 October 1916.
Members of 22 Reinforcements, 5 Battalion, at Port Melbourne,
25 October 1916 (AWM PB1124)
(AWM PB1095)
The Ulysses sailed via the Cape of Good Hope to avoid German submarines in the Mediterranean, and 22 Reinforcements arrived in Plymouth on 28 December. They stayed in England, training on Salisbury Plain, until mid-March 1917. As John had no previous military experience before enlisting, this training was probably very beneficial to him. On 27 March, the unit sailed for France, arriving in Boulogne and heading for the nearby Etaples training centre. From there, John and the others proceeded to join 5 Battalion, arriving on 2 April.
In early April 1917, 5 Battalion was in reserve at Buire, on the Somme. Starting in January, the Germans were retreating to a better fortified position along the so-called Hindenburg Line. The truth was that the massive losses suffered by both sides since the war began had begun to bite, and on the German side there was a need to consolidate manpower, remove wasteful salients (bulges ) in the front line and protect their men in a more effective way. As the Germans began to withdraw, the Allies moved in to occupy the empty space. That was not without its dangers, however. The Germans left many booby traps behind and shelled and bombed the advancing troops as often as they could. Starting on 5 April, the battalion began moving towards the town of Lagnicourt, north of the Somme. It finally arrived there on the sixteenth and immediately took up position in several strong points in front of the town. It found out almost immediately that it was in the battle zone: three men were wounded on the day they arrived.
The previous day, Lagnicourt had become famous in the annals of the First World War. The retreating Germans decided to recover some of their lost territory along a nine kilometre front between the towns of Hermies and Noreuil, with Lagnicourt as the centre of the onslaught. They caught the Australians at Lagnicourt unaware and were able to capture the guns of 2 Australian Field Artillery (in a forward position) and hold them for two hours. The Australian gunners had to quickly remove their guns' breech blocks and dash for their lines. The Australian troops counter-attacked soon after and drove the Germans out. Only five of the twenty-one guns had been damaged, but several hundred Australian prisoners were taken. However, the Germans lost more, and nothing was gained by the action.
One would expect that some adrenalin was still flowing when 5 Battalion took up its positions only a day later.
Ruins of one of the guns captured by the Germans at Lagnicourt, April 1917
(AWM E04577)
The Lagnicourt battlefield, showing the Australian gun pits at the foot of the hill, April 1917 (AWM E00638)
5 Battalion stayed in its positions for the next two weeks, being involved in sporadic combat with its German adversaries. Between the sixteenth and the twenty-ninth, it suffered killed and/or wounded every single day. On the twenty-ninth it was John's turn. The Red Cross reports vary a little, but it would seem that the 'little, dark, stout man with very dark curly hair' was one of several in a patrol that either was ordered out into No Man's Land that night or went out of its own accord. They were probably fixing broken barbed wire. It seems that at least one of the forward posts was not informed that the men were there. Private Horace Rouse, in the post in question, says that he had already checked to see if any patrols were out and he was told that none were. When a German barrage lit up the area and silhouetted the six men, Horace and his companions believed they were Germans. He then told the lieutenant in charge of the post and he ordered the men to fire their machine gun. The six men, John included, were thus cut down by friendly fire.
The battalion's war diary records that four men died that day and five others were wounded. John was one of the four deaths. He was buried in a small cemetery in Lagnicourt and later moved to Morchies Military Cemetery, about seven kilometres from the town of Bapaume.
(Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
His short war was over.
Sources
Australian War Memorial
En.wikipedia.org
National Archives of Australia
Travers, Richard: Diggers in France: Australian soldiers on the Western Front,
Sydney, ABC Books, 2008
Private J. Yates, only son of Mrs. Yates, 10 Hopetoun street, [Moonee] Ponds, died of wounds in France ..... April.
ROLL OF HONOR. (1917, May 31). The Essendon Gazette and Keilor, Bulla and Broadmeadows Reporter (Moonee Ponds, Vic. : 1914 - 1918), p. 2 Edition: Morning. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article74602668
|
As per his War Record in the National Archives:
He was a Fireman with the Victorian Railways. In a letter written by his mother on 28 Apr 1922, she writes of “her dear only son” and enquires about the Fallen Badge, and seeks her son’s two medals as “a mother’s heart longs for what belongs to her lost dear one”.
War Service Commemorated
Essendon Town Hall R-Y
Essendon Gazette Roll of Honour DOW
In Memoriam
The Age 26 May 1917
DEATHS on Active Service
YATES.—Died of wounds, somewhere in France,
on the 29th April, Private J. Yates, the dearly loved
and only son of Mr. and Mrs. Yates, 10 Hopetoun
street, Moonee Ponds, and darling only brother of
Mrs. F. Besant, Preston; Mrs. T. Aisbett, Coburg;
Mrs. W. Besant, Heatherton, and Ivy, Moonee Ponds.
Our darling hero.
Duty nobly done.
No mother was there to soothe his brow.
No father to say good-bye;
No sister to take him by the hand,
When death was drawing nigh.
Far, far away from all his friends,
And those who loved him best :
No kindred hand can deck the place,
Where you are laid to rest.
— Inserted by his sorrowing mother, father,
sisters and brothers-in-law.
The Argus 25 Sep 1936
YATES.—On the 23rd September, 1936, at the Royal
Melbourne Hospital, John, the dearly beloved husband
of the late Frances Ann, loving father of Tilly
(Mrs. F. Besant), Jack (deceased, late A.I.F.),
Myrtle (Mrs. T. Aisbett), Lily (Mrs. W. Besant), Ivy
(Mrs. M. Shiell), aged 78 years.
—Our loving father at rest.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.