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Smith-E-Pte-3407

Page history last edited by Lenore Frost 3 years, 5 months ago

Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington, 1914-1918

Smith E Pte 3407 Edward 5 Inf Bn 23 Baker Single Pres

Address: Ascot Vale, Federation St, 14

Next of Kin: Smith, J, father, 14 Federation St, Ascot Vale

Enlisted: 9 Jul 1915

Embarked: A71 Nestor 11 Oct 1915

Date of Death: 25/07/1916

VILLERS-BRETONNEUX MEMORIAL

Private Edward Smith

Rod Martin

He was a very small man, even for that time more than 100 years ago. Standing only 157 centimetres tall and weighing a mere fifty-four kilos, twenty-three year-old baker Edward Smith of 14 Federation Street in Ascot Vale would have been rejected by the army if he had attempted to enlist on the outbreak of war in 1914. He was ten centimetres too short and had a chest expansion measurement that was too small. One year later, however, it was a different story. The losses at Gallipoli in the first two months after landing, and the promise of the prime minister to supply an extra fifty thousand troops to the fray, led to a liberalisation of the selection criteria. Edward was then eligible. When he joined up on 9 July 1915 he became one of the record 36 575 enlistments that month.

14 Federation St, Ascot Vale. Reproduced with permission from www.realestate.com.au)

Edward was assigned to 11 Reinforcements of 5 Battalion and did his training at Broadmeadows before embarking for the Middle East on A71 HMAT Nestor at Port Melbourne on 11 October that same year.

By 27 November, Edward had arrived in Egypt, suffering from influenza. However, he recovered quickly and was admitted to active service just a few days later. On 22 February, after being involved in training in the desert, he was taken on the strength of 5 Battalion, located at that time at Serapeum on the Suez Canal. The troops were there to prevent a Turkish attack on the waterway, now possible because Gallipoli had been evacuated and the Turks were able to deploy its defenders elsewhere.

5 Battalion men leaving Port Melbourne sometime in 1915. (AWM H02144)

A massive reorganisation of the army was carried out in Egypt during the first couple of months of 1916. Existing battalions were divided in two, each new battalion having half of its complement made up of experienced soldiers and the other half newly arrived reinforcements. The reorganised 5 Battalion was a part of 1 Anzac Corps, destined to be the first cohort of Australian troops to travel to the Western Front in France. 5 Battalion would sail from Alexandria on 30 March.

A draft of 5 Battalion troops bound for France. Egypt March 1916. (AWM P00851.006)

When the first Australian troops arrived in Marseilles, they entrained for northern France shortly after. For most of them, it was their first sight of a European country, and many of them were amazed by the attractiveness of the French landscape. Their opinion would not have changed when they reached their destination near the town of Armentières. This area had been chosen as the location for the new troops because it was a relatively quiet part of the Western Front, a place that would give the new arrivals a chance to acclimatise themselves to battle conditions that were more intense than those of either Gallipoli or Egypt. The men stayed in training in the vicinity of Fort Rompu until 29 April, when they moved to the front line near the village of Fleurbaix. The battalion’s first casualties occurred on 6 May, when two men were wounded during a bombardment of the front line. Worse was to follow in the next few days. Two men were killed on the eighth, and another two days after that. On the thirteenth, the battalion went into reserve at Fleurbaix, and remained in working parties there until 29 May, when it returned to the front line. One man was killed and eight others wounded two days later. Before they left the forward trenches on 9 June, another one man was killed and six wounded. It was a costly baptism of fire.

Fleurbaix, looking towards the village of Fromelles, 1915 (AWM H15912M)

The battalion was based at nearby Estaires and Neuve Eglise until 24 June, when the men moved to the area of La Grandue Monque and became involved in working parties. At the end of the month, four officers and 110 other ranks participated in a raid on the German trenches. Edward may have been involved.

11 July 1916 found the men back at Neuve Eglise after a short spell in southern Belgium. A feint attack was being planned against the German fortifications at nearby Fromelles, due to occur around the nineteenth of the month. However, the men of 1 Anzac Corps were not destined to be part of it. Instead, they were transported south to the Somme Valley, finally arriving at the front line at Pozières, north of the town of Albert, on 24 July. Perhaps the greatest battle of the war had begun in the Somme Valley on the first of the month. By the twentieth, allied (mostly British) losses had been so great (almost 60 000 lost on the first day alone) that reinforcements were needed. The Anzacs were perfectly placed to fit the bill. The British command decided to use Edward and his comrades in an attack on the ruined village at Pozières after two British attacks there had failed to gain any ground. The site was seen as being important because control of the ridge behind the village may have provided access to the German fortified positions at Mouquet Farm and Thiepval. 1 Division, of which 5 Battalion was a part, began its assault on 23 July, taking a foothold in the ruins of the village. Two days later, having sustained 5 285 casualties, the troops were replaced by 2 Division. On that same day, Edward and the other members of the battalion went into action as part of 1 Division’s last attack. They initially gained some ground but a strong counter-attack by the German defenders, using grenades, forced the men back. Losses were heavy: forty-five killed, 248 wounded and 158 missing.

The battlefield near Pozières village, showing how completely the trenches dug by

Australians on 23 and 24 July had been obliterated by German shellfire. (AWM E00012)

It seems likely that Edward was among the missing, as he was reported in that way two days later, after the battalion had been relieved and had time to lick its wounds. His body may never have been found, but a comrade from Ascot Vale, a wounded soldier named Sam Gaudie who returned to Australia in 1917, informed Edward’s parents that he had been killed in action. There were no Red Cross reports about his death. A court of inquiry in November 1916 had officially declared that he was dead, and noted that he was buried in the vicinity of Pozières. If that was the case (and there are no extant reports to verify it), then the grave was later destroyed, as Edward’s name was inscribed on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial to the missing after the war.

(Commonwealth War Graves Commission)

In January 1918, Edward’s mother was granted a pension of thirty shillings a fortnight. She was also the beneficiary of his will.

The battle for Pozières lasted for forty-five days and involved nineteen separate attacks made by men from 1, 2 and 4 Divisions. There were 24 139 Australian casualties. The gain? The ruined village and the ridge behind it.

The 1 Division Memorial at Pozières. (AWM A02192)