1915 - 1919 World War 1

1st Australian Infantry Battalion

1^st Brigade, 1^st Division

The Colours of the 1st Battalion Royal New South Wales Regiment are emblazoned with the Battle Honours of the 1st Battalions WW1 – WW2

August 4^th 1914. War

{“We shall pledge our last man and last shilling” – Andrew Fisher, Prime Minister of Australia}

They arrived in thousands to defend the Empire.   From the shops, from the factories, from the offices men volunteered to fight. Miners and workmen laid down their tools. Out in the bush, men were setting out on the trek to the city by train, by horse and with their swag on their backs. Old and young, they were the foundations of a new army as they marched to Victoria Barracks Paddington, Sydney.

“I left home early in the morning and went to Victoria Barracks and had to wait outside the gates with about 1000 or more other recruits for about an hour. When the gates opened there was a big rush of men to get in. We were drafted into two batches with one body composed of those who had done soldiering before and those who had not. By 20^th August over 10,000 men had enlisted.” (Pte C Lee KIA 5/6/1915 age 22)

The Broken Years by Bill Gammage page 6

The 1^st Battalion was formed on the 17^th August 1914 and on that day the men marched from Paddington to Randwick to begin their training. The history of the 1^st Australian Infantry Battalion contains the names of many soldiers who served in the South Africa campaign of 1899 – 1902 with the 1^st Regiment of NSW Infantry and in British units. In 1911 the Australian Government had introduced compulsory military training for young men. About 40% of the 1^st Battalion had previous service either in the militia or in the Australian Military Force (AMF). At first married men were barred from enlisting but that proved unpopular and was revoked.

General Bridges, GOC 1^st Division, inspected the battalion on the 14^th September and on the 17^ththe men completed a route march to South Head and back. Rumours of an early departure had the men looking to say goodbye to friends and family. Many a ruse was tried. One group decided to send telegrams to themselves saying, ”Come at once. Mother dying.” This worked for the first couple but when about 30 telegrams arrived at once the game was up.

After marching through the streets of Sydney the battalion was embarked on HMT “Afric” on the 18^th October bound for Albany, Western Australia. On 1^st November the fleet totaling 36 ship carrying 29,500 men departed for Cairo, Egypt. The battalion strength was 1013 including officers.

Leaving Australia November 1014

Portrait of 490 Warrant Officer Robert Melville, Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM), 1st Battalion, sitting in a dugout. On his tunic sleeves RSM Melville is wearing white bands, which were used by Australian soldiers at Lone Pine and the next day at the Nek to help identify friend from foe.

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1st Battalion Football Team, Egypt 1914

D Coy 1st Battalion at Mena Camp, Cairo 1-1-1915

“E” Company 1st Battalion 1915

Training continued to improve the standard of soldiering and marksmanship and on the 4^th April the battalion embarked on the “Minnewaska”. The ship carried about 1900 men and 500 horses plus a large quantity of timber to construct a wharf. The ships arrived in Lemnos on the 12^th April where the battalion was practiced in small craft landings. More provisions were taken on board and some days later the ship moved out to sea.

1st Battalion leaving for the front 1915

Mena Camp 1915

                   Route march 1915                   Pte Claude Stanley Knaggs-Smith

Rest Area

Photos – Mitchell / NSW Library

Rectangular horizontally aligned colour patch, for 1 Battalion, AIF, divided black over green, was worn with a brass letter ‘A’ in the centre, denoting service in Gallipoli.

Summary

Worn as a distinguishing unit indication at the head of each sleeve from 1915. A brass ‘A’ denotes service in Gallipoli peninsula. It was approved for wear in embroidered form in 1916 and in the form of a brass letter in 1917.

The 1^st Australian Division led by the 3^rd Brigade with the 9^th, 10^th and 11^th battalions in formation with the 12^th battalion in reserve was the first to land at ANZAC Cove. This force landed about 0420hrs on the 25^th April and was immediately followed by the 2^nd brigade about 0530hrs.

The 1^st Brigade was the third wave to land on “ANZAC Beach”, Gallipoli. The 1^st Battalion landed about 0740hrs and immediately started taking casualties. This was the beginning of a long campaign of decision and non-decision by the British commanders, which cost the Australian forces dearly. In the battle at Lone Pine two members of the battalion were awarded the Victoria Cross for valour.

Roll call of D Company, 1st Battalion, at Hell Spit after the fighting at the landing. This company went into action with six officers – Major B I Swannell, Captain H Jacobs, Lieutenants Fogden, Shout, Duchesne and Street and 213 other ranks. When reassembled, the muster was one officer, Captain H Jacobs, and 88 other ranks.   AWM.

3735 Pte Harold Grant 1st Battalion 1915

Lt Alfred Shout 1st Battalion 1915

Major Blair Inskip Swannell

1^st Battalion

Blair Inskip Swannell was born on 20 August 1875, in Weston Underwood,

Buckinghamshire, the son of Mr William and Mrs Charlotte Swannell.   He was educated on the Thames Nautical Training College where he played 116 times for Northampton RFC, scoring 16 tries and 6 conversions, and was selected for the Great Britain tour of Australia in 1899.

During the 1899-1902 South African War he served as a Lieutenant in the Buckinghamshire Imperial Yeomanry; he returned to the United Kingdom as a Captain in the 35th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry. He also served in the Royal Naval Reserve. He was selected for the 1904 Great Britain tour of Australia and New Zealand. After the tour, he settled in Australia in 1905 and played for Sydney, then North Sydney, as well as NSW and Australia.

War service: Major, “D” Company, 1st (New South Wales) Battalion, 1st Brigade, Australian Imperial Force

Swannell was commissioned in the Australian Militia as a Lieutenant in 1912, and promoted to Captain in 1914. He applied for a commission in the AIF on 1 September 1914, and was appointed as a Captain in Q Company, 1st Bn, 1st Bde on 3 September. On 1 January 1915, after travelling to Egypt on the transport A19 The Afric, he was promoted to Major. While travelling to Gallipoli on the troopship SS Minnewaska, he said that he felt sure that he would be killed, but that he would play this game as he had played Rugby – with his whole heart. He was killed in action on 25 April 1915, at Gallipoli, during the assault on Turkish positions at the hill named Baby 700.

Major Swannell’s “D” Company of the 1st Battalion was led forward into Rest Gully and up Russell’s Top by the Battalion’s second in Command, Major Kindon, in support of the 3rd Brigade. His platoon commanders were Lt A J Shout [later Captain Shout VC MC; who died of wounds on 11 August 1915], Lt G A Street [later Brigadier General Street MC; Australian Minister for the Army and Minister for Repatriation 1938-1940, killed when RAAF Lockheed Hudson A16-97 crashed between Canberra and Queanbeyan on 13 August 1940] and Captain H Jacobs [later Major]. The company reached the remnants of the 3rd Brigade at the base of Baby 700 just before 11.00; there were only about seventy men of the 3rd Brigade at the position. Swannell’s company deployed and, with the 3rd Brigade men, charged the Turks, sweeping over the top of Baby 700. When on the inland slope of the Hill, the Australians came under heavy fire and found it very difficult to reply. Major Swannell was shot dead while kneeling to show his men how to return fire.

Officers of the 1st Battalion (New South Wales) outside their tents at Mena Camp, Egypt, during training, March 1915. Sitting on the left in the back row is Major Blair Swannell, a rugby international who, according to one witness, had ‘his head half blown off’ on the day of the Gallipoli landings. Also killed that day was the man sitting in front of Swannell, Lieutenant William Duchesne. Next to Swannell sits Lieutenant Alfred Shout, who received the Victoria Cross for bravery at Lone Pine, but died on 11 August 1915 of wounds received in the fighting. Captain Harold Jacobs, seated in front on the right, was the only one to survive the war.

The 1^st Battalion landed with a unit strength of 30 officers and 942 other ranks. After the first day 366 were killed or wounded.

The Prime Minister, Andrew Fisher, told the nation on the 29^th of April 1915 that Australian troops were in action in the Dardanelles but what he did not know was the horrific cost the nation was to pay.

Arrival of the Australian Troopships in the Suez Canal guarded by French Warships

Church Service before the landing

Officers before the landing

“The paid dearly for their glory. For a week after the landing exhausted men fought a hundred fights: attack and counter attack followed in wearying succession, and at the Daisy Patch, on Johnstone’s Jolly, at Steele’s Post, at Courtney’s and at Quinn’s, at the Bloody Angle, at Pope’s Hill and at the Nek the dead spread thickly over the ground.”
The Broken Years by Bill Gammage page 58
First Day – Allied Forces – 2000 killed and 5000 wounded
Turkish Forces – 2000 killed and 6000 wounded

Anzac Beach, Gallipoli. 1915. Looking north along Anzac Cove after Anzac Corps had landed and members were settling in on the slopes of the hills.

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The Australian camp on the Suez Canal

On the 24^th May a truce was negotiated to allow the recovery and burial of thousand of Turkish and Australian and New Zealand soldiers whose bodies lay rotting in no-man’s land. The bodies were swollen and covered with flies and maggots. The only way to identify them was by searching for their pay book or identification discs. In one gully about 4000 Turks lay dead.

The Truce

Captain George Wootten, Gallipoli June 1915

The Turks and the Australians at Quinn’s Post were about 12 metres apart and bombs were thrown when-ever a sound was heard. The bombs were jam tins filled with stones, bits of metal, a stick of gelignite and a fuse of about four seconds.

Anzac wounded being moved to a hospital ship

An Australian soldier lies wounded in the foreground, as hundreds of other soldiers move among the dead and wounded on the beach at Anzac Cove on the day of the landing. The soldiers wearing Red Cross arm-bands are tending to the wounded. Boxes of equipment are stacked among the men and the beach is also littered with discarded personal equipment. This scene is looking along the beach to the north.

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Teams of tunnellers would dig towards the Turks and could often hear the Turks tunneling towards them. The hole was filled with explosive and detonated just before a planned assault. Sometimes the tunnel roof would show bits of the bodies of the dead buried days before.

Bodies of dead soldiers, probably all Australian, killed during the Battle of Lone Pine in August 1915, lie on the ground as they fell. This area in front of the Lone Pine trenches was too exposed for any of the bodies to be recovered. Captain (Capt) H R Poate, a doctor serving in the 1st Field Ambulance, noted in his diary for 6 September 1915, “walked to Lone Pine”, his only visit. This one of two photographs taken by Capt Poate from the first of the captured Turkish trenches looking west over the area the Australians attacked from on the 6 August 1915. AWM

The men of the 1^st Brigade faced the enemy at Lone Pine in trenches only 50 to 70 metres apart. The fighting was hand to hand, bayonet and bomb and man to man. Trench by trench the 1^stBrigade fought and held, repelling counter attacks and not giving ground. After three days the area was littered with thousand of corpses and the Australians held the ground. The Brigade attacked with 2000 men but was reduced to 900. The Turks losses were estimated at over 5000. Seven Victoria Crosses were won at Lone Pine.

THE ATTACK ON THE LONE PINE TRENCHES.

The most simple method of developing this complicated series of operations will be first to take the frontal attacks from the existing Anzac position, and afterwards to go on to the assault on the more distant ridges.

During the 4th, 5th and 6th of August the works on the enemy’s left and centre were subjected to a slow bombardment, and on the after­noon of August 6th an assault was made upon the formid­able Lone Pine entrenchment. Although, in its essence, a diversion to draw the enemy’s attention and reserves from the grand attack impending upon hisright, yet, in itself, Lone Pine was a distinct step on the way across to Maidos. It commanded one of the main sources of the Turkish water supply, and was a work, or, rather, a series of works, for the safety of which the enemy had always evinced a certain nervousness. The attack was designed to heighten this impression.

The work consisted of a strong point d’appui on the south-western end of a plateau, where it confronted, at distances varying from 6o to 120 yards, the salient in the line of our trenches named by us the Pimple. The en­trenchment was evidently very strong; it was entangled with wire and provided with overhead cover, and it was connected by numerous communication trenches with another point d’appui known as Johnston’s Jolly on the north, as well as with two other works on the east and south. The frontage for attack amounted at most to some 220 yards, and the approaches lay open to heavy enfilade fire, both from the north and from the south.

The detailed scheme of attack was worked out with care and forethought by Major-General H. B. Walker, com­manding 1^st Australian Division, and his thoroughness contributed, I consider, largely to the success of the enter­prise.

The action commenced at 4.30 p.m. with a continuous and heavy bombardment of the Lone Pine and adjacent trenches, H.M.S. Bacchante assisting by searching the valleys to the north-east and east, and the Monitors by shelling the enemy’s batteries south of Gaba Tepe. The assault had been entrusted to the 1^st Australian Brigade (Brigadier-General N. M. Smyth), and punctually at 5.30 p.m. it was carried out by the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Aus­tralian Battalions, the 1^st Battalion forming the Brigade reserve.

THE INVINCIBILITY OF THE AUSTRALIANS.

Two lines left their trenches simultaneously, and were closely followed up by a third. The rush across the open was a regular race against death, which came in the shape of a hail of shell and rifle bullets from front and from either flank. But the Australians had firmly resolved to reach the enemy’s trenches, and in this determination they became for the moment invincible. The barbed wire entanglement was reached and was surmounted. Then came a terrible moment, when it seemed as though it would be physically impossible to penetrate into the trenches. The overhead cover of stout pine beams resisted all individual efforts to move it, and the loopholes continued to spit fire. Groups of our men then bodily lifted up the beams and individual soldiers leaped down into the semi-darkened galleries amongst the Turks. By 5.47pm the 3rd and 4th Bat­talions were well into the enemy’s vitals, and a few minutes later the reserves of the 2nd Battalion advanced over their parados and driving out, killing, or capturing the occu­pants, made good the whole of the trenches. The reserve companies of the 3rd and 4th Battalions followed, and at 6.20pm the 1^stBattalion (in reserve) was launched to consolidate the position.

At once the Turks made it plain, as they have never ceased to do since, that they had no intention of acquiescing in the capture of this capital work. At 7pm a determined and violent counter-attack began, both from the north and from the south. Wave upon wave the enemy swept forward with the bayonet. Here and there a well-directed salvo of bombs emptied a section of a trench, but whenever this occurred the gap was quickly filled by the initiative of the officers and the gallantry of the men.

CONTINUOUS FIGHTING BY DAY AND NIGHT.

The enemy allowed small respite. At 1.30 that night the battle broke out afresh. Strong parties of Turks swarmed out of the communication trenches, preceded by showers of bombs. For seven hours these counter-attacks con­tinued. All this time consolidation was being attempted, although the presence of so many Turkish prisoners hampered movement and constituted an actual danger. In beating of