by Glyn Harper
With heavy machine-gun support from the sides, the German defenders launched a frontal attack. The New Zealand infantry faltered, but Captain Gray was later awarded a Military Cross because he managed to rally his men and push the Germans back past several concrete pillboxes which the New Zealanders thought were abandoned. As this was being done, a German machine-gun post in a well-defended strong post opened up on the New Zealanders at close range. An infantry section tried to storm the post but the section commander and several of his men were killed.
Private Henry Nicholas was on the right of the New Zealand line with a Lewis gun crew trying to form a defensive flank against the deadly machine-gun fire. He saw what was happening to the infantry section and signalled the gun crew to follow him. Henry rushed towards the post, reaching the parapet before the Germans realised he was there. The problem was that he had a 25-metre head start on his men and he was on his own now. Henry quickly shot the German officer in command of the post at point-blank range and overcame the other 16 using Mills bombs, German stick grenades and his bayonet. Four wounded Germans survived his attack and he took them prisoner along with the captured machine-gun.
Henry’s actions made sure the advance could continue and the New Zealanders made it to 140 metres from the chateau before the Germans halted them. With over half of the attacking force dead or wounded, including most of their officers and senior NCOs, all the New Zealand infantry could do was dig in.
Immediately the Germans counter-attacked. Henry went up and down the company line, collecting and redistributing ammunition. The counter-attacks were driven off and the new line held until the New Zealand battalions were relieved on 4 and 5 December. Private Henry Nicholas’ VC was announced on 8 January 1918.
Henry stayed with his company, and was promoted to sergeant in 1918. In October 1918 he was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in the field. On the evening of 23 October 1918, Henry was on guard duty at a bridge over the St George River near Le Quesnoy when a German patrol stumbled onto the position. In the firefight that followed the German patrol suffered heavy casualties and one New Zealand soldier was killed — Sergeant Henry Nicholas. Tragically this was only 19 days before the end of the war.
A Legend in His Lifetime
SERGEANT RICHARD TRAVIS
Sergeant Richard (Dick) Travis, VC, DCM, MM and Croix de Guerre (Belgium), could be described as New Zealand’s greatest soldier. He was a resourceful, ruthless soldier with a natural ability to read and use terrain, who never seemed to suffer from fear or fatigue. He was also a very unusual soldier, who could operate by himself and feel completely at home in the awful battle conditions of the Western Front. The other soldiers called him the ‘King of the Raiders’, or ‘The Prince of No Man’s Land’. As one soldier said:
Dick had no relations but many friends, real friends. He loved the game: he’s the only man I ever met who did, but he truly did.
Dickson Cornelius Savage (as Dick Travis was originally known) was born at Opotiki on 6 April 1884. His family owned Melrose Farm, Otara Road, Opotiki. His father, James Savage, was born in Ireland and had served in the Armed Constabulary during the New Zealand Wars. His mother, Fanny, was Australian and doted on Dickson, who was her fifth child and eldest son. Dickson was one of nine children. After quarrelling with his family, Dickson left Opotiki in 1905 and never returned.
Three years later he left Gisborne and went to Southland where he worked as a horsebreaker. In August 1914 Dickson Savage, now calling himself Richard Travis, enlisted as a trooper in the Otago Mounted Rifles. He said at the time he was from Seattle in the United States.
Dick left New Zealand with the Main Body of the NZEF in October 1916, bound for Egypt. During the Gallipoli campaign the Mounted Rifles were sent to the peninsula just before the large-scale offensive of August 1915, as reinforcements. Dick didn’t go with them but stayed behind at Lemnos in Greece to look after the horses. In March 1916 Dick transferred to the 2nd Otago Battalion and sailed for France.
From the moment the New Zealand Division first experienced the horrors of trench warfare on the Western Front at Armentières, Dick Travis stood out as a scout, sniper, patrol leader and raider. He made his reputation at Armentières by leading daytime patrols close to the German wire, and also went out on patrol in No Man’s Land for 40 nights in a row looking for information or prisoners. For the next two years Dick Travis had a remarkable career as a free agent in No Man’s Land. In France he was awarded the three highest military decorations a non-commissioned officer could receive: the DCM, the MM and the VC.
When the New Zealand Division moved to the Somme in September 1916 Dick Travis continued to stand out. On 15 September his battalion was one of those leading in the attack at Flers, when German artillery and snipers firing from their left flank harassed them. Once again the snipers were dealt with by Dick who went out into the open and silenced them. Dick was awarded the DCM for his bravery on the Somme. He was also promoted to sergeant on 4 November 1916.
During the winter in Flanders in 1916 and early 1917, Dick Travis was put in charge of the sniping and observation section of the 2nd Otago Battalion. He put together his own team. The ‘Travis Gang’ stood out because of their casual clothes and impressive array of weapons. Dick Travis never wore a helmet, but was always seen wearing a khaki balaclava. During the day he carried a sniper’s rifle with telescopic sights. At night he carried a Luger pistol or revolvers, bayonet and a number of Mills bombs. Around his neck was his prized possession, a set of German Zeiss binoculars. A padre with the 2nd Otagos recorded:
As of old he came back with the balaclava stuck on the back of his head, a cigarette in his lips and two revolvers strapped on in front . . . It cannot be easy to be the recognised pride of the battalion and yet remain unaffected. Nevertheless right till the end Dick Travis was unspoiled.
At Passchendaele on the night of 10–11 October Dick led a patrol from the 2nd Otago Battalion out into No Man’s Land. He wrote a brief but accurate account of the terrible conditions and the strength of the German positions:
No-man’s-land is in very bad order — one mass of huge shell holes three parts full of water, a large amount of old wire entanglements scattered about makes it very awkward for patrolling. It is very heavy to patrol on account of the ground being so ploughed up by shell holes. It is very hard to keep your feet as it is so slippery . . . The enemy posn [position] just below sky line commands a great field of Machine Gun fire and the observation is excellent.
After the New Zealand Division was rushed south in March 1918 to help stop the German breakthrough on the Somme, Dick and his ‘gang’ were busy with patrols and raids. They were especially good at bringing in prisoners. It was during this time that Dick was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre. He was also given a MM for a daylight reconnaissance which took out a German machine-gun post.
In July 1918 the New Zealand Division faced the Germans at Rossignol Wood where the Germans occupied the east and southwest corner. The New Zealanders wanted to put pressure on the Germans. In front of the 2nd Otago Battalion were two massive barbed-wire blocks the artillery barrage had not been able to destroy. Dick volunteered to fix them. He went out alone in broad daylight, crawling up to the enemy positions. Once he reached the blocks he placed two mortar shells in the middle of the wire and calmly waited until one minute before zero hour before he detonated them. Both blocks were destroyed.
In the infantry attack Dick Travis was soon in the middle of the action. Two machine-guns on the right opened fire and stopped the battalion’s advance. Dick rushed them, killing seven Germans with his revolvers. A German officer and three men attacked him but he shot all four as they came towards him.
His actions allowed the rest of the Otago infantry to advance and take the German position, where they found Dick reloading his revolvers, with a line of corpses lying at his feet.
Dick Travis was recommended for the VC and it was announced on 24 September 1918. Tragically a German shell fragment
had killed Dick less than 24 hours after the action for which he had earned it. The 2nd Otago war diary recorded:
2/Lt. C.A. Kerse and Sergeant R.C. Travis were buried with full military honours at the cemetery of Couin at 8 p.m. Brigadier General Young, 2nd Brigade Staff and the officers and men of the Battalion attended. The death of Sergeant Travis cast a gloom over the whole battalion. Only those who have been with us for any length of time can realise what a loss his death means to us. He left New Zealand with the Main Body and had never missed an operation. He went over the top 15 times and always did magnificent work. He won the D.C.M., M.M. and Croix de Guerre, and has been recommended for the V.C. His name will live in the records of the Battalion as a glorious example of heroism and devotion to duty.
A soldier wrote after the war that the name of Dick Travis would live on while soldiers have memories and tales to tell, and be an inspiration as long as the world honours courage, kindliness and self-forgetfulness.
The VCs of the ‘Hundred Days’
In March 1918 the Germans had made huge attacks on the Allied front, using all the troops that became available after they had beaten the Russians in the east. They hoped to win the war before the American army was ready to join the fighting on the Allied side. The New Zealand Division had been raced to the vital point, along with others, so the Germans didn’t quite break through. They had made really big advances compared to much of the last four years, but Germany had exhausted itself. Just as they feared, the Americans then reinforced the Allies, who also now had masses of artillery and the new tanks. Starting in August the Allies began a series of attacks all along the Western Front, so that the Germans could never rest or move their reserves to vital areas. This pressure worked and in a hundred days the Germans were forced back from their March–April offensive gains, then through their old Hindenberg defence line and finally into retreating everywhere. Realising the war was lost, the Germans made an armistice with the Allies to stop the fighting at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. During that last hundred days – from 21 August to 11 November — much hard fighting took place and men took big risks to ensure the Germans’ defeat.
SERGEANT SAMUEL FORSYTH
Sergeant Samuel Forsyth of the New Zealand Engineers served on Gallipoli, where he was wounded and twice evacuated sick. In August 1918 he was sent to the 2nd Auckland Battalion. On 24 August 1918 his battalion was ordered to capture the village of Grévillers. By early morning the Aucklanders had reached the southern outskirts where they were pinned down by heavy machine-gun and rifle fire. Two British tanks appeared in the distance but despite the New Zealanders desperate efforts to attract their attention, the tank crews didn’t see them.
Samuel Forsyth ran under fire to the nearest tank and led it forward to help the New Zealanders. While he was doing this he was wounded in the arm but still managed to direct the tanks to where they could attack the German machine-gun positions. The Germans, aware of the danger, scored a direct hit on the leading tank with an artillery round. Samuel helped the crew from the wreck, formed them and several New Zealand soldiers into a section, and led them to outflank the German machine-guns. The German machine-gunners withdrew, and Samuel and his men took the high ground around Grévillers.
Even though he was wounded, Samuel helped to organise a new line of resistance on a bare, exposed slope, and while he was doing this he was killed by a German sniper.
Ormond Burton was a close friend of Samuel Forsyth and was wounded in the arm by the same sniper that killed Forsyth. He described Samuel Forsyth’s VC as:
one of the best of those that went to the New Zealanders. At Grévillers Sam was head and shoulders above us all — a most valorous exhibition of imaginative daring sustained through a long and dangerous advance. Behind it was a record second to none in the Division.
Samuel’s VC was announced on 18 October 1918. His VC medal was presented to his wife, Mary, by King George V.
SERGEANT REGINALD JUDSON
Two days after Forsyth’s VC action, Sergeant Reginald Stanley Judson also earned the award. Reginald Judson was an engineer and boilermaker from Auckland. He joined the NZEF in October 1915 as a rifleman, but transferred to the 1st Auckland Battalion. He was 38 years old. During the New Zealand attack on the Somme on 15 September 1916 Reginald suffered a very serious abdominal wound. It was so bad he was kept in hospital in the United Kingdom and didn’t rejoin his unit in the field until June 1918. Like Dick Travis, he was one of the few soldiers on the Western Front to receive all the major gallantry awards — but he was awarded them all in just two months.
This remarkable achievement began on the night of 24–25 July 1918, the same day Dick earned his VC. Reginald rescued six New Zealand soldiers stranded near Hébuterne during a German attack, and was awarded the DCM. Three weeks later, on 16 August, Reginald led a fierce bayonet charge at Bucquoy that captured two machine-guns and 16 German soldiers. For this he received the MM. Ten days later came the action that would lead to his receiving the supreme award for gallantry.
In the attack on the town of Bapaume on 26 August, German machine-gun fire inflicted heavy casualties on the leading New Zealand infantry battalions and they were forced to take cover. About noon the 15th Company of the 1st Auckland Battalion was ordered to help the 2nd Wellington Battalion clear the machine-gun positions.
But as soon as the company started moving forward it was forced to take cover from the withering machine-gun fire. Sergeant Judson led a small patrol through the fire and along a trench where they captured one machine-gun and attacked two more machine-gun crews with Mills bombs.
The Germans tried to make a hasty withdrawal but Reginald jumped out of the trench and ran exposed along its edge to head off the fleeing Germans. He managed to get in front, pointed his rifle at the group of 12 Germans and called on them to surrender.
There was a moment’s hesitation before the two German officers ordered their men to fire on Reginald. Reginald threw a Mills bomb at the group, waited for it to explode and then leapt into the trench and fought the survivors hand-to-hand. He killed two of the Germans and the rest fled, leaving behind two machine-guns. The advance towards Bapaume continued unopposed. For this remarkable action Reginald was recommended for the VC, which was announced on 29 October 1918.
SERGEANT JOHN GRANT
Less than a week after Reginald Judson earned his VC, another New Zealand sergeant, this time serving in a Wellington unit, also earned the VC. He was John Gildroy Grant, a builder from Hawera.
After taking the town of Bapaume, the New Zealand Division, as part of a big Allied push to keep pressure on the Germans, advanced to the village of Bancourt. The plan was to take the Bancourt Ridge, the high ground some 800 metres east of the village. By 8.00 a.m. on 30 August two New Zealand battalions had cleared the Germans from Bancourt and begun their advance.
The fight for the ridge proved much more difficult and, just before the top, the New Zealanders were forced to dig in for the night. The following day at 4.30 a.m. the German infantry launched a counter-attack with tanks in support, advancing behind an artillery barrage. The New Zealand line was pushed back some 300 metres where the men reformed and, in a four-and-a-half-hour running battle, fought their way back to their original line. Again they attacked the German positions on top of the ridge but they still couldn’t dislodge the enemy.
That night two New Zealand brigades were ordered to launch a dawn attack on the top of the ridge. The 1st Wellington Battalion was to lead the attack. When the New Zealand infantry reached the top of the ridge they came under heavy fire from five machine-gun posts but pushed on and were only 20 metres from the guns before they were forced to a halt.
Sergeant Grant and Lance Corporal C.T. Hill crawled towards the guns, leapt up in front of the machine-gun fire in the centre post and attacked. The German machine-gunners fled, then John turned his attention to the post on the left, which he also put out of action. The German resistance died away. It was an impressive feat and, as the history of
the division describes:
No one but the panic-stricken Germans at the gun could tell how the fire missed him. He leapt into the post, demoralising the gunners. His men were close on his heels.
Lance Corporal Hill received the DCM while John Grant received the VC which was announced on 26 November 1918. He has a street named after him in Hawera, his home town — Grant VC Avenue.
SERGEANT HARRY LAURENT
The pace of action was still hectic and 11 days after the storming of Bancourt Ridge Sergeant Laurent of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade earned New Zealand’s next VC. Henry John Laurent (known as Harry), a grocer’s assistant from Tarata in Taranaki, joined the NZEF in May 1915. Before the war he had served for four years with the Taranaki Rifles, and he fought at the Battle of the Somme, where he was wounded.
By the end of the first week of September 1918 the retreating German armies were demoralised and some units were in disarray. The Allies were determined to make the most of this by putting as much pressure as possible on the Germans. One of the formations at the head of the Allies’ advance was the New Zealand Division which had followed the retreating Germans after taking Bapaume. However, on 9 September the Germans established a well-defended line between Gouzeaucourt and Trescault and along the Trescault Ridge.
Twice the New Zealanders tried to crash through these positions and failed, so overnight on 11–12 September a number of fighting patrols were sent out to try and contact the enemy.