Our Darkest Day

by Patrick Lindsay

  In any case, even if he disagreed with the settled policy of his chiefs, he could not disobey their orders or even temporise, unless he was prepared to go back to his country and – at the risk of raising internal dissention in a perilous time – justify his action before his people.

  In his inimitable fashion, Bean added:

  The horror of knowing that a mate – his living body the prey of flies and ants – is being slowly done to death within two minutes of the succour, to which, without military disadvantage, he could be brought, is less present to distant staffs than to officers and men in the line, and was estimated (though doubtless only after severe internal conflict) as a trifle when balanced against the mighty issues at stake; yet the memory of such horrors lingering in millions of minds unquestionably leads sometimes, in the long run, to results beside which even the great war-time issues may seem unimportant.

  Whatever his rationale, whatever his constraints, McCay earned the life-long enmity of his men for refusing the chance to rescue the wounded. As a result, not only did many of the wounded suffer unnecessarily agonising deaths, a great many of their mates were killed and wounded over the following days as they exposed themselves to try to reach them.

  For days after the battle, Diggers heard their mates calling plaintively from no-man’s land. Single men and small groups sneaked out each night trying to find them and bring them back. On the night of 20 July alone, more than 300 wounded from the 15th Brigade were brought in by organised parties of stretcher-bearers. Bean highlights the work of one of these rescuers, 40-year-old Victorian farmer, Sergeant Simon Fraser of the 57th Battalion, and quotes from a letter Fraser later wrote him:

  It was no light work getting in with a heavy weight on your back, especially if he had a broken leg or arm and no stretcher bearer was handy. You had to lie down and get him on your back; then rise and duck for your life with the chance of getting a bullet in you before you were safe.

  Fraser recalled finding a group of wounded near the German line and, after bringing them in safely, hearing another call for help. He went out again and eventually found this man too. He was a big strapping man wounded in the thigh – too heavy for Fraser to carry on his back – so he helped him into a sheltering shell hole and promised to return with a stretcher. As he moved off, he heard another wounded Digger nearby call: ‘Don’t forget me, cobber!’. Fraser was able to return with stretchers and bring them both in safely.

  The cry, ‘don’t forget me, cobber!’ has come to symbolise the selfless devotion of those who risked, and often lost, their lives to bring in their wounded mates. It is the title of Robin Corfield’s prodigious work of research on the Battle of Fromelles and it prompted the wonderful sculpture by Peter Corlett that today stands in the Australian Memorial Park at Fromelles. This statue immortalises Simon Fraser’s heroism and stands as a superb symbol of the sacrifice and devotion that characterised the battle and its aftermath. Fraser survived Fromelles and was promoted to lieutenant in April 1917. Sadly, he fell at the battle of Bullecourt and, ironically, his body was never found.

  11

  COUNTING THE COST

  Each grave will be marked by a piece of wood or anything suitable

  and on this will be written the Chaplain’s initials and a number.

  He will thus have a tally.

  OFFICIAL INSTRUCTION FROM ADJUTANT-GENERAL TO

  CHAPLAINS, 1916

  On the afternoon of 20 July, the battalions which had attacked the previous evening gathered near their divisional headquarters and their losses were chillingly clear. Each of the three Australian brigades lost more than 1700 men, either killed, wounded, missing or captured. In one terrifying night the Australians suffered a total of 5533 casualties – 178 officers and 5355 men. This was more than the combined total of all Australian losses in the Boer, Korean and Vietnam Wars. The British lost 1547 killed or wounded while the German casualties totalled less than 1500.

  That toughest of campaigners, Pompey Elliott, could not contain his grief and tears poured down his cheeks as he shook hands with the shattered survivors of his 15th Brigade. His 60th Battalion had gone into the battle with 887 men. One officer and 106 Diggers emerged unscathed to answer the roll call.

  The other brigades suffered similarly. The 32nd Battalion, from the 8th Brigade, also lost around 90% of its fighting strength – 701 Diggers and 17 officers. In addition, each of the 31st, 53rd, 54th, and 59th Battalions lost more than 500 Diggers and around 20 of their officers.

  While the Australians faced continual fire over the following days as they tried to rescue their wounded from no-man’s land, the Germans facing the British to the right of the Australian line allowed them to bring theirs in unhindered in some parts of their line. The 2/5th Gloucesters worked at it for four days, even in broad daylight, and their stretcher-bearers were not fired on.

  Remarkably, even after the Australians had stopped sending out recovery parties, having found no further wounded alive, stragglers continued to come in many days, even weeks, later. Some of these survived by dipping their tunics in puddles and sucking in the moisture, crawling a few metres at a time from one shell hole to the next. Some made it to the Australian lines with maggots crawling in their wounds.

  In his biography of Roy Harrison, Neville Kidd quotes from a letter of 7 July 1930 from the Regimental Medical Officer of the 57th Battalion, Dr Hugh Rayson of Manilla, NSW, that he wrote to the Official Medical Historian, Colonel A.G. Butler:

  During the next week wounded continued to come down as a result of the battle of the 19th; these men had been rescued from No Man’s Land. As far as I can remember the last man recovered alive reached my post 9 or 10 days after the battle. He had been wounded in both legs and one arm. He told me that he had managed to drag himself to a shell hole in which there was a little water. He had not been able to reach the water himself but had been able to keep his thirst down by sucking a strip of tunic which he had soaked in the shell-hole water; by sucking very nearly continuously he had been able to get just sufficient water to keep him alive …

  An outstanding feature of my experience during this operation was the truly marvellous fortitude of the men who were wounded. I can hardly remember one man complaining even though in great pain. I found one man in the front line about two days after the battle who had the lower part of his face shot away; the lower and upper jaws, nose and, I think, one eye had been destroyed. By signs he made me understand that he wanted a drink. It was literally impossible to decide where to put the water bottle. And yet he was on his feet attempting to seek help.

  Some of the greatest heroics of the entire battle were displayed by those rescuing the wounded. Many of the chaplains of the battalions of the 5th Division distinguished themselves during the rescues. Indeed, the padre of the 53rd Battalion, Father John Kennedy, was awarded the DSO and the padres of the 60th and the 54th Battalions, Father John Gilbert and the Reverend Spencer Maxted, each won the MC for their actions. (Another, Father Gerard Tucker, went on to be one of the founders of the Church of England’s esteemed charity, The Brotherhood of St Laurence, during the Great Depression.) The chaplains at Fromelles worked faithfully in the most dangerous conditions, in the front lines, helping to recover wounded from noman’s land, often as stretcher-bearers, tending the wounded and burying the dead. This melancholy duty was outlined in an official instruction from the Adjutant-General to the chaplains:

  Headstones at Rue Petillon Military Cemetery, showing some of the many nationalities who fell on the Western Front. Major Royal Harrison is one of 291 Australians who rest here. (PATRICK LINDSAY PHOTO)

  Bodies will be collected by the burying parties, the identification discs will be removed after all the particulars have been noted on a label supplied for the purpose and this label will be securely attached to the body. The chaplains or other conducting the funeral services will make a careful note of the names of those whom they bury in communal graves. Each grave will be marked by a piece of wood or anything suitab
le and on this will be written the Chaplain’s initials and a number. He will thus have a tally. Details would then be passed to Graves Registration Unit No. 1 Bailleul with a list of the men buried in the said grave.

  Sadly, the Reverend Maxted lost his life when hit by a stray shell after he had fallen asleep exhausted in the front line.

  The remarkable courage shown by so many of those who attacked on 19 July 1916 and those who helped to rescue the wounded in the following days was recognised by the number of bravery awards made to them. More than 200 men won medals. The Australian 5th Division won 11 Distinguished Service Orders, 46 Military Crosses, 35 Distinguished Conduct Medals, 50 Military Medals, 36 Mentions-in-Despatches and 15 foreign awards.

  Major Arthur Hutchinson, the young Duntroon graduate who had led his men of the 58th Battalion on their tragically futile charge against the Sugar Loaf after the main attack, was recommended by Pompey Elliott for a posthumous Victoria Cross:

  At Petillon on the night 19th/20th July 1916, Major Hutchinson displayed conspicuous and gallant leadership. On the evening of the 19th/20th July 1916, a message came from the 5th Division that the 61st Division on our right would renew the attack at 9 pm on the Sugar Loaf salient and notwithstanding that the previous attack by a battalion had manifestly failed, Major Hutchinson led the two companies of the 58th Battalion under his command in the most gallant manner under an appalling fire until he fell riddled with machine-gun bullets close to the German parapet. His life and the lives of his men were gallantly given in the hope of aiding the attack of the 61st Division, which unfortunately was not made.

  McCay supported the award but inexplicably the file is marked ‘no trace of award’. Some experts have suggested the slight that Pompey’s recommendation contained against the men of the British 61st Division may have led to the recommendation being buried in the higher echelons of power.

  Of the 496 Australians captured by the Germans during the Battle of Fromelles, 38 died of their wounds. The rest were marched back through Fromelles along the Aubers Ridge, first to Fournes and then on to Lille, where they were paraded before the townspeople as an exercise in propaganda. The prisoners were photographed by an officer of the Bavarian 16RIR, shortly after the battle and during the parade through Lille and its suburbs. The officer later gave the photos to an Australian POW, Captain Charles Mills of the 31st Battalion, who he had befriended when Mills acted as liaison between the POWs and their captives. Mills was released to Switzerland in late 1917 and returned with the Red Cross to Germany after the war trying to trace missing Australian POWs. He gave the photos to the Australian War Memorial.

  Australian prisoners, captured behind the German lines at Fromelles, waiting at a collecting station before being paraded through Lille and taken to captivity in Germany. (AWM PHOTO A01547)

  Disillusioned and bewildered Australian POWs march into a holding station on the morning after the Battle of Fromelles on their way to two years of captivity in Germany. (AWM PHOTO A01552)

  Australian POWs captured at Fromelles being paraded through the streets of Lille for propaganda purposes in the days after the battle. (AWM PHOTO C03112)

  The Fromelles POWs were transported to some of the 165 POW camps the Germans had created for their British captives. The Germans used many of their prisoners as forced labour in factories, in mines or on farms. During the war they captured around 2.5 million Allied servicemen and by 1917 they made up about 20 per cent of Germany’s adult male labour force. Most of the POWs from Fromelles were held in a range of camps, from Gutesloh, to Minden, to Dulmen and Sennelager.

  Many of the Diggers taken prisoner later reported that they were beaten in the early stages of their captivity, and some reported seeing comrades killed in the act of surrender. Most said that they found the German medical staff to be well-meaning and efficient and that their subsequent treatment was generally reasonable. The Red Cross maintained good relations with the Germans throughout the war and kept up a flow of food parcels to most prisoners, along with a postcard mail delivery.

  Later in the war, the Germans relieved themselves of the growing burden of caring for badly wounded POWs by establishing a system under which they transferred some to Switzerland. They were then repatriated to Britain.

  12

  THE COVER-UP

  I think the attack, although it failed, has done both divisions a

  great deal of good …

  GENERAL SIR RICHARD HAKING, AFTER FROMELLES, 1916

  The official communiqué after the attack, released by the British authorities, unbelievably, read:

  Yesterday evening, south of Armentières, we carried out some important raids on a front of two miles in which Australian troops took part. About 140 German prisoners were captured.

  The Australian newspapers duly reported the lie. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story, datelined 20 July and by-lined ‘From Captain C.E.W. Bean, Official Australian Press Representative, British Headquarters, France’. It serves as an excellent example of how Bean had to interweave facts with the ‘official’ line:

  Australian war correspondent and official historian, Charles Bean, in 1919. On 19 July 1916 Bean had been covering the Somme offensive when he heard about the disastrous Australian attack at Fromelles. He rushed there the day after the battle to report on the action. (AWM PHOTO P04340.004s)

  AUSTRALIANS ATTACK TRENCHES …

  TEMPORARY SUCCESS …

  TAKE 200 PRISONERS

  Yesterday evening, after a bombardment, an Australian force attacked the German trenches south of Armentières.

  The Australians on the left seized the German front lines, and passed beyond it to the further trenches on the first system. In the centre the Australians carried the whole of the German first system, and reached more or less open country. On the right, the troops had to cross a much wider stretch between the trenches, where the Germans held a very strongly held salient.

  The Germans were ready for the attack and had managed to save a number of machine guns from the bombardment. In spite of very brave efforts, the troops on this flank were unable to cross the ground between the trenches and only managed to reach the German trenches in isolated points. From these they were driven out.

  This enabled the Germans to concentrate the fire of all sorts of artillery on the portion of the trenches captured. The Germans battered down their own trenches where they were occupied by our men. They also turned water from a channel down the trench on the left flank, and the Australians there, after reaching the trenches, found themselves standing in water which was rapidly rising and waist high. They endured a tremendous bombardment until early the following morning, when, after eleven hours in the captured position, such Australians as retained the small remaining portion of the German line were ordered to retire.

  By dint of brave work, the engineers and infantry in the working parties had managed to get communication trenches completely through to the German trenches. These trenches were dug under very heavy shell fire. This work enabled the troops to carry out their retirement with a loss which is slight when the extraordinary difficulty of the operation is considered.

  Among the last who returned to our trenches were eight men who said they got lost behind the German trenches and had been wandering about till daylight in the country in the rear of the front line.

  Our troops, in this attack, had to face shell fire which was heavier and more continuous than was even known in Gallipoli. Many of them had never previously been tried. The manner in which they carried the operation through seems to have been worthy of all the traditions of Anzac. At least 200 prisoners were captured and several machine guns. Many Germans were killed. The losses amongst our troops engaged were severe.

  While the official British communiqué after the Battle of Fromelles lied about the action and its terrible casualties, calling it a ‘some important raids in which Australian troops took part’, the Germans, not surprisingly, were unabashed and reported the true position as picked up by the New Y
ork Times, which ran the story on its front page on 21 July 1916.

  Bean was apparently pleased to have got this report through the censor in Amiens. He wrote in his diary that he was happy to get away with calling the action an ‘attack’ and to have reported that our losses were ‘severe’. He made no mention of why he categorised the losses during the withdrawal as ‘slight’! But he noted that the censor would not let him refer to the bombardment as ‘intense’ because the British 1st Army objected to that description. In his notes he referred to the official communiqué which called the attack ‘an important series of trench raids’ and added:

  What is the use of deliberate lying like that? The Germans know it was an attack – they have numbers of our wounded as prisoners.

  The authorities added to the confusion and aided the cover-up by referring to the location of the action as variously ‘Fleurbaix’ (a neighbouring village where some of the Australian units were billeted), or ‘south of Armentières’, ‘Bois-Grenier’ or even ‘Laventie’ or ‘Petillon’ (also nearby villages). The Germans had no such reticence and always referred to it as Fromelles. The German communiqué after the battle was clear and accurate:

  The English attack in the region of Fromelles on Wednesday was carried out, as we have ascertained, by two strong divisions. The brave Bavarian Division against whose front the attack was made, counted on the ground in front of them more than 2,000 enemy corpses. We have brought in so far 481 prisoners, together with 16 machine guns.