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Anzac Day 2016
 
Battle of Fromelles  (France) World War One
 19/20th July 1916
 
Manilla RSL Sub Branch Oration
Researched, written and narrated
 by Elaine Bastion  (WRAAF 1955 -59)
 
It is 1pm on the 19th July 1916.  We are just south of a town in France, called Fromelles…it is a small country town …, comprising of 1000 men, women and children,  who work and assist the farming families in the area… growing,  packing and distributing fruit, vegetables and grain that thrives on the flat plains .
 
Fromelles is not far from the coast where the English Coast can, on a clear day,  be seen... Similarly as with the Somme 80 kilometres south… and Dunkirk to the north (famous in another war in another time)… vital positions for the enemy to hold and the allies need to neutralise
 
The Germans are at war with England, France, Russia and others (so therefore; we Australians and New Zealanders have volunteered (in our hundreds of thousands )  to help Britain and the Allies.
 
 The Germans have already been here for some two years and have dug and constructed three lines of trenches above and below ground bunkers ….and  communications/ supply lines   of such strength and engineering,  it would prove nearly impossible to breach these lines.
 
A major part of trench warfare includes long range artillery. They are some kilometres behind the trenches with the capabilities of firing shells …some the size of modern day car engines…these would explode on landing and leave huge craters and mangled bodies from shrapnel…  where they fell and exploded with enormous impact.
 
In front of the trenches are  tangles of barbed wire placed in such a fashion that the few areas left open are not obvious to those facing and running towards them.  But clear for the Germans to go forward into No Mans Land from their positions  if they need to .
 
It is also the time of the early machine guns. Both sides have them…but the Germans are able to position theirs on the high ground in protective thick walled bunkers, that not only fire front on at the Aussies heading towards them but from both flank positions of this  small battle area .
 
I want you to imagine…. that we are in Fromelles… and the dimensions i am giving you are the approximate dimensions of the known battle area near that lovely country town in France…Fromelles.
 
At each end on higher ground…say where our bridge is, high over our two rivers are at least  two German machine guns facing down Manilla street  (German border of no mans land)   nests of machine guns on my left at the park down on the corner of Court Street  (and imagine the park as the same height as our bridge)   and of course two  or more nests of machine guns facing down the towards the river. And certainly6 a lot flatter than our area.
 
The German water cooled Maxim machine guns are capable of firing 700 rounds (bullets) per minute (12 per second) and artillery shells falling at dozens per minute continuously throughout the day and night.
 
So this is our battlefield… the bridge on my right, the park on my left   and the length of two football fields behind me held by the Germans and similarly, two football fields in front of me down to the river.  This is no man’s land with the British line across the river…we have  15 thousand mostly inexperienced  Allied soldiers  entering their first battle …the remainder are  experienced from the Gallipoli and other campaigns, including our Major Sampson,  waiting for the orders to advance in a continuous wave upon wave of mostly Australians
 
 The orders are brutally clear “continue to send the fifteen thousand  troops until the Germans surrender or are dead..”  One British general assured the units” officers and men….. “with this artillery bombardment there will be few Germans waiting for you boys” ….  how wrong they were
 
The artillery of both sides has been going for 8 hours in the hope that they will be accurate enough to breach the barbed wire defenses, and even kill the troops waiting in the trenches for the order to advance  or defending. Both sides hope  at least to damage the machine guns and the supply and communication  areas. … the noise is horrific.
 
 it is a hot summers day,  a third of the British artillery have been “duds” …noisy. But having  faulty fuses.  and little damage has been inflicted on the Germans…and their position
 
But already at 1pm on this 19th day of July more than two hundred of our men are dead or injured without leaving their trenches. And no man’s land is no longer a flat plain. But full of craters and loose dirt impeding the advance of our troops. And because of the high water table…craters were filling with water and the ground becoming slushy; slippery;  and even more dangerous to traverse
 
The German generals by now have determined  from their own intelligence that the Britsh generals in charge of our battle are not serious in capturing this part of their front line.  But wanting to maybe trick the Germans into leaving the more important positions at the Somme to the south…  to fight the British and Australian troops here at Fromelles.  They were right it  is considered a “feint” operation not a full blown attack by the British generals .
 
 it is now 4pm on the afternoon of the 19th  of July and and in spite of the concerns of unit leaders and other senior Australian officers being sent back to  British headquarters  ….the order is given “ the attack will start at 6 pm” 
 
It is 6pm….. Our officers and NCO’s who had the experience  and knowledge from senior officers to determine what was about to happen …. Heroically lead the attack … encouraging their men who by now were absolutely terrified by the noise and the stench and the mud and the already dead and dying…into no man’s land and what becomes  officially called and is still  known to this day…as….”The most disastrous day in Australia’s history”  continues overnight to run it’s inevitable  ill-fated course.
 
 with the summer sun not due to set till 9.30.pm and our troops having to run and stumble through   no man’s land facing that brilliant setting sun trying to avoid thousands of bullets continuously  flying around them …….and the Germans continuing to fire heavy artillery , throwing hand grenades……their  snipers picking out the officers and NCO’s ….the shouted orders , the screams and cries  of the wounded and whistles blowing, and bugles playing so they could be heard above the  incredible noise…..the night passes..
 
By 8am even the units that had made inroads into enemy territory were forced and finally ordered to retreat back to where they started….the germans  hardly needed to leave their well-fortified bunkers and trenches. …content to just mow down their enemy as they headed towards them.
 
It is officially recorded that neither side gained any advantage on that dreadful day and night …. the British lost 1547 killed or wounded while the German casualties totaled less than 1500. 
 
It is now 10am on Thursday 20th July following Roll Call… and in this area i have described as approximately the same size of the Fromelles battlefield including both German and British lines. ……Lay… dead or dying …..five thousand five hundred and thirty three Australians …..178 officers and 5355 men of other ranks…
 
This is more than the combined total of all Australian losses in the Boer, Korean and Vietnam wars.    This number remains “the most Australians killed in any single battle”….and all in less than 24 hours. In  a few farming fields in France.
 
Major Sampson’s 53rd battalion lost more than 500 diggers and 20 officers……some walking wounded and uninjured were captured and ultimately sent to German prison of war camps as were some 400 others  from the total 8th division during this battle. And released when war was declared over in November 1918
 
Let me introduce Major Sampson  born  in Upper Manilla in the year 1888…son of  Burton and Catherine …teachers working in the  Manilla  district and  included in this well researched and published book  “Manilla’s Men in Marble” by the Manilla Historical Society
 
As a child ,  Victor Horatio Buller Sampson,  would have ridden his horse over this bridge, fished in the rivers and local creeks, went to school, played with his friends  and as an adult he was educated to university standard and at the time of his enlistment worked as a clerk with the AMP Society……he also had a sweetheart named Marie White of Grafton…whose letters to the War Office are heart rending reading.
 
The earliest military record i could find for f Victor ….is on a nominal role of the Ctizen Forces.  In 1906,  he was a Lance Corporal applying for an Officers Course .
 
He obviously had joined them at about age 18 and in 1914 when war was declared and because the charter of the early CMF stated they could not be sent overseas…he was discharged then (transferred) to the the Australian Naval and Military  Expeditionary Forces  and went to the first significant Australian action of the  First World War with  that unit… landing on Rabaul on 11 September 1914.
 
The ANMEF took possession of German New Guinea at Toma on 17 September 1914 and of the neighbouring islands of the Bismarck archipelago in October 1914.
 
He returned to Melbourne as a Lieutenant and from there sailed to Egypt. After serving approximately 6 months in Gallipoli …he returned to Cairo promoted to Major and transferred to the 53rd  Infantry Battalion, 5th Division AIF.
 
Due to his service in Gallipoli , Major Sampson was earlier declared unfit to go to the Western Front and was ordered to be sent back to Australia from Cairo.… Time went by and there were no available berths to send him home in  so he was re assessed as ‘fit for duty” and  sent with his battalion to Fromelles in early July 1916.. How fickle is fate!
 
An experienced,  well liked officer of just 27 years of age when he went over the parapet on July 19th just after 6pm…..and was shot a number of times just  ten metres short of the  1st German trench line  between 6.30 and 7 pm…. 
 
A statement by Cpl J.T James   in part read….” He  (the Major)  was wounded very badly about the body. He said ‘help me in boys and i will try and throw a few bombs” … his body wasn’t found until the well publicised search for the “missing men from Fromelles” this century…and the finding of three German burial pits  with hundreds of Australians and British soldiers buried by a German burial unit with obvious identities sent to the German Red Cross.…for later identification. Major Sampson was declared “Killed in Action”
 
And with the help of forensic archaeology and DNA testing, Victor’s body was finally  identified and re buried in the only completely filled with  Australians war cemetery in Europe…  on  the land he died on…donated by the farm owner “for the soldiers” 
 
Too late for his parents and immediate family at the time to mourn and his sweetheart, Marie to console them that he had really died on the battle field …because  his body had been lost for ninety years… but now lays at rest identified and finally with  some dignity along side his mates  (some still not identified) near Fromelles
 
During my research for this oration i stumbled across a warrior who has a descendant living today in Manilla… killed in action at Fromelles …Lieutenant Eric Harding Chinner -   great uncle of Karel Saint who I am certain is here today in honour of more than one relative lost from her family during the 1914 - 18 “WAR TO END ALL WARS!”
 
And I found mentions of a Doctor from Manilla who was part of the the 8th Division.  The regimental medical officer of the 57th battalion on the day and tended the wounded from this battle ………a Dr Hugh Rayson of Manilla NSW who  wrote to the official medical historian.
 
“during the next week …wounded continued to come down as a result of the battle of the 19th/20th July:  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 to 10 days after the battle…… he went on… “I found one man in the front line about two days after the battle who had the lower part of his face shot away….so badly wounded… one wondered where to put his water bottle for a drink…he was not complaining… none of them complained no matter how dreadful their wounds….…he was on his feet attempting to seek help and to help others.”
 
Some of the greatest heroics of the entire war were displayed by those attempting (and some being killed or wounded during their efforts) ……to rescue the wounded …. the area remains under fire  for days later from the German weapons: regardless of the fact, that it was obvious the soldiers were trying to rescue the wounded.. and bury the dead.
 
Such is the barbarity of warfare.
 
Finally on this Anzac day 2016,  I leave you  with the comforting knowledge ….the town of Fromelles’s citizens  continue to care for …and will continue to care….for our fallen in a field near their town…..
 
Victor Horatio Buller Sampson
(Major) AIF
5th Australian Division
14th Brigade
53rd Battalion
and all those resting with you
“LEST WE FORGET!”
 
 
 
bibliography:   Official  Australian, British and German War Records
53rd Battalion history and the ABC and Channel 9”s  “Missing Men from Fromelles”
A variety of searches on Google for German. French and British Army Historical Records
And especially the amazing book by Patrick Lindsay  - “Our Darkest Day”
“The tragic Battle of Fromelles and the Digger’s final Resting Place”
Manila historical Society “Men in Marble”

Contact details   Manila Express   John & Jane Martin 
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email: manxpres@bigpond.net.au
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