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Small Farm Warriors
G S Willmott
Contents
1. Onward Christian Soldiers
2. Why do They Call it Gibraltar?
3. Moo Cow Farm
4. 1916 - Not a Very Good Year
5. 1917 - Not Much Better
6. The Third Battle of Wipers
7. Arras
8. Hit The Road Jack
9a. 1918
9b. Bloody Bewdy the War’s Over
10. A French Experience
11a. Going Home
11b. Gee It’s Good to be Back Home
12. How About Them Apples?
13. Where in the Hell is El Arish?
14. To Go Where no Other Sheep has Gone Before
15. Cane Fields are Burning
16. She’ll be Apples
17. I’d Rather Have a Full Bottle in Front of Me
18. Almost everything comes from nothing
19. The Great Emu War
20. I’m Not a Lumberjack and That’s OK
21. Here We Go Again
22. Hit the Track Jack
23. Against all the Odds
24. The Gentle Art of Persuasion
25. I Still Call Australia Home
26. Apprentice Farmers
27. Success or Failure?
Bibliography
Onward Christian Soldiers
Chapter 1
A group of Australian Diggers sat beside the Albert-Bapaume Road, having marched from Albert that morning.
George Harris was the quasi-leader of the group of six friends who had survived the hell of Gallipoli, the oppressive heat of Cairo and German artillery so far. Now, they were on their way to who knows where.
‘Hey George, have you got any fucking idea where we’re going?’ asked Sam Wilson.
‘No fucking idea, mate, but I can guess it’s not a luxury chateaux with a swimming pool and beautiful woman serving up ice-cold beers.’
‘That’s a shame. I think that’d be rather pleasant, better than the old rat- infested barn they billeted us in at Albert.’
‘Isn’t that the bloody truth. Speaking of Albert, wasn’t that bloody church weird. The Virgin Mary leaning like that, she must have got a fucking good hit from the Krauts.’
‘Yeah, don’t know how she hangs on.’
‘Divine intervention if you ask me, cobber, she defies the laws of gravity.’
The boys had about forty minutes rest, having marched for the previous three hours in full pack. It was now time to march again. Sergeant Tim Warburton was moving along the row of diggers, ordering them to get off their arses and onto their feet, ready for the next stage of the march. One digger, Mick Dwyer, protested in jest that he needed a longer break.
‘Come on, Sergeant, can’t we have another fifteen minutes? We’re buggered.’
‘No; you fucking can’t. I don’t know why you’re complaining. you’ll probably be dead in an hour or so. Get up and fall into line.’
Once the five hundred men of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Division of the Australian Imperial Force were in formation, they headed off to hell, not that they were sure where this particular hell was.
The hell was the village of Pozières or rather their objective was to capture the village. They had another day’s march before reaching their target. They would be footsore and weary when they arrived to fight one of the most intense and costly battles fought by the Australians on the Western Front.
George recounted his experiences in a diary.
‘We came across some Tommy units returning for a rest. They waved as they marched back into Albert. I think the wave meant “go get em sucker”. Quite a number of the Brits were wearing German helmets, which they had got as war trophies. We were halted on a grassy patch, with a number of other Australian units, at a place where there was a low ridge between the firing line and us. It was a pretty spot, blazing with red poppies, and sprinkled with the blue and yellow of other flowers.
There was a lot of traffic on the roads, including vehicles of all kinds, limbers, transports, handcarts, guns, and traction engines, besides horses and troops. A couple of big naval guns a few hundred yards behind us opened up once and fired a few shells back over our heads. They were fucking loud, shooting a blinding flash as they fired. There were other guns about firing occasionally also. We scored a mug of tea from a Tommy travelling kitchen nearby, God bless them.
A couple of huge 9-inch guns came along, drawn by large traction engines with caterpillar wheels. That’ll put the wind up the Krauts.
At about roughly 10.30p.m. the Machine Gun Section got a move on, the other units having all proceeded towards the front. Eventually, we arrived at our destination if you could call it that… but at least we could rest for a while before the attack.
We had just got comfy when we were ordered to get up and get into formation. Apparently, we had been marching down the wrong fucking road. God help us if our officers can’t even work out what road we’re meant to be on.’
As they marched, Bluey Herbert started up, Waltzing Matilda, and soon the whole battalion joined in, singing their unofficial national anthem. Once they had all sung their favourite song half a dozen times or so Jimmy Wallis started up the derivative;
Fighting the Kaiser, fighting the Kaiser,
Who'll come a-fighting the Kaiser with me?
And we'll drink all his beer,
And eat up all his sausages,
Who'll come a fighting the Kaiser with me!
Albert Grimshaw, one of the band of six, yelled out at the top of his voice, ‘German bomber nine o’clock!’
Everybody around him jumped into the drain running beside the road. Soon the message was relayed to the entire battalion and men were jumping into the drain on either side of the road. The AEG G.IV came in low and dropped bombs along their lines, killing eight diggers with the first pass. One of those killed was young Mick Dwyer. The irony!
The noise was enormous but worse was the sight of arms, legs, and heads flying through the air.
The bomber did a wide turn and headed back, dropping several bombs, following the road to the point where the first soldiers in the line were cowering in the ditch. Thirty diggers lost their lives that day, but there was much worse to come.
