Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

#1677 LAWRENCE Thomas Chalmer  52nd Infantry Battalion
 
Tom Lawrence was born in the Ipswich suburb of Bundamba to parents George and Ann Lawrence. Tom attended Bundamba State School. The family moved to Dallarnil to take up a farming block and Tom worked on the farm until his enlistment.
 
Tom presented himself for enlistment in Brisbane on 7th January 1916. He stated he was a single man, 26 years old living at Dallarnil. He also stated that he had attempted to enlist on a previous occasion but was rejected due to bad teeth. In all probability, Tom had his teeth extracted and was fitted with dentures; a common practice at the time. Tom named his mother, Ann, of Balgar Farm Dallarnil as his next of kin.
 
Tom reported to Enoggera the day of his enlistment and was placed into a depot battalion for initial training. On 26th March, Tom was allocated as part of the 2nd reinforcements for the 52nd Battalion which was being raised in Egypt as part of the doubling of the AIF. The reinforcements travelled to Sydney where they embarked for overseas on the “Mooltan”. The embarkation roll shows that Tom had allocated 4/- of his daily pay of 5/- to his mother.
 
The reinforcements landed in Egypt in May, by which time the 52nd Battalion with a full compliment of men had sailed for Marseilles and then on to the Western Front. Tom and the rest of the 2nd reinforcements remained with a training battalion at Tel el Kabir before boarding the “Franconia”, arriving in Plymouth on 16th June. Tom and the other reinforcements remained in the Brigade Training Battalion at Rollestone on Salisbury Plain while the 52nd battalion, as part of the 13th Brigade of the 4th Division AIF, faced its first major action at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm on the Somme.
 
On 2nd November 1916, Tom proceeded to join his battalion in France and was finally taken on strength on 13th November. The 4th Division spent the winter, the harshest in memory, in and out of the line around Flers and Buire. When not in the forward areas, the 52nd Battalion rotated through a syllabus of training, fatigue work and on rare occasions, visits to the divisional baths where clean underwear was exchanged and uniforms steamed to kill the body lice. The battalion war diary makes special mention of some billets at Bazentin in warm dry Nissen Huts, a recent invention of a Royal Engineers Officer, Captain Peter Nissen. The arrival of spring produced a big surprise for the Australians still holding the line near Bapaume and Flers; the Germans had gone. During the winter, the Germans had constructed a defensive line 140 kilometres long on higher ground to the east of their 1916 positions. It was named the Seigfreid Position but the English named it the Hindenburg Line. During February and March, the Germans began a tactical withdrawal to this new position.
 
The Australian forces cautiously followed the withdrawal until confronted by the Hindenburg defences around Lagnicourt and Bullecourt. On the 2nd April 1917, the 52nd Battalion was engaged in an attack at Noreuil. This would have been Tom’s first taste of action. The failure to breech the Hindenburg defences signalled the end of the AIF’s involvement on the Somme. All AIF forces were redeployed to the Ypres salient in Belgium to prepare for the opening of what would eventually become the 3rd Battle of Ypres; or more colloquially Passchendaele.
 
On the 7th June 1917, 19 underground mines were exploded simultaneously beneath the Messines Ridge just south of the ancient Flemish city of Ypres. Once the dust and smoke cleared, a general advance began against the few German positions that had not been knocked out by the explosions, which involved troops of the 3rd and 4th Divisions of the AIF. During this advance, Tom received a slight gunshot wound to his right leg. He was carried out of the line to a casualty clearing station near Poperinghe where the decision was made to transfer him by ambulance train to the Canadian Hospital at St Omer.
 
Within a month, Tom was back in the lines with the 52nd Battalion. The success of Messines allowed General Plumer to commence his advance from Ypres along the Menin Road towards the Gheluvelt plateau and the village of Passchendaele. The 52nd Battalion was involved in the attack at Menin Road in late September but Tom began a period of two week’s leave in England the day the attack began. When he returned to his battalion on 6th October (a day late for which he was admonished) the 52nd was about to go into the line once more. On 10th October, the 52nd began to move up to the front from the ramparts of the Ypres city wall towards the Broodseinde Ridge.
 
Throughout the summer and early autumn, the weather in Flanders had produced ideal conditions for the series of engagements that had brought the allied line to the Broodseinde Ridge. In the second week of October, just as the 4th Division was moving up to the line, heavy rain flooded the roads and tracks, turning them into seas of mud. Men and animals became bogged down, the duckboard tracks became slippery and men who fell off the track were unable to regain their footing due to the weight of equipment they carried. Artillery dragged into position by teams of mules sank into the mire after firing one salvo.
 
In these dreadful conditions, Tom and the men of the 52nd slogged their way to the frontline in front of the Tokio Spur and were in position for an attack on 15th October. The German artillery bombarded the position mercilessly with high explosive and mustard gas. Sometime during the day, Tom Lawrence was reported killed.
 
There is no record of his body being recovered or buried. Probably like so many others in the battle for Passchendaele, his body was buried by shell fire or blown to pieces. Tom’s mother received a small parcel of his belongings which comprised of a testament, photos, notebook and an Identity disc. Ann Lawrence, who by that time was a widow, was granted a widow’s pension of 2 pounds per fortnight. She was also the beneficiary of her son’s war gratuity and deferred pay and moved from Dallarnil to Pialba.
 
When memorials were being erected to the missing, Tom Lawrence’s name was added to the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres. The Menin Gate commemorates the 54,000 British and Dominion soldiers who lost their lives in Belgium and have no known grave.