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Australia

John Thomas Ernest GENTLE was born in Rutherglen, Victoria in 1888

His parents were George GENTLE and Jane Ann SMITH who married in Rutherglen in 1877

From Francois Somme

Pte 101 John Thomas Ernest Gentle
25th  Infantry Battalion, A Company, 1st Platoon,
7th Brigade, 2nd Australian Division AIF
 
In the fields of the Somme, among the red poppies, thousands of brave men sleep in peace. Invisible but present, their voices are sometimes heard on what were, more than a hundred years ago, murderous battlefields, terrible slaughterhouses, open-air fields of death through which fought and fell so many poor souls who today, in peaceful and silent cemeteries, walk together solemnly in an eternal brotherhood which, in the trenches, brought them together and gave them the strength, the courage to go and face death above the parapets, in the reddened mud, going bravely and resolutely towards their destinies, towards the death which awaited them, whistling and buzzing through a relentless hail of bullets spat out by machine guns which, without respite, at an unimaginable rate, took, mowed down men so courageous then in the prime of their lives but who with exceptional bravery, for their country, for their loved ones, for us and our children, did more than their part, served with honor and gave their lives in the name of peace and freedom on these sacred grounds on which stand the tombs of these forever young heroes to whom we owe everything and over whom I am proud to watch to express my gratitude, my admiration, my eternal and deep respect towards them as well as towards their families who did and gave so much for France where today sleep among the eternal poppies, their sons who came from the four corners of the world, from Australia, from Great Britain, from Canada,and who in the Somme, became our boys who will always have a guardian to watch over them, to perpetuate their memory so that their names, in time and throughout the history of united peoples, can live forever.

On this day, it is with the utmost respect and with the deepest gratitude that I would like to honour the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys of the Somme who, for two brother nations, for Australia and France, for each of us, gave his life. I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 101 John Thomas Ernest Gentle who fought courageously in the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion, A Company, 1st Platoon, 7th Brigade, 2nd Australian Division of the Australian Imperial Force, and who died of his wounds 108 years ago, on 4th August 1916 at the age of 28 during the Battle of the Somme.

John Thomas Ernest Gentle was born in 1894 in Rutherglen, Victoria, Australia, and was the son of George Gentle (1855-1934) and Jane Anne Gentle (née Smith, 1857-1915), of Murphy Street, Rutherglen. He had one brother, William Harold Vivian Gentle (1881-1963) and five sisters, Ida May Gentle (1883-1944), Lilian Ismay Phyllis Gentle (1885-1976), Mabel Marion Isabel Gentle (1899-1986), Emily Maria Gentle (1879-1935) and Vivian "Viv" Gentle (1881-1968). After an education in which John showed great brilliance, he worked as a locomotive engine driver for the butter factory at Kyogle, New South Wales, until the outbreak of war.

At the start of the first world war, Australia was a nation of around four million people. This meant that there was a potential pool of around 820,000 men of "fighting age" (between 19 and 38).

Official recruitment for the Australian Expeditionary Force commenced in August 1914. With an initial commitment of 20,000 troops, the army was able to set a minimum height requirement of 5 feet 6 inches (168cm) and preference was given to those who had military experience. Australia would be sending its "best" examples of Australian men. By the end of the year over 50,000 had enlisted and thousands more had been rejected on medical grounds.

Many recruits worried that the fighting might be over before they arrived or that the German army would be a pushover. Posters and leaflets promised an opportunity to see England and Europe.

Driven forward by this hope of great adventure and by the burning desire to do his duty alongside his comrades, John answered the call and enlisted on 1 March 1915 at Lismore, New South Wales, as a Private in the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion, A Company, and then under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Paton. After a period of training of just over three months during which John learned the basics of modern warfare including bayonet fighting at Ennoggera, a suburb of Brisbane, he embarked with his unit from the port of Brisbane, on board HMAT A60 Aeneas on 29 June 1915 and sailed for Gallipoli via Egypt. On the Turkish peninsula, the 25th Battalion was, from their arrival on 4 September, mainly engaged in a defensive role until the complete evacuation in December and then proceeded to Greece where John and his unit arrived on 9 January 1916 at Mudros. Shortly afterwards they were sent to Egypt where a major re-structure of the AIF was undertaken and then embarked for France on 14 March 1916.

On 19th March 1916, after an uneventful voyage of less than a week across the Mediterranean Sea, John and the 25th Battalion arrived in France and were disembarked at Marseilles where they were warmly welcomed by the townspeople and the French soldiers they encountered and then marched to Sadi Camp where they bivouacked for a few then on 22nd March embarked by train for Morbecque which they reached on 24th March in heavy snowfall and were reviewed by General Douglas Haig on 27th March who complimented the courageous attitude displayed by the men of the 25th at Gallipoli but who, in a speech declared that the Germans were different from the Turkish soldiers and that the fighting which awaited the Diggers in France would be no walk in the park, to which the young Australian soldiers replied that they were real warriors who, a few months later, would be terribly tested by the deadliest battles on the Western Front. From March 29, the men of the 25th followed a period of training at Morbecque including musketry exercises and gas exercises then on April 4, marched to the trenches near Armentieres, a sector called "nursery" where Australian soldiers without combat experience acclimatized to the difficult conditions of trench warfare.

On 6th April 1916 the 25th left Armentieres and marched to the trenches at Rue Marle near Erquinghem-Lys, a relatively quiet section of the front line but still suffered from German artillery and sniper fire which caused some casualties in the battalion and then on 13th April, with only their slouch hats as protection, all the men of the 25th were issued with Brodie Mark 1 steel helmets which provided good protection against shrapnel shells which exploded in the air but were of little use against bullets. Over the next few days John and his comrades were mainly employed in repairing and improving their positions and then building numerous dugouts and fortified points protected by sandbags and armed with machine guns and for the first time, on 27th April, the battalion was targeted by a gas shell attack but luckily and thanks to their effective training against poison gas as well as the use of increasingly sophisticated gas masks, the men of the 25th suffered no casualties but the shock caused by the use of this new weapon was great then on 30th April they were relieved by the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) and marched in rest to the Ferme Du Beiz.
On 4th May 1916 the men of the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion left La Ferme Du Beiz and marched to the trenches at Armentieres from where they relieved the 27th Australian Infantry Battalion and during the following days John and his unit were sent on patrols over no man's land and were then employed in improving their positions but in this relatively quiet sector no major action was taken on either side of the front line except for a successful raid by the 25th during the day on 25th May against lightly defended German trenches and finally on 28th May marched into billets at La Chapelle-d'Armentieres for a brief rest period.

On 1st June 1916 the troops of the 25th Battalion moved back to Rue-Marle, in reserve where John and his comrades were employed in fatigue parties, improving trenches, digging communication trenches and laying telephone cables then a little over two weeks later moved to the front line at Messines where they relieved the 7th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment and this time, unlike at Armentieres, the Australians were constantly and heavily shelled but also suffered from snipers and machine gun fire which swept the no man's land day and night, added to this bad weather which transformed the trenches into cold muddy quagmires in which these young boys lived but who despite this suffering, held the line with great courage and had to daily, again and again, repair the parapets which collapsed under the shrapnel and then on June 27, worked to bring gas cylinders into the trenches which were to be used the next day during a successful raid on German positions led by Lieutenant Stewart who, with his men killed several of the enemy and captured 4 who were brought to the rear lines for interrogation.

On 1st July 1916, as the Big Push began in the Somme, John and the 25th Battalion moved to the "Red Lodge" sector, near Messines and fought bravely under relentless fire from the minenwerfers, then on 8th July, marched to Bailleul where they bivouacked until the following day. On 10th July they took to the road again and marched through St Omer, Strazeele, Ebblinghem and then on 12th July, arrived at Amiens, in the Somme, under the shadow of the cathedral in front of which the young Diggers marched and which they described as "the most majestic beauty of the Somme". Unfortunately, they had very little time to admire this artistic and architectural masterpiece which was built between 1220 and 1402 and which is still the most beautiful and largest cathedral in France. On 13th July, the men of the 25th Battalion reached Vaux-Sur-Somme where training and reorganisation of the battalion took place and it was during this time that John was now posted as a stretcher bearer.

Shortly afterwards on 25th July they moved to Warloy-Baillon, arriving at Brickfields near Albert on 26th July, bivouacked at Tara Hill on 27th July and the following day were thrown into a hell on earth called Pozieres which, for the battalion and for the whole of the Australian Imperial Force, was their deadliest battle on the Somme.

On 23 July 1916 the 1st Australian Division launched an operation that began Australia’s contribution to the great British offensive of that year, the Battle of the Somme. On that day, some three weeks after the Somme offensive began, the 1st Australian Division attacked the French village of Pozières. Two days later the entire village was in their hands.

Over the next six weeks, the three divisions of 1st Anzac Corps, the 1st, 2nd and 4th Australian Divisions battled their way along the high ground, securing the menacing OG Lines to the north-east of the village, and inching towards the fortified German strongpoint at Mouquet Farm. In the process, the Australians suffered some 23,000 casualties.

The most successful phase of the Battle of Pozières Ridge was its first. On 23 July 1916, the 1st Division of 1st Anzac Corps advanced under the cover of a lifting artillery barrage from a trench some 1500 yards to the south east of Pozières, to the south side of the Albert-Bapaume Road. Vicious hand-to-hand fighting ensured the capture of German strong posts in the houses, cellars and yards along the south-east edge of the village and Gibraltar, a significant strong point at the south-western edge of the village itself. Over the next two days, the Division was able to push through the main part of the village, which lay to the north-east of the road, and extensive fortifications to take possession of the entire village.

This first attack, while successful, failed to deal with the major German defences in the Pozières sector,the OG Lines. These heavily-defended trench lines were part of the German second line of defence on the Somme, and ran more or less parallel to the direction of the operation, that is, from the south-east to the north-west. When the 1st Division was relieved by the 2nd on 27 July 1916, the capture of the OG Lines became the highest priority. The 2nd Division took two attempts to capture these lines, struggling to make headway against uncut barbed-wire defences and German defenders who were well aware of the coming attack and well-armed with machine guns. It wasn’t until the second attack on 4 August that the division successfully captured the lines and secured the right flank of the Australian operations.

From this point on, the OG Lines were held more or less in a defensive capacity only, and the main focus of operations shifted to the north-west. The overall plan in the sector was to capture the ridge which swept away towards the village of Thiepval. The 4th Division, on its arrival to the line on 7 August 1916, began a complicated series of operations that inched the line towards Mouquet Farm, the major German defensive work between Pozières and Thiepval. Each of these operations was conducted on a small front with smaller objectives and achieved a slight modicum of success in advancing the line, but at a high cost in men and materiel. On its relief some nine days later, the 4th Division had advanced the line to within 600 yards of Mouquet Farm.

Each of the three Australian divisions returned to the front line once more before the 1st Anzac Corps was replaced in the line by the Canadian Corps. Even Charles Bean, with his determination to put as much detail into his Official History as possible, had to preface his chapters on what happened next with the statement "the series of battles which ensued, repeating as they did within a narrower area than most of the horrors of the Pozières fighting, cannot be described with the minuteness hitherto employed". The Australians never managed to capture Mouquet Farm, and in fact only directly assaulted the position twice. Their attacks slowly petered out before all three divisions were sent to Belgium to recover.

Although the Battle of the Somme is largely remembered for its major operations,1 July, 14 July, 15 September,the other 138 days comprised of small-scale, disjointed attacks just like those conducted by 1st Anzac Corps along Pozières Ridge. These operations were too often so rushed, disjointed and badly integrated with firepower that on most occasions they didn’t stand a decent chance of success. In too many cases the objective didn’t matter to the success of the overall campaign, instead attacks were launched on little more than the next trench, the next strongpoint, the next machine gun. Men struggled towards ill-defined objectives on a moonscape battlefield under an interminable hail of artillery shells and machine gun fire. In 1916, this was the war the infantry knew.

Mouquet Farm was not captured until 26 September 1916, long after it had been outflanked. On that day the 6th East Yorkshire Pioneer Battalion was working in the vicinity of the farm digging communication trenches. After a bomb fight lasting four hours, the small garrison of around 35 Germans gave themselves up. If Pozières Ridge was part of the battle that had to happen on the way to success, it was a costly path indeed.

Sadly it was on 4th August 1916, during the terrible Battle of Pozieres that John met his fate. On that fateful day, German artillery began a heavy bombardment of the Australian lines and John, with several of his comrades took shelter in a sap but a high explosive shell fell on their position and he was seriously wounded in the shoulder and head. He was immediately evacuated from the front line and admitted to the 5th Australian Field Ambulance where he died shortly afterwards. He was 28 years old.
Today, John Thomas Ernest Gentle rests in peace with his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at Becourt Military Cemetery, Becordel-Becourt, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "God is love. Good bye dear until the day dawns and shadows fly away."

The details of John's death are described in the Australian Red Cross Society Wounded And Missing Enquiry Bureau Files as follows:
"He was wounded badly by a shell as we were going up a sap into the front line to dig a jumping off sap,on about August 3rd. I was near him and was wounded by the same shell.I saw him carried away. I believe he died on the way to the dressing station. He was very badly wounded when I saw him. He belonged to 1st Platoon, A Company." (Private number 2104 Charles Andrews,25th Australian Infantry Battalion)."

"On the 3rd August 1916 we were in Pozieres and that night were going up a sap leading to the jumping off trench when Gentle and others were killed by the same shell.I was alongside him at the time doing duty as stretcher bearer.The Germans were shelling us very heavily at that time.I examined him and found him in a dying condition,his carotid artery having been cut.We lifted him out of the sap and placed him in the open and he died almost immediately after.I do not know where or when he was buried. I knew him well personally." (Private number 241 Thomas Stibbards, 25th Australian Infantry Battalion).

"At Pozieres I saw him hit by shrapnel jumping over.He was badly hit all over,was a stretcher bearer." (Private number 124 Joseph Paul Heber, 25th Australian Infantry Battalion).

John, young and brave, over a hundred years ago, under the skies of a distant past, you answered the call and stepped forward alongside your comrades who, proudly under their slouch hats, with one voice, with one momentum but carried by the whole Australian nation, enlisted to do their bit, to do what was right then, in the ports, facing one last time the banks of Fremantle, Brisbane, Adelaide, after one last embrace, one last farewell, after one last kiss on the tear-soaked cheeks of their wives, their mothers, their sisters, clutching for the last time the trembling and firm hands of their fathers, they turned and embarked on slow steamers towards an unknown destination, towards a world at war and there, together alongside their comrades on the decks of these ocean liners, their hearts heavy but proud, trying to hold back their emotions and sadness, in a final gesture said goodbye to the sweet and warm country that had seen them born and that had offered them so much during their youth under the southern cross. With a dull noise, the propellers pushed forward these steel giants that carried under their chimneys, so many young men with their hopes and dreams, who were reassured in their brotherhood and made them smile again because they were not alone. At the call of duty, they left alongside their friends, their brothers, school and factory comrades, mates who worked together in the fields and who, under the bells of war, rushed to wear the uniform in a deep bond, which, on the battlefields, became even stronger. Of life, they had known only the joys, the innocence, the happiness of a home, the sweetness of their families, the tenderness of a love born in the arms of young women that they had to leave to defend everything they loved but, on the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, they also began to wonder how many of them would return home, how many would be killed or mutilated far from home but, very quickly, these questions gave way to their deep desire to fight in the name of values ​​and causes. In endless line, from the ports of Le Havre and Marseille, they were disembarked and very quickly, alongside horses, mules, left for the front line and admired with astonishment the calm and beauty of the landscapes of the south of France then spared by the war. They walked through orchards, wheat fields, poppies with sweet scents then discovered the hospitality of the French people, the charm of young women, the curiosity of children and the gratitude of men who already said in 1916, with emotion this word which remained engraved in the hearts of the Diggers "Thank you". These words, this admiration, this love of the French people for the Australians, guided the steps of the cobbers with faith and confidence towards the battlefields of the north of France but discovered in Pozieres, a hell of blood, guts, steel and flames in which they fought fiercely beyond the limits endured under rains of shells and hail of shrapnel which mowed down the ranks of the young but strong Australian Imperial Force.All over the Somme, at Mouquet Farm, Bazentin, Flers, Gueudecourt, Villers-bretonneux and here in Amiens, Australian soldiers fought with the utmost bravery. Always in the trenches, forward on the front line, they were always among the first to go over the top and were admired for their determination under fire but also for their endurance, their perseverance, their strength and also for their solidarity and their sense of humor. These qualities, in the ANZAC spirit, were their salvation, their courage and found in each other the strength to hold on and go to the battlefield because in the face of death that awaited, nothing was stronger than the camaraderie of these men who together, until the peace of November 1918, fought and fell in our sacred fields of the Somme above which still float high and proud in the wind the colors of Australia whose sons rest today in peace in the cemeteries of our villages but they will never be alone and they will never be forgotten because like many others before me, I proudly watch over them who became our sons and for whom I would give until the last breath of my life to honor and perpetuate their memory that many others after me will continue to keep alive so that the Australians, my boys of the Somme and the ANZAC spirit can live forever.

Thank you so much John, for all you did and gave for my country whose love and gratitude will forever be yours beyond the sacred poppies.At the going down of the sun and in the Morning,we will remember him, we will remember them.