Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

 
Robert Gibbs was born in Maryborough but by the time he was old enough to attend school the family had moved to Muan Siding near Degilbo where Robert attended school. Robert, who was 22 years old, and his younger brother Oliver attended the Brisbane recruiting depot on 21st September 1915. It is possible that a third brother, Edward, also attempted to enlist that day but he was rejected due to bad teeth.
 
Robert presented as an excellent recruit, being 6’3” tall and weighing almost 170 pounds. Robert gave his home address as “Hopewell” Muan Siding, Gayndah Line and named his father, Thomas, of the same address as his next of kin. Robert gave his occupation as labourer but his father when completing the Roll of Honour Circular stated Robert’s occupation as selector.
 
Once accepted into the AIF, Robert went into a depot battalion at Enoggera before being allotted as a general reinforcement for the Field Artillery. On 12th April 1916, he was posted to the 9th Field Artillery as a gunner and travelled by train to the artillery school at Marrickville on the outskirts of Sydney. On 11th May, the gunners and drivers boarded the “Argyllshire” in Sydney for the voyage to England, arriving at Portsmouth on 24th April. Robert spent the next five months in training on Salisbury Plain.
 
Field Artillery in the AIF consisted of 18 pounder quick firing guns and 4.5” howitzers. Both types of guns were designed to be deployed on the battlefield within range of the enemy trenches and were drawn by a team of six horses or mules (in the case of the heavier howitzers) supported by a supply train system which delivered ammunition from the dumps beside the rail lines to the forward areas in horse drawn wagons (an ammunition column). Each gun required a team of between six and eight men to manoeuvre the gun into position, load, aim and fire and a deal of practice was required to get a gun team up to the required level of skill and rate of fire.
 
Robert was finally posted to join a gun crew in the 9th Field artillery on 30th December 1916 but he had only got as far as Havre on the French Coast before he was hospitalised with mumps. When he was discharged, Robert was transferred to the 8th Field Artillery but he was soon back at Havre with a recurrence of mumps.
 
After his second bout of mumps, Robert was given more time to recover. Upon discharge, he was then posted to the 3rd Division Ammunition Column on 23rd March. The 3rd Division of the AIF had been raised and trained in England throughout 1916. The Divisional Commander, Major General John Monash, was determined that with such a long period of training, his troops would be at the peak of fitness and readiness when they were finally deployed to the front during the winter of 1916/17. The 3rd Division was deployed to the front in the vicinity of the French Belgian border and engaged in preparation for a massive assault against the German defences along the Messines Ridge. The plan for the assault called for the firing of over three million artillery shells and units such as the Ammunition Column laboured for months to build up the stockpiles required.
 
The Battle of Messines began on 7th June 1917 with the blowing of 19 underground mines beneath Messines Ridge, followed by infantry advances under the cover of creeping artillery barrages. On 7th July, Robert was posted back to an artillery battery; this time the 107th Howitzer Battery attached to the 7th Field Artillery. His time with the gunners was short lived as four days after being posted, Robert was again in hospital; this time with appendicitis.
Robert spent 17 days in hospitals at Rouen and Boulogne before being posted back to the 107th Battery.
 
By the latter half of 1917, the science of artillery fire had progressed considerably from the days of 1914 and 1915. The use of howitzers which fired a shell in a high parabolic arc allowed for hidden targets on the reverse slopes of hills to be engaged. Advances in range detection using sound or flash provided targeting information that was quite accurate. In the Messines sector, the British and German gunners targeted each other’s guns in what was referred to as counter battery fire, making the lot of a gun crew rather exposed.
 
Ten days after arriving back in the gun lines at Ploegsteert from hospital, Robert Gunn was hit in the head by shell fragments during an artillery exchange. Reports from witnesses state that he died instantly on 10thAugust 1917. Robert was buried at Kandahar Farm Cemetery to the rear of Ploegsteert. Thomas Gibbs chose the following inscription for Robert’s headstone:  THY WILL BE DONE O LORD.