Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From François Berthout

Pte 2798 Richard George Edwards 
42nd Australian Infantry Battalion,
11th Brigade, 3rd Australian Division

Today a new spring sun rises over the old battlefields of the Somme and spreads its rays through the poppies to set in the light of remembrance the names and lives of a whole generation of young men who stand solemn and proud alongside their pals and brothers in arms with whom they shared hopes and doubts in the trenches and with whom they fought and served with pride and devotion in the mud of northern France.In the prime of their lives, these young men came together to face their destinies and answered the call of duty for their country and walked side by side under fire in the name of peace and freedom for which they gave their today and their lives in the barbed wire.We don't know them all but we owe each and every one of them so much.Gone but not forgotten, their memory will never fade and I will always watch over them with respect to honor their memory, to bring them back to life so that their names and faces will live on forever.

Today, it is with the utmost respect and with the deepest gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys of the Somme who gave his today for our tomorrow.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 2798 Richard George Edwards who fought in the 42nd Australian Infantry Battalion, 11th Brigade, 3rd Australian Division, and who was killed in action 104 years ago, on April 17, 1918 at the age of 24 on the Somme front.

Richard George Edwards was born in 1894 in Kuraby, Queensland, and was the son of William and Agnes Sarah Edwards, of Rosedale, Coopers Plains, South Coast Line, Queensland. He was educated at Coopers Plains State School, and after graduation worked as a Carter and lived in Sunnybank, Queensland.

Richard enlisted on October 31, 1916 in Brisbane, Queensland, in the 42nd Australian Infantry Battalion, 6th Reinforcement. Due to sharing its numerical designation with the famous Scottish regiment "The Black Watch", the battalion became known as the "Australian Black Watch" whose the motto was "Cede Nullis" (Yield To None) and under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Woolcock. After a training period of just under a month and a half at Thompson's Paddock, Brisbane, Richard embarked with his unit from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A64 Demosthenes on 23 December 1916 and sailed for England.

Two months after boarding the Demosthenes, on February 8, 1917, Richard fell slightly ill and was treated at the hospital at sea from which he was discharged on February 13 and the following month, on March 3, he arrived in England and was disembarked at Plymouth. A few days later, on March 6, he joined the 11th Training Battalion and completed his training on Salisbury Plain then three months later, on June 25, he embarked with the 42nd Battalion from Southampton and proceeded overseas for France.

On June 26, 1917, Richard arrived in France and was disembarked at Rouelles, near Le Havre and joined the 3rd Australian Divisional Base Depot. On July 11, he marched out to unit and was taken on strength on July 13 with the 42nd Battalion at Messines ,Belgium,into Billets where they remained until the end of the month then on August 1st, they marched for La Douve Camp in very wet weather, joined "Woodlands" on August 4th and "Waterlands Farm" on August 8th where the men followed training exercises and were employed in working parties until August 21. The next day, they were sent by train to Remilly-Wirquin, Pas-De-Calais where they remained until September 24.

On September 25, 1917, Richard and the men of the 42nd Battalion were sent to Blaringhem, Hauts-De-France then marched for Eecke the next day and arrived in Poperinghe, Belgium on September 27 and three days later, the battalion prepared for an offensive at Broodseinde, east of Ypres then fought at Passchendaele on October 12 where it sustained heavy casualties, mainly due to German gas attacks. On October 21, after fierce fighting, the 42nd Australian Infantry Battalion was relieved by the 50th Canadian Infantry Battalion and moved back to Remilly-Wirquin where they remained until November 11.

On November 12, 1917, the 42nd Battalion marched for Boeseghem, joined La Becque the next day then Kortepyp, Belgium on November 15 and had a support role between the Lys river and the Douve river then followed a training period which ended on the 6 December then left Belgium for Tilques, near St Omer, Pas-De-Calais on December 7 where the men followed musketry exercises and sports exercises and on December 16 marched for Locre then for Bois-Grenier on December 20 where they relieved the 16th Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in two positions known as "Park Row" and "Pear Tree" and had the support of the 44th Australian Infantry Battalion to hold the line on this sector of the front in trenches "in good condition" and fought in this sector until December 30 and then the next day, were sent to rest at "Birr Barracks Camp 2" in Locre where they remained until January 26, 1918.

On January 27, 1918, Richard and the 42nd Battalion marched to Kortepyp Camp and then to Ingersoll Camp the next day where the men were mainly employed in working parties until February 4. The next day they were sent to Pont Rouge and moved back to the Ingeroll Camp on February 14 before returning to the Pont Rouge front line on February 22 where they remained until March 4 and then the next day marched to Kortepyp Camp B.

On March 6, 1918, Richard was granted a furlough in England and returned to his unit on March 23 in Steenvoorde but two days before, the German army launched its spring offensive, the last offensive to break through the Allied front with the first objective to take the railway junction of Amiens and on April 1, the 42nd Battalion was sent to the Somme to stop the Germans.

On April 1, 1918, Richard and the 42nd Australian Infantry Battalion arrived in the Somme and were immediately sent to the front line at Sailly-Le-Sec, near the Somme River and faced very active German artillery.Unfortunately, it was in Sailly-Le-Sec that Richard met his fate on April 17 and was killed by a shell, he was 24 years old.

Today, Richard George Edwards rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at the Bonnay Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "God takes the loved ones from our side but never from our hearts."

Richard George Edwards had a brother who also fought in the Great War, his name was William Thomas Edwards, Service Number 25435, 3rd Field Artillery Brigade, Australian Field Artillery. William survived the war and returned to Australia on April 3, 1919.

Richard, It was with the utmost determination and in the prime of your life that you stepped forward to answer the call of duty under the rising sun to join your comrades and friends alongside your brother William to serve your country overseas, on the soils of Belgium and northern France, in the fields of wheat and poppies through which the voices and songs of thousands of young men were heard and whose steps were guided behind the bugles and bagpipes and who, side by side, moved forward with faith and confidence alongside the men they had grown up with and who, in the trenches and the mud, united in the finest spirit of camaraderie became brothers in arms who shared the sufferings and the pains, the doubts and the hopes, the fears and the dreams for the future towards which they turned their eyes and their hearts to face the fear of tomorrow which stood in front of them beyond the barbed wire of the battlefields on which thousands of them were already lying lifeless who were mowed down mercilessly under the fire of machine guns which, one bullet after another, broke waves of heroic men whose uniforms turned red and who in the fury and chaos shed their blood in the name of peace and freedom for which they fought and gave their lives.Together, they found in fraternity the strength and the courage to stand up under their steel helmets and fought with perseverance for peace to prevail and for this carnage to stop. They left behind their childhood, their youth, the love and warmth of their homes to experience something they thought would be the greatest adventure of their lives but in the Somme, through hurricanes of fire and rains of screaming metal they found death and despair of a world that was consumed in flames and sunk into the madness of a senseless war but these young men fought for what was right, they endured the horrors and terrors of war which they bore like a burden on their young but strong shoulders and never backing down, step by step through mud and blood they moved forward through the lifeless bodies of men and horses and looked ahead because they knew that on their courage and their deeds depended the future of the world.Under the shells and hail of lead they showed the determination and the bravery of a whole generation of heroes who gave their all and who endured hell on earth without ever complaining and who, together, wrote history in letters of gold and whose memory, strong and alive will always be maintained and preserved so that who they were and what they did for us will never be forgotten.Young forever, their generation always stands proud and solemn in front of us towards whom they extend their hands as an unbreakable link between the past and the present to build the future without ever forgetting what we owe to them because peace in which we live was paid for by the courage and the sacrifices of each one of them on which I am proud and honored to watch over and for whom I would give my today to bring them back to life, to tell and share their stories so that their memory never fades, so they live proudly forever in the light of remembrance. Thank you so much Richard, for everything.At the going down of the sun and in the morning,we will remember him,we will remember them.