Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Charles Bean, The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1917, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Volume 1V, p.340

Leading the survivors back to OG1 was Captain Allan Leane, nephew of the battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Leane. When they reached this trench, after having driven back the Germans, Leane realised that they were running out of ammunition and bombs. The only way now lay over the top of the trench, back through the wire and across no–man’s–land to the Australian lines. The badly wounded were made as comfortable as possible, a rearguard positioned to cover the withdrawal, and then Leane gave the order to leave. Many had given the 48th up for dead when an observer at the front line noticed men ‘quietly moving through the end of the wire, some of them looking back and talking’.

Charles Bean later wrote:

So, a full hour after every other battalion had left the trenches the 48th came out – under heavy rifle and machine gun fire, but with proud deliberation and studied nonchalance, at walking pace, picking their way through the broken wire … carefully helping the walking wounded, and with their officers bringing up the rear. Wherever Australians fought, that characteristic gait was noted by friend and enemy but never did it furnish such a spectacle as here. For ten minutes the attention of half the battlefield was held while, leisurely as a crowd leaving its daily work, the 48th drew clear.