Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

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# 5749 RUSSELL Sidney Leigh             25th Battalion
 
Sid Russell was born at Helidon to parents Thomas and Charlotte. He attended school at Helidon and then worked on the family farm. The prospect of good farming land in the South Burnett lured the Russell family to move to Mondure, outside Wondai where Sid and his younger brother Edwin assisted their father on the farm.
 
Sid travelled to Brisbane on 4th February 1916 to enlist. He informed the recruiting officer that he was 21 years old and gave his occupation as farmer. Sid was placed in a depot battalion at Enoggera before being allocated as a reinforcement for the 15th Battalion. On 4th May, the 18th reinforcements for the 15th Battalion boarded the “Seang Choon” in Brisbane. Sid arrived in Egypt on 25th June 1916. Most of the expanded AIF had already left Egypt for France and units were up to full strength, with no need for reinforcements.
 
Sid and the rest of the 15th battalion reinforcements stayed in camp in Egypt for six weeks before boarding a ship at Alexandria that would take them to the 7th Brigade Training Battalion at Codford on Salisbury Plain, England. During the stay at Codford, Sid overstayed a period of leave and was given 9 days detention in the guardhouse. On 4th December, Sid and a number of reinforcements boarded a ferry at Folkstone for the short journey across the English Channel to France. While at the Australian base at Etaples, Sid was transferred to the 25th Battalion. He may have requested this transfer to be in the same unit as his brother Edwin who had enlisted in August 1915, but Edwin had transferred out of the 25th to be in the 2nd Pioneers. On 5th February 1917, a year and a day since enlisting in Brisbane, Sid was taken on strength by the 25thBattalion and placed in “C” Company.
 
The 25th was part of the 7th brigade of the 2nd Division AIF. It had seen action at Gallipoli in 1915 and then suffered greatly in the Somme campaign of 1916 at Pozieres and Flers. When Sid marched into the battalion lines, the 25th was performing fatigue work around Le Sars, some distance from the front. As spring approached, it became apparent to the British command that the Germans had constructed a heavily defended line, which became known as the Hindenburg Line, some distance to the east of the then front line. A gradual German withdrawal to this new position forced the British forces to cautiously follow; keeping contact with the enemy. The 7th Brigade of the AIF was involved in this advance and by the end of May had come up against the Hindenburg Outpost Line at Noreuil and Lagnicourt.
 
A large offensive was planned for the sector and the 25th was withdrawn from the front to train and refit for the coming battle. The first attempt to breakthrough the Hindenburg Line was made of the 11th April at Bullecourt. The plan was changed late in the day and British divisions and the Australian 4th Division were left lying out in the snow waiting for tank support, which never arrived. Casualties were enormous.
 
Not put off by the shambles at 1st Bullecourt, a further assault was planned involving 14 divisions (mainly British conscripts) along a 16 mile front. The 25th Battalion, was to support the other three battalions in the 7th Brigade. An assault on 30th April was easily repulsed and the 25th moved up to the frontline to relieve some of the exhausted companies. On 3rd May, another attempt was planned but wiser heads suggested that perhaps a small party, say a platoon or two, should be sent out to test the defences before committing the entire force. Two platoons from “C” Company moved out from a sunken road at 8:00am on 3rd May. According to the 25th Battalion history, the men were subjected to heavy fire and almost all of the men in the first wave were cut down.
 
Men were forced to shelter in shell holes. Some survivors were seen running back to their own lines but over half of the men from those two platoons did not make it back. Total casualties were 27 killed and 136 wounded. One of those listed as killed was Sidney Russell. It is most likely that he fell somewhere out in no man’s land and there was no hope of his body being recovered for burial.
 
Sidney Russell is commemorated on the stone tablets of the Australian National Memorial to the Missing at Villers Bretonneux. He is one of over 10,000 Australians who fell in France during the Great War and have no known grave.