Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 4163  LEE Bertram (Bert) Fraser                  25th Battalion
 
Bert Lee was born on 1st April 1875. Bert’s brother, John, when completing the Roll of Honour Circular stated that Bert had been born at Nanango and attended Nanango State School. Bert informed the recruiting officer he had been born in Gayndah. Bert was one of six sons born to Archibald and Margaret Lee and the Lee family were engaged in farming in the Nanango district.
 
Prior to enlistment, Bert was working as a clerk and book keeper on a property managed by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company, a British investment and brokerage company. Given Bert’s name appearing on the Clermont War Memorial, it is likely that the property he was employed at was in the Clermont district. Bert’s brother Francis was employed by the same company in its Brisbane offices.
 
Bert journeyed from Clermont to Rockhampton by train to enlist on 13th September 1915. He informed the recruiting officer he was 38 years old and was employed as a book keeper. Bert named his father Archibald Lee of the Brisbane suburb of Toowong as next of kin. After passing the medical, Bert was issued with travel warrants to report to Enoggera Camp in Brisbane. Bert spent some time at Enoggera in a depot battalion and it is likely that he was granted a period of pre-embarkation leave to journey to Nanango to see family and friends before departing for overseas.
 
Bert, as one of the 10th reinforcements for the 25th Battalion boarded the “Commonwealth” in Brisbane on 28th March 1916. The embarkation roll shows that Bert had allocated 4/- of his 5/- daily pay to either a bank account in his name or his parents. The reinforcements landed at Suez in late April and went into temporary training in one of the AIF camps dotted along the Suez Canal. The 25th Battalion was at that time already on the Western Front and in late May, the reinforcements boarded a transport ship for the crossing of the Mediterranean to Marseilles and from then on to the large British depot at Etaples.
 
 
On 1st July 1916, General Douglas Haig, Commander of the British Forces in France and Belgium launched a huge offensive with the opening of the Battle of the Somme. The battalions of Kitchener’s new army, mostly conscripts, suffered appalling losses; 60 000 casualties on the first day of whom 20,000 were killed. The gains of the offensive were minimal but Haig was committed to pushing on. By the middle of July, three of the four Australian divisions in France were moved south to the Somme where they would be thrust against the might of the German Armies. The primary objective was the high ridge on which nestled the village of Pozieres. The 1st Australian Division successfully took the village on the 24th July. The 2ndDivision, of which the 25th was a part were charged with taking two lines of trenches and a blockhouse on the crest of the ridge above the village.
 
The 25th was in the centre of the assembled battalions on 29th July as they charged uphill to their objective but the German wire remained uncut. The German artillery poured enormous amounts of high explosive and shrapnel on the advance and after severe losses the battalion commanders of both the 25th and 26thBattalions gave the order to withdraw. The losses incurred by the 25th needed to be made up and Bert was among 160 reinforcements that moved up to the Tara Hill camp on 2nd August. Two days later, the 25thsupported by two other battalions of the 7th Brigade made another assault of the German trenches; this time with success. After consolidating the gains, the 25th was relieved and moved back to Tara Hill. A battalion roll call revealed 24 men killed, 126 wounded and 178 missing (most of whom would eventually be declared killed in action, no known grave). In two days of fighting at Pozieres, the 25th had been badly mauled. The battalion moved north into Belgium.
 
September and October were spent in comfortable billets well behind the front at Godewaersvelde. There were parades for the presentation of medal ribbons for the Pozieres actions and inter company and inter battalion sports. It was also harvest time and men were assigned to assist local farmers bring in crops of hops. On 21st October, the pleasant Autumn sojourn came to an end with orders to return to the Somme; about which there was much grumbling in the ranks.
 
While the Australians had been away, the front on the Somme had progressed only a few kilometres eastwards. General Haig decided to close the front down for the winter with the exception of a small operation at Flers which he hoped would allow his troops to move out of the mud and onto the higher ground around Bapaume. The battalions of the 7th Brigade were selected to achieve this task. It was decided that there would only be a limited attack comprising of one company supported by two other companies of the 25th Battalion. The men from the 25th began to slog through the mud up to their thighs weighed down by sodden and mud encrusted uniforms and gear. Each man was to carry sufficient rations for three days but when the rations failed to arrive on time, many of the companies did not reach the start line in time. A composite attacking force was quickly cobbled together. When the artillery barrage began, the exhausted infantry could not keep up with the creeping barrage. In the end, only 100 men from the 25th scrambled out into no man’s land on 5th November 1917 at Flers. Of the 100 who set out, 77 became casualties. One such casualty was Bert Lee.
 
Bert was listed as missing. Enquiries were made through the Red Cross to determine if Bert had been captured and was interned in a POW camp. When his name failed to appear on the POW lists, enquiries were made to the Red Cross by the British office of Bert’s employer, New Zealand Loan and Mercantile. Witnesses told the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Service that they had seen Bert shot through the head by sniper fire while carrying supplies for a machine gun team. Eventually, on 25th July 1917, a court of inquiry established that Bert Lee had been killed in action on 5th November 1916, aged 41.
 
Under the terms of Bert’s will, each of his five married brothers received 50 pounds with the stipulation that if there was no immediate call on the funds they should be set aside for their children’s education. A further 50 pounds was bequeathed to his unmarried brother, Frederick. Bert’s file contains no record of his body being buried but his body was exhumed from wherever he had fallen (and perhaps buried by other troops) by the Graves Registration Teams which scoured the battlefields searching for lost or isolated graves at the end of the war. Bert Lee’s remains were reinterred at the Warlencourt New British Cemetery on the old Roman Road which runs between Pozieres and Bapaume. By the time that Bert’s remains were discovered, his parents had both died. Bert’s medals, memorial plaque and scroll were received by his eldest surviving brother, John Archibald Lee of “Broadmere” Nanango.