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From Francois Somme

Pte 1767 Robert Alfred Lamb
14th Australian Infantry Battalion,
B Company, 5th Platoon,
4th Brigade, 4th Australian Division, AIF
 
On the serene fields of the Somme on which the trenches of the great war are still visible, scars of a murderous past, millions of poppies bloom under the summer sun, swaying under light breezes and which, through their petals red, remind us every day that here, on these sacred grounds, was shed the blood of a whole generation of men who, alongside their comrades and brothers in arms, united in camaraderie and fraternity, fought, lived and died in the carnage of a terrible war that swept the world into a madness and fury never seen before that drove so many young boys then in the prime of their lives to kill each other in deadly battles in which they charged bayonets forward and who, under the bullets and shells, were thrown into hand-to-hand combat of an absolute brutality engendered by the war which, through the howls of rage and agony saw friends and enemies who fell side by side, on top of each other in the mud and barbed wire and who today, in the silence of the fields of northern France, rest in peace forever united in brotherhood and stand forever young in the light of remembrance through which their names will live forever.

Today, it is with the deepest gratitude and with the utmost respect that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, of one of my boys of the Somme, who in France, for peace and freedom, gave his life.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 1767 Robert Alfred Lamb who fought in the 14th Australian Infantry Battalion, B Company, 5th Platoon, 4th Brigade, 4th Australian Division of the Australian Imperial Force, and who was killed in action 108 years ago, on August 7, 1916 at the age of 25 during the Battle of the Somme.

Robert Alfred Lamb was born in 1891 in Morwell, Victoria, Australia, and was the son of Robert Alfred and Jane Lamb, of 250 Swan Street, Richmond, Victoria. He was educated at Morwell State School, and after graduation worked as a barman until the outbreak of the war.

On August 4 1914 Great Britain declared war on Germany. Australia quickly followed the Mother Land’s call to arms. A rush of volunteers flocked to Victoria Barracks in Melbourne and to Broadmeadows Camp north of the city to enlist.

From the city and suburbs clerks laid down their pens, shopkeepers and shop assistants walked out of their shops, solicitors paused with their briefs, workmen downed their picks and shovels and from the countryside bushmen, farmers, graziers, shearers, woodchoppers set out on by horse drawn buggy, by train, by horse and on foot starting their journey to join a new type of army,an all volunteer army,the Australian Imperial Force.

Ready to do his duty, Robert enlisted on January 4, 1915 in Melbourne, Victoria, in the 8th Australian Infantry Battalion,2nd Brigade,1st Australian Division, 4th Reinforcement, and after a training period of just over three months at Broadmeadows Camp, he embarked with his unit from Melbourne, on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire on April 14, 1915 and sailed for the Gallipoli Peninsula.

On May 26, 1915, Robert was disembarked at ANZAC, Gallipoli, and less than three months later, on August 6, with the 8th Battalion, were involved in the Battle of Lone Pine.

The Battle of Lone Pine was fought from 6-10 August 1915, between the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and Ottoman Empire forces. The battle was part of a diversionary attack to draw Ottoman attention away from the main assaults being conducted by British, Indian and New Zealand troops around Sari Bair, Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, which became known as the August Offensive.

The Lone Pine battlefield was named for a solitary Turkish pine that stood there at the start of the fighting. The tree was also known by the Anzac soldiers as the "Lonesome Pine", and both names are likely to have been inspired by the popular song "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine". The battlefield was situated near the centre of the eastern line of the Australian and New Zealand trenches around Anzac Cove on a rise known as "400 Plateau" that joined "Bolton's Ridge" to the south with the ridge along the east side of "Monash Valley" to the north. Being towards the southern end of the area around Anzac Cove, the terrain in the Lone Pine region was comparatively gentle and the opposing trenches were separated some distance with a flat no-man's land intervening. Due to its location relative to the beachhead, and the shape of the intervening ground, Lone Pine's importance lay in the fact that its position provided a commanding view of the Australian and New Zealand rear areas. From the 400 Plateau it was possible to observe as far south as Gaba Tepe and its possession would have afforded the Ottomans the ability to place the approaches to the Second Ridge under fire, preventing the flow of Allied reinforcements and supplies from the beachhead to the forward trenches.

Brigadier General Harold Walker, commander of the 1st Australian Brigade, had no desire to assault well-constructed Turkish trenches as a sideshow to the concurrent Allied landings at Suvla Bay, but his soldiers were keen for action. Much was done to help the Australians cross the 100 yards to the Turkish front line successfully. Preliminary bombardment destroyed the Turkish barbed wire; tunnels were dug into no-man’s-land to provide a forward jumping-off point and mines were exploded between the lines to break up the ground and create at least some form of cover.

At 5:00 PM on 6 August, whistles signalled the beginning of the assault. The Australians reached the front-line Turkish trench with light losses, but were startled to find it roofed over with wooden beams and earth. While some soldiers tried to break through, others jumped into uncovered communication trenches. The main Turkish trench was taken within 20 minutes of the initial charge, and by nightfall, the Australians held part of the Turkish trench system. The Ottomans brought up reinforcements and launched numerous counter-attacks in an attempt to recapture the ground they had lost. As the counter-attacks intensified the ANZACs brought up two fresh battalions to reinforce their newly gained line. A vicious battle developed in the warren of trenches, with grenades a principal weapon, sometimes thrown back and forth three times before exploding. Evacuation of the wounded was near impossible; many died where they lay.

Finally, on 9th August the Ottomans called off any further attempts and by 10th August, offensive action had ceased, leaving the Allies in control of the position. The four days of fighting resulted in more than 2,000 Australian casualties and an estimated 7,000 Turkish losses. Seven Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross. Despite this Australian victory, the wider August Offensive of which the Lone Pine attack had been a part of failed. A situation of stalemate developed around Lone Pine which lasted until the end of the campaign in December 1915 when Allied troops were evacuated from the peninsula.

After the battle of Lone Pine in August 1915, the men of the 8th Battalion fought at ANZAC to protect the bridgehead, which they did courageously until the final evacuation in December, but a month before, on November 16, Robert fell sick and was evacuated to Lemnos, in Greece, bordering the Aegean Sea, then transferred to Mudros where he was admitted to the 2nd Field Ambulance in a "febrile" state and on December 2, admitted to the Lowlands Casualty Clearing Station in Lemnos suffering from Influenza. A little less than two weeks later, on December 15, after recovering, he marched to the ANZAC Base No 3 at Mudros and after rejoining his unit on December 21, he proceeded to Egypt on board " Empress Of Britain".

On January 7, 1916, Robert arrived in Egypt and was disembarked in Alexandria then a few days later, on January 13, was admitted to the 2nd Field Ambulance of Tel-El-Kebir and to the 2nd Casualty Clearing Station the next day suffering from Pyrexia but recovered quickly and joined his unit on January 17 and were involved in the defense of the Suez Canal then on March 31, was transferred to the 14th Australian Infantry Battalion at Serapeum commanded by (then) Colonel John Monash and three months later , on June 1st, marched for Alexandria where they joined the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) and proceeded overseas for France on board "Transylvania".

On June 8, 1916, Robert finally arrived in France and was disembarked in Marseilles then from there, the men of the 14th Battalion embarked by train for Bailleul where they arrived on June 11 under the rain but were billeted in good conditions and followed a period of training and received new equipment including gas masks and steel helmets but many Australian soldiers preferred to keep their slouch hats of which they were very proud and then on July 18, with a force of 865 men, marched to Fort Rompu where they remained until June 27 and the following day joined the front line at Bois-Grenier from where they relieved the 19th Australian Infantry Battalion and took up position near the trenches of the Grand Flamengrie Farm, a relatively calm sector in which the men of the 14th Battalion acclimatized to trench warfare conditions until 11 July.

On July 12, 1916, Robert and the 14th Battalion left Bois-Grenier and marched into Billets at Jesus Farm, Erquinghem (Hauts-De-France) and the next day embarked by train at Bailleul railway station for the Somme then on July 14 arrived in the village of Domart-En-Ponthieu where the young Diggers were warmly welcomed by French families who were celebrating the national day and offered to the very surprised young Australian soldiers such a loving welcome wine and good food but the war , implacable, continued to impose his rhythm and on July 17, moved to Naours where they followed a period of training including attack practices and bayonet fights, prelude to a major battle in preparation and could already hear at a few kilometers the thunder of the artillery which was already pouring tons of shells on fields of mud soaked in blood.

On July 25, 1916, Robert and his unit left Naours and marched for Herissart then for Warloy-Baillon and, after a final period of intensive training and ready to join the front line, were thrown on August 7 into the hell of a battle that was horribly deadly for the 14th Battalion but also for the entire Australian Imperial Force in the Somme whose men were forever haunted and bruised by what they lived in what they called "the hell on earth of Pozieres".

At this point of the battale of the Somme, the British strategy focused on the seizure of the ridge east of Pozières village from where an attack could be mounted on German strongholds further north at Thiepval which had not fallen to British attack on the opening day of the battle, 1 July 1916. By the time the Australians entered the Somme battle the operation had become a series of attacks aimed not so much at a break-through of the German lines as the capture of key positions and the wearing down of the enemy.

Between 23 July and 5 August 1916, the Australian 1st and 2nd Divisions captured Pozières village and Pozières heights, a ridge 500 metres east of the village. The initial attack began at 12.30 am on Sunday 23 July when the 1st Division seized the German front line and in the following hour reached the main road through Pozières. At dawn the Germans counter-attacked but the Australians held on. The rest of Pozières fell on the night of 23-24 July and further gains were made on the night of 24-25 July. The Germans reacted to the seizure of Pozières by concentrating the bulk of their artillery on the Australians. Constant barrages were directed onto the village and the narrow approaches creating a nightmarish situation for troops forming up and attacking in the dark. By 27 July, the 2nd Division had taken over in Pozières.

The 2nd Division was ordered to take Pozières heights. The attack commenced at 12.15 am on 29 July but the Germans were ready and the attack failed at a cost of 3,500 Australian casualties. The Australian commander of the 2nd Division asked that his men might attack again rather than be withdrawn after failure. Following an intense bombardment on 4 August 1916, the Australian seized Pozières heights. The exhausted 2nd Division was now rested and the 4th Division took up positions on the Pozières Heights. Attacking north along the ridge, the Australians in ten days of continuous action reached Mouquet Farm. The 4th Division was now relieved. The farm resisted capture until 26 September 1916, the day after the commenced of a major British offensive.

In less than seven weeks in the fighting at Pozières and Mouquet Farm three Australian divisions suffered 23,000 casualties. Of these, 6,800 men were killed or died of wounds. It was a loss comparable with the casualties sustained by the Australians over eight months at Gallipoli in 1915.

Unfortunately, it was during the battle of Pozieres, on August 7, 1916 that Robert met his fate and was killed in action in the Windmill sector during a German counterattack, he was 25 years old.

The circumstances leading to Robert's death are described in the Australian Red Cross Society Wounded And Missing Inquiry Bureau Files as follows:
"I was alongside and saw him killed outright at Pozieres in the front linde during a German counter-attack.The trenches were shattered and his body would be smothered by the earth, no chance of a grave.We were both in Platoon 5, B Company. I knew him very well." (Private number 773 Albert Edgar Roberts, 14th Australian Infantry Battalion).

Today, Robert Alfred Lamb rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at Courcelette British Cemetery, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "Loved by all who knew him."

Robert had a cousin who also fought bravely in the Great War.He was Private number 1146 Albert Edward Jennings who served in the 5th and then the 46th Australian Infantry Battalion. Sadly he was killed in action on 1st April 1918 in the Somme at the age of 22 and his body was never found but his name is remembered with respect,love and gratitude on the walls of the Australian National Memorial of Villers-Bretonneux, Somme,alongside the names of 11,000 Australian soldiers who have no known grave.

Robert, courageous, proud and determined to do what was right, it was with your head held high and your shoulders straight that you volunteered to answer the call of duty and, wearing with honor and loyalty the colors of the great and young Australian nation, you marched to join the ranks of the Australian Imperial Force which brought together a whole generation of all ages, of all religions but which side by side gathered around common causes in the face of barbarism and cruelty of the war which covered the world with a veil of darkness and who, in their hearts, carried the hopes of all freedom-loving peoples and for their loved ones, to offer a better world to their children,after a last moment in the loving arms of their mothers, of their fathers, left all they had, love, a promising future, to join the battlefields overseas but together, for peace and freedom, they went forward without regret with a deep desire to do everything to make this war an end to all wars and through their eyes, no sacrifices were too great then after a long journey from Melbourne, from Brisbane, from the sunny shores of Australia, under the peaceful sky that led them to war, they saw the Turkish beaches in the distance and stormed the beaches of Gallipoli in a dawn filled with chaos and the screams of courage and agonies of thousands of young Australian soldiers who charged the enemy machine guns with an admirable courage in which was born the ANZAC spirit was born but in the face of bullets, shrapnel and grenades, fell in waves on the sand which became blood red but, animated by an unfailing determination through which they wrote the history of the AIF, they continued to go forward and rushed into the burning hills of Lone Pine through which was once again shown the courage of these young men who, despite the horrors and the sufferings that they endured, never backed down in the face of hardship and death but the price was high and evacuated leaving behind so many comrades who paid the supreme sacrifice but in Gallipoli, they showed all the bravery, determination, greatness of the nation Australian whose sons and daughters served so bravely but it was only a horrifying prelude to a terrible war that seemed to have no end.In those dark hours, the great adventure that all these young men believed in gave way to the sad reality and all the brutality of war and with their comrades who fell at ANZAC Cove, and Lone Pine, left behind their innocence, sacrificed their youth, the past of an innocent childhood that was crucified in the face of a hail of bullets. They became men and veterans who knew the value of life and had to try to learn to live with the death that surrounded them and which, in France, waited crouched in the mud of the fields of the Somme towards which the young Australian soldiers now headed and who, after having learned what their brothers had lived at Fromelles, knew what horrors awaited them but confident, advanced more determined than ever, pushed forward by the strongest bond of camaraderie which bound them like brothers and who, at Pozieres, under the relentless hammering of the shells, under the murderous fire of thousands of artillery pieces, held their positions with a bravery admired by their brothers in arms who saw the young Diggers who charged bayonets forward through the ruins of this once peaceful village which turned into killing fields where terrible hand-to-hand combat was experienced in absolute fury where so many lives were lost through this slaughterhouse that was the Somme and which, much later after the war, haunted the lives, the days and the nightmares of men who were lucky enough to return home but who were not spared by the horrors they witnessed and day after day, like an endless loop, saw again and again their brothers who, in courageous attacks, fell riddled with bullets, cut in two by shrapnel and torn to pieces by shells. They heard again and again their friends who, wounded, lay in the filthy mud, bleeding to death and who, in despair, called for their mothers and who, after a long agony, gave their last breaths on these sacred grounds of the Somme on which thousands of young men today rest peacefully in silence forever united in eternal brotherhood in the light of remembrance that will forever keep alive the memory of these young heroes on whom I will watch forever with the deepest love and with utmost respect so that their courage, deeds and sacrifices will never be forgotten, so that who they were and so that their names will live on forever.

Thank you so much Robert, with all my heart, for all that you and your comrades and for all that Australia, my adopted country has done for France, for each of us whose love, respect and gratitude will forever be yours. At the going down of the sun and in the morning,we will remember him,we will remember them.