Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Roy Carlisle Lattimore
Enlisted 10 November 1916 - 26th Infantry Battalion – No 6657

Roy Lattimore was 20 years old when the First World War started. Like many young men from rural areas who could ride a horse and shoot a rifle, he must have felt the pressure to enlist and serve his country and the Empire as soon as he reached the minimum age of 21. He had cousins who went off to the war sooner and Roy would have been keen to follow them.
His enlistment was delayed. Perhaps his family wanted to protect him or he was needed on the family farm at Lower Coldstream on the Clarence River. His father, John Lattimore, was a Councillor (and usually shire president) of the local Council and was often busy on local affairs. Many thought the war would have been over within a year, or two at the latest. Roy probably thought he was going to miss out on the war altogether.
Whatever the reason for the delay, 5 foot 10 inch tall and fair haired and brown eyed Roy finally enlisted at Grafton when he was 23. He was assigned to the 19th Reinforcement of the 26th Infantry Battalion leaving Sydney on 7 February 1917 on the Wiltshire. His unit arrived in England on 11 April 1917 but Roy soon came down with mumps and spent a month in hospital.
His arrived in France on 18 October 1917 and then proceeded to join the rest of the Battalion in Belgium. The Battalion had recently fought near Ypres as part of the Battle of Passchendaele and were resting in a quiet sector. The reinforcements would have been a welcome sight.
In early 1918, after the collapse of the Russian army, the Germans launched a new offensive with their reinforcements from the Russian front and steadily made progress until they were finally stopped near the French village of Villers-Bretonneux on their way to Amiens. At this stage the 26th Battalion rejoined the line and conducted many stealth penetrations behind the German lines to capture prisoners and machine guns. The tactic was hugely successful and the Germans became extremely wary whenever they found that Australian soldiers were in the line facing them.
By August 1918, Roy was based at Villers-Bretonneux where many Australian Battalions were preparing for a big offensive against the German lines which would become known as the Battle of Amiens.
On the night of 7 August, as the soldiers lay waiting for the early morning push, one soldier wrote:
“It was utterly still. Vehicles made no sound on the marshy ground. The silence played on our nerves a bit … you could hear drivers whispering to their horses and men muttering curses under their breath, and still the silence persisted.
Then all hell broke loose and we heard nothing more. The world was enveloped in sound and flame (from the Australian gun barrage), and our ears just couldn’t cope. The ground shook”.
The push by the Australians and their Canadian allies commenced. There was a mist, which was a great help. In three hours the Germans were overwhelmed, taken largely by surprise. Over 29,000 German prisoners were captured and the German General Ludendorff called 8 August “the black day of the German Army.”
However, the victory came at a great cost with over 21,000 casualties among the Australians and their allies and a quarter of those casualties were fatal.
Roy was one of those fatal casualties, having been shot in the head, back and thigh early in the push. He was rushed by ambulance to a clearing station and then sent to the US St Louis Hospital set up at the French city of Rouen where he died four days after receiving the wounds.
Roy was buried at the specially built extension to the St Sever Cemetery in Rouen to cater for the thousands of bodies brought there.
The official strength of the 26th Infantry Battalion was 1,023 men. Reinforcements were constantly added to replace casualties. By the end of the war the Battalion had 877 men killed and 2,745 men wounded.
Roy’s personal effects were eventually forwarded to his father on 4 June 1919. They included a wrist watch, wallet, YMCA wallet, letters, photos, notebook, mirror, knife, cloth badge, two books and a coin. In his Will made a month before his Company sailed, Roy left all his estate including his personal effects, cattle and horses and the money in his bank account to his mother, Fanny Lattimore. His Will was witnessed by his older sister Alice and her husband William McPhee.
Roy’s parents were well known and respected in the district and the community rallied to give them much kindness and support.

Glendon O'Connor 2015