Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Laurence JUERS was born in Lobethal, South Australia on 18th November, 1894

His parents were Adolph Albert Alfred JUERS & Marie Magdalena EY

He married Fanny Amelia MARTIN in the Methodist Church, SA on 17th March 1926

He served in both WW1 and WW2 & was wounded on 22nd August, 1916 and also taken prisoner of war by the Germans at Moquet Farm & sent to the Reserve Lazarett Bergkasserne Munster POW Camp - he was repatriated to Dover on 16th December, 1918

Laurence  died in Daw Park, Adelaide on 21st November, 1968 and is buried in the Curramulka Cemetery

Completed by Endeavour College

LAURENCE JUERS (1894-1968)

Laurence Juers was born on 18 November 1894 in Lobethal, South Australia. He was the son of Adolph Albert Alfred Juers and Marie Magdalena Juers, who owned and operated a corner store in Hyde Park1. He grew up in a sizeable family of eleven siblings, which included five brothers and six sisters. From a young age, he had spent a lot of time with his Lutheran family in Edithburgh. At the age of 12, Laurence went to live there with his aunties Emma and Sophie, who taught him how to speak German2. He became quite fluent in the language. Laurence did not attend high school or university3. Instead, he got a job at a local grocer, Henry Berry & Co., and moved to Goodwood to be closer to the city. He lived at 73 Weller Street, Goodwood, and eventually joined the Citizens Military Force.

Laurence’s father died in March 1913 when He was only 19. This event left a great impact on both him and the Juers family as now with Adolph gone Laurence’s mother had to provide for her children by herself4. When the war started in 1913 Laurence thought mainly of his mother. He believed that enlisting in the war effort would be fruitful as his experience in the Civilians Military Force he could also send money back home to support his family. And so, Laurence enlisted under the signature of his mother into the war effort5.

On 26 July 1915, he was placed in the 10th Australian Infantry Battalion as a private. He was soon shipped off to Gallipoli where he would partake in the Gallipoli campaign to fight in the ‘August offensive’. This offensive aimed to capture Sari Bair whilst the British attempted to land at Helles but instead, they landed further north.

After the withdrawal of Australian troops from Gallipoli in December 1915, he and his Battalion sailed back to Egypt. In 1916, the 10th Battalion was sent out again, this time to France to fight on the western front and participate in the brutal trench warfare happening there6. To give context, Thiepval was a key point of interest for the British in the Somme as it was an area of high ground in what was predominately a flat landscape. The Australians had captured Pozieres to the east and were making their way toward it where they came across Mouquet Farm. As Thiepval was still a raging battlefield with many casualties on both sides being lost, the 10th battalion was sent out to try and capture Mouquet Farm. It was a fortified stronghold occupied by the Germans with underground tunnels and machine gun bunkers in what was an old farm.

The battle of Mouquet Farm in many respects along with Pozieres itself was the most important battle that Australia fought in their first two years on the Western front7. In hindsight, all of the 11, 000 Australian casualties could have been omitted as Mouquet Farm was only needing to be taken so that the British forces could swoop around and attack Thiepval in a sneak attack. In the end, Thiepval would eventually fall before Mouquet Farm. Laurence fought in the trenches alongside other soldiers from Australia, New Zealand, and England. He ended up being in one of these bloody assaults to capture it where he was placed in the second wave to attack the Germans on the right side.

At 6 pm on the 22nd of August, his battalion made the push forward. The whistle was blown, and Laurence rushed past the first line of trenches. He made it past the second where a stray bullet wounded him in his right leg and was not able to continue. He stated, “They all passed over the first line and no one was left to occupy the first enemy trench. Fritz came into his first trench again from the Mouquet Farm side and cut off practically the whole company. I don’t think many men were able to get back.”8

After being injured, Laurence managed to crawl into a shell hole to escape further bullets where he waited until darkness fell before attempting to escape. Crawling across no man’s land he eventually reached another shell hole where he found about ten other men taking shelter. “After crawling some distance, I came to a shell hole where about 10 of our boys were sheltering.”9 They informed Laurence that it was impossible to return to safety and that their attempt to capture the first line had been in vain, as the Germans had likely already retaken it. With little hope of Laurence or the others being found by the allies before morning, the men had no choice but to wait. Unfortunately, it was not the Allies who found them; it was the German soldiers. They were subsequently rounded up and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp, sealing their fates for the rest of the war.

Laurence Juers first arrived at the Reserve Lazarette Bergkasserne POW hospital in Münster to treat his leg wound and was promptly moved to the Münster 1 prison camp10. This camp was located just outside the city in the countryside. It was built on clay soil, so it oftentimes became muddy. Some accounts have been documented in a book called Australian POWs, the book details aspects of this camp being horrendous such as the limited food the occasional neglect towards patients and the treatment of the prisoners as lesser humans. Laurence remained in this POW camp for the rest of the war until his eventual release on 16 December 1918. However, Laurence was taken back to England before sailing home and arriving back on March 28th 1919.

After Laurence was sent home from the war he went to work on a farm as a part of a government resettlement scheme, but he soon left as a result of the Farmer not treating him well. So, to find work again Laurence got a job with a local builder where he learned the trade. He also met and married his wife Fanny Amelia Martin on 17 March 1926 and lived at Curramulka on the Yorke Peninsula in a house that he built with his wife, which he called ‘Autarkia’ meaning self-built in German. He stayed at Curramulka for 16 more years working as a grain agent, builder and agent for fuel until the Second World War broke out in 1939. Laurence straight away thought about joining back into another war, but his leg injury and his time in the German POW camp left scars. He eventually joined the war effort in the AIF, this time as a German interpreter in the 4th Division Salvage Company11. However, eventually, his scars caught up to him and the arthritis he developed in the First World War increased his blood pressure to a point where his superiors deemed him unfit to continue12.

But the war eventually ended in 1945, and Laurence was sent back to Australia via return to his wife back in Curramulka. He stayed there for the remainder of his years with his wife Fanny Amelia Juers and had a son named Laurence John Juers. His leg injury in combat that day in Mouquet Farm later developed into arthritis which plagued him until he died. He died in Daw Park, Adelaide, while on a family visit on 21 November 1968 and was brought back to Curramulka to be buried13.

Laurence was one of the most persistent men in the army, from growing up in a poor household to sacrificing everything to protect his family and his country, to still after he was injured, he kept getting back up to protect that which he holds dear shows his endurance, courage, and mate-ship throughout his life. He was above all humble and used his skills to help others shown in in his prior involvement in the citizen's military force and his fluency in German to help wherever he could even if it was self-sacrifice. We should all embody these traits of the Anzac Spirit just like Laurence had all those years ago.

1 Pfeiffer Family History, p.175

2 Pfeiffer Family History, p.177

3 Mobilisation Attestation form, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=6345589&T=P&S=2

4 Pfeiffer Family History, p.175

5 AIF Nominal roll, https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm- media/collection/RCDIG1067552/large/5372267.JPG

6 https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U51450

7 Mark Riddiford, Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours

8 P.O.W. Statement, AWM, p.46, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2615164?image=46

9 P.O.W. Statement, AWM, p.46, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2615164?image=46

10 https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm-media/collection/AWM2018.8.210/large/7094496.JPG

11 Pfeiffer Family History, p.177

12 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=6345589&T=P&S=2

13 https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/168774

Bibliography

Laurence Juers field hospital record. (1918). [Document] Australian War Memorial. Available at: https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm- media/collection/AWM2018.8.210/large/7094496.JPG [Accessed 2024].

Prisoner of War Statement. (19AD). [Document] Australian War Memorial. Available at: https://s3- ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm-media/collection/AWM2018.8.210/large/7094497.JPG [Accessed 2023].

AIF Nominal Roll. (1918). [Document] Australian War Memorial. Available at: https://s3-ap- southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm-media/collection/RCDIG1067552/large/5372267.JPG [Accessed 2023].

Juers, L. (1918). Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau Files. [Letters] Australian War Memorial. Available at: https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm- media/collection/RCDIG1062186/document/5650065.PDF [Accessed 2024].

Awm.gov.au. (2018). Private Laurence Juers. [online] Available at: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P11032352 [Accessed 2023].

Laurence Juers Misc Documents. [online] pp.1–4. Available at: https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Gallery151/dist/JGalleryViewer.aspx?B=6345589 &S=1&N=4&R=0#/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=6345589&T=P&S=1 [Accessed 2024].

www.awm.gov.au. (n.d.). | The Australian War Memorial. [online] Available at: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U51450 [Accessed 2023].

Pichard Barrett, T. (2015). Mouquet Farm. Personal Recording. 24 Apr.

Australian War Memorial (2013). What the Infantry Did: Individuals and Initiative at Poziѐres and Mouquet Farm. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/brxecMzT7kk?si=oVsIhyvG6dtbdezb [Accessed 1 Sep. 2024].

Harten, A. (2024). Mark talking about the battle of Mouquet Farm.