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Essay for University of Tasmania, Diploma of Family History, HAA107 Families at War. 2017
Pte. 1984 John Francis MARTIN
13th Battalion, 5th Reinforcements
World War 1 Soldier

John Francis Martin was born 8th December 1895 to Edward John and Maria (Clements) Martin, the eldest of three children and the only son. In October 1906, John’s father died and three years later his mother remarried. After attending Camdenville Public School , John commenced work as a labourer with the Fowler Pottery Works and had also participated in the compulsory military training with the Australian Military Force. On 22nd February 1915 at the age of 19 years and with the consent of his mother John became one of the thousands of young Australian men to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force to fight in the Great War. The reasons for him enlisting are unknown; did he feel it was his duty to King and Country? Was it for a sense of adventure? Was it peer pressure or did he enlist because he did not like or get along with his mother’s second husband? These questions will probably not be answered during the course of this essay as there are no firsthand accounts from John himself or from his immediate family. John Francis Martin’s death just six months after enlisting was a waste of a life, a life not yet begun and in vain because the War to end all Wars did not and has not been achieved.

John was placed in the 5th Reinforcements of the 13th Australian Infantry Battalion as number 1984 and the rank of Private. The 13th had been created six weeks after the outbreak of the war in 1914 with recruits from New South Wales and along with the 14th, 15th and 16th Battalions formed the 4th Brigade, commanded by Colonel, later Brigadier General, John Monash. After a short six weeks of training at the Liverpool Training Camp which was one of the main camps for the reception and basic training of AIF recruits in New South Wales, John embarked from Sydney 13th April 1915 with the rest of the 146 men who made up the 5th Reinforcements on His Majesty’s Australian Transport A55 Kyarra disembarking at Alexandria. It is not known on which ship the 5th Reinforcements then sailed to Gallipoli.

The 13th Battalion’s Unit diary entry for 13th July 1915 states the 5th Reinforcements were received into the Battalion while at Reserve Gully, Gallipoli with good drill and discipline but very little practical musketry. John, along with others of the 5th Reinforcements was placed in No. 5 Platoon of B. Company.
The battle for Lone Pine had begun on the Gallipoli Peninsula in what was a diversionary Australian attack on 6th August. At 9.15 p.m. that same day the Battalion marched out without packs, water bottles filled and white patches attached and 200 rounds of ammunition per man, with B Coy third in the line heading northward along the Beach Road toward No 3 Outpost where they received fire from the ridges above. By 10.30 p.m. having moved forward and turned into Taylor’s Gap they again met with slight opposition. A platoon of A Coy was detailed to clear the ridge and they went in with the bayonet without firing. Once through the Gap it became necessary to detach B and then C Coy’s to help.

On August 21st, B Coy along with C and D Coys, consisting 9 Officers and 250 other ranks formed the 13th Battalion quota of the mixed force commanded by Major Herring in the battle for Hill 60. At 3.30 p.m. a rigorous and sustained covering fire was opened with MGs and rifles in trenches from ‘Pivot’ eastward. At 4.30 p.m., the 13th Battalion was ordered to advance over two ridges to occupy a small plateau, but, through heavy gun fire, was compelled to entrench before reaching the position. The Turks were forced to evacuate their ground on the first ridge and, before the Battalion pushed on, the enemy opened fire with 8 inch guns or larger from the direction of Chanak Fort. A large shell from one of those guns fell and exploded in the middle of a body of men killing and wounding most of them and igniting the gorse in the vicinity. Shortly after this disaster the Turks opened fire with machine guns on the ridge as the Battalion advanced. Each man, before beginning the advance, in addition to his rifle was given a bomb which was carried in his pocket. The men who were killed and wounded were left where they fell.
“Only four men of the 5th Platoon came out of the charge. John Francis Martin was amongst the men who fell and all of them must have either been killed by the shell, burnt to death or blown to pieces by the bombs which they were carrying.”

In the Sydney Morning Herald dated 25th September 1915, page 9, titled HEROES OF THE DARDENELLES, a photo of John Francis Martin in uniform was published along with eleven other soldiers who were either killed or missing in action. Also printed in the Daily Telegraph dated 27 September 1915, page 8 was a brief article about John Francis Martin. John’s mother Maria wrote two letters to Defence Base Records the first on 1st December 1915 pleading to kindly let her know the truth concerning her son as she had not received any word since being informed that he was missing. She wrote the second letter on 20th February 1916 again asking if any more information had come to light. In reply to both letters, the Officer in charge Base Records advised “that there had been no change and as the ‘missing list’ is revised daily it was hoped that she would soon be given more definite information and she would be advised promptly should any later reports come to hand.
In a Court of Inquiry held 28th April 1916 at 4th Australian Infantry Brigade Headquarters, Serapoun, Private John Francis Martin was declared as having been Killed in Action 22nd August 1915.

Maria as John’s next of kin was granted a pension of £13 per annum which was amended after her death 17th July 1916 to £2 per fortnight to be paid to John’s eldest surviving sister Mary Elizabeth. Mary Elizabeth received John’s 1914/15 Star No. 14627, British War Service Medal No. 10245, Victory Medal No. 10201, Memorial Plaque No. 307,833 and Memorial Scroll No. 307833 as well as a booklet titled ‘Where Australians Rest’ which was designed to bring comfort to relatives and friends of fallen soldiers of the AIF. John Francis Martin’s name shall live for ever more as it is located on panel 70 in the Commemorative Area at the Australian War Memorial and also panel 38 at the Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli. He has no known grave.

Was John Francis Martin’s death a waste of a life and in vain? Australian Prime Minister, The Hon. P.J. Keating MP, best sums it up when he said in his eulogy at the funeral service for the “Unknown Soldier” who was interred at the Australian War Memorial 11th November 1993 -

“Because the Great War was a mad, brutal, awful struggle, distinguished more often than not by military and political incompetence; because the waste of human life was so terrible that some said victory was scarcely discernible from defeat; and because the war which was supposed to end all wars in fact sowed the seeds of a second, even more terrible, war – we might think this Unknown Soldier died in vain. But, in honouring our war dead, as we always have and as we do today, we declare that this is not true. For out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary.”