Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

#3374 (A) HOPKINSON Herbert Graham                    4th Pioneers Battalion
 
Herb Hopkinson was born at Glebe in Sydney around 1878 and attended the Christchurch Anglican High School. At various times, it appears that Herb was employed in warehousing and working in the drapery trade. Around 1910, Herb, his mother Laura and two of his brothers, Fred and Frank moved from inner Sydney to Memerambi near Kingaroy to take up farming.
 
Herb first presented himself for enlistment to Fraser’s Hill Camp at Enoggera on 7th July 1916. He had been in Sydney one week earlier, perhaps to visit his brother who was in business there. While in Sydney, he contracted a case of gonorrhoea. The medical examiner rejected Herb as being medically unfit and he presumably returned to the farm at Memerambi.
 
As a result of the coverage of the Gallipoli battles in the nation’s newspapers, recruiting had soared in the later half of 1915 and into 1916. The abundance of manpower allowed the AIF to double in size from the original two divisions and this newly created force was sent to the western front. Neither the Australian authorities nor the general public was prepared for the scale of casualties that occurred when the 4 divisions of the AIF went into battle on the Somme. In the six weeks between the middle of July and the end of August, the AIF suffered 23,000 casualties; killed, wounded and missing. In those few weeks, the Australian army went from a situation in which it was flush with manpower to being desperately short of reinforcements. So dire was the situation that the Australian Prime Minister, at the urging of Britain, proposed to introduce compulsory military conscription. A plebiscite to decide the issue was to be held on 28th October 1916.
 
Herb Hopkinson presented himself for enlistment in Brisbane one week before the conscription vote. Like many men, he perhaps considered that it would be best to enlist of his own free will rather than wait for the callup and be ostracised by his fellow volunteers. It is interesting to note that the 8th reinforcements of the 4th Pioneers were overwhelmingly men who had enlisted in October 1916, prior to the vote. In the end, the conscription plebiscite was narrowly rejected.
 
Herb presented for the second time at the Brisbane Recruiting Depot in Adelaide Street on 20th October 1916. He stated his age as 38 years, gave his occupation as draper, and named his elderly widowed mother, Laura Hopkinson, as his next of kin. This time Herb passed the medical, although it was noted that he needed dental work, and he reported to Enoggera Camp where he was placed in the 11th Depot Battalion. Herb was granted a period of home leave during which he travelled by train back to Kingaroy to see his mother and two brothers. He also visited a solicitor in Kingaroy where he made out a will naming his eldest brother Frank as his executor. Upon his return to camp, Herb was placed in the 8th reinforcements of the 4thPioneer Battalion on 18th November. One week later, the reinforcements took a series of trains to Sydney where they embarked on the “Beltana.” The embarkation roll shows that Herb had allocated 4 shillings of his daily pay of 5 shillings to be paid to his mother.
 
The “Beltana” arrived in Devonport in south west England on 29th January 1917. The reinforcements proceeded to the training camps on Salisbury Plain. Pioneer battalions were technically a cross between infantry and engineers. They were trained in both disciplines but in practice, the Pioneers rarely fought with front line troops. Instead, they performed labouring tasks such as trench digging and revetting, laying light rail tracks, road mending and filling shell craters.
 
Herb was posted overseas in May 1917 and joined his unit on the Belgian French border where preparations were underway for the launch of the Battle of Messines Ridge.
Messines Ridge ran almost due south from a position just outside Ypres, where spoil from a railway cutting had been dumped (the famous Hill 60) towards the village of Messines and on to Warneton on the French border.
 
The preparations for the Battle of Messines were carefully planned. Large scale models of the terrain to be covered were constructed and all troops who were to take part were walked through the models to familiarize themselves with their objectives. The general in charge at Messines had three and a half million artillery shells at his disposal which would be fired in the days leading up to the attack. In addition, British and then Australian tunnellers had been undermining the Messines Ridge for almost 18 months and had placed underground charges in tunnels directly underneath the German defences. At 3:10 am on the 7thJune, 19 of the underground mines beneath the Messines Ridge were fired simultaneously. It was the largest man-made explosion in history and the noise could be heard in London.
 
Two Australian Divisions were included in the order of battle for the attack at Messines. The 3rd Division AIF had responsibility for the northern sector of the front while the 4th Division was tasked with attacking the second line of German trenches, the Oosstaverne Line, behind the village of Messines itself. After the firing of the mines, the infantry set off across the broken ground. The 3rd Division’s advance was virtually flawless in its execution but the 4th Division, and particularly the 13th Brigade, encountered difficulties due to the broken ground caused from the mine explosions. The 4th Pioneers went over supporting brigades from the 4th Division. Once a new front line was secure, the Pioneers would be tasked with digging new trenches and communication saps. Messines was Bert’s first taste of major action and he came through the ordeal unscathed.
After Messines, the 4th Division was back in action at Polygon Wood in September and then Broodseinde and Passchendaele in October. Heavy rain turned the battlefield into a sea of mud which sapped the life out of the attacking troops. It was a particularly hard time for the pioneers who were engaged in laying duckboard tracks and corduroy roads, hauling horses and wagons out of the stinking ooze, and slogging through thigh deep mud bringing up supplies and carrying out stretcher cases. When the Passchendaele campaign was shut down for the winter, the entire AIF went into comfortable billets around Poperinghe to enjoy rest, sports and recreation and hot baths at the divisional bath house.
On 12th March, Bert was granted three weeks leave in England. By the time he returned to the continent, the Germans had launched a massive offensive along the Somme valley threatening the vital city of Amiens. The 4th Division, including the pioneers had been rushed south to hold the line at Dernacourt where two brigades of Australians held off two and a half divisions of German storm troops. The Pioneers were for the first time used as infantry supporting the 49th Battalion in a counterattack at Dernacourt on 5th April 1918.
The situation on the Somme was fragile as the German forces continued to threaten Amiens. It was only after some clever work by two brigades of the AIF at Villers Bretonneux that the German assault was finally halted. The Australian commander, Lt General John Monash, had his troops engage in constant harassment of the German line, which he called peaceful penetration.
On 1st June, Monash was promoted to the position of Corps Commander of the entire AIF in France and Belgium. He immediately set about planning to go on the offensive. On 4th July, Monash launched a limited attack against an elevated position, the Wolfsberg, above the village of Hamel, near Villers Bretonneux. His plan was a bold one entailing coordination of artillery, air cover, resupply of ammunition by tanks and planes, smoke and gas. Infantry from the 2nd Division of the AIF would advance under cover of a creeping artillery barrage. Monash estimated it would take 90 minutes to capture the position; it in fact took 93 minutes. Although only a limited engagement, Hamel would prove to be the blueprint for future battles that would hasten the end of the war.
The 2nd Division troops were relieved at Hamel by 4th Division infantry and the 4th Pioneers were put into the line to repair smashed trenches and dugouts. Red Cross reports state that Herb Hopkinson was killed instantly on 8th July 1918 by a shell blast which landed in a forward outpost that he and his mate Bob Thompson were digging. According to Bob’s account, he and a few other pioneers carried Herb’s body back to a churchyard where Herb was buried in what became the Hamelet Communal Cemetery.
Herb’s mother received a package of his personal items which included a wristwatch in a leather case, a knife, photographs, letters and cards. Probate was granted on his will which was held by a solicitor in Kingaroy and his brother, Frank was nominated as executor.
Herbert’s mother Laura died in 1920 and his brother Frank took over the role of next of kin. In 1922, small graves of Australians from the battlefields on the Somme were concentrated into a new permanent cemetery on a hill at Villers Bretonneux, Herbert Hopkinson’s remains were exhumed and reburied at Villers Bretonneux National Cemetery. His headstone bears an inscription chosen by his brothers:
HE LEFT US SORROWING, MAY HE BE REJOICING