Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Norman Richard Gow was the third son of Richard Gow and Martha Jane Cumming. Norman was born on the Dargo High Plains in 1896 and was working as a driver at Harrietville before volunteering for the A.I.F. He enlisted at Wangaratta on 5 April 1916, just five months before his twentieth birthday. Norman was a strapping young man, tall and skinny at 6 feet and weighing only 140 pounds. He had blue eyes and brown hair; his complexion is described as fresh. He was assigned to the 37th Battalion’s reinforcements at the Seymour military camp. This battalion was part of the 10th Brigade of the 3rd Division, A.I.F. With training complete, Norman proceeded overseas on HMAT Port Lincoln (A17) on 20 October 1916, bound for Sierra Leone, and then onboard HMAT Borda (A30) and onwards to Plymouth, where he disembarked on 9 January 1917.

On 20 March 1917, Norman was in France, and ten days later he was reporting for duty with the 37th Battalion. In April, the 3rd Division was moved to the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge in Belgium, taking up a position on the extreme right flank of the II Anzac Corps. The division undertook its first major engagement of the war during the Battle of Messines in early June. The attack on Messines was a push by the British 2nd Army to capture the high ground overlooking Ypres. The Australian 9th and 10th brigades, the New Zealand Division, and several other allied divisions were involved in the attack. Unbeknownst to the Germans, the allies had tunnelled under their positions and installed nineteen enormous mines, which were detonated, killing some 10,000 German troops and decimating the German trench network. The allied troops were quickly able to gain the crest of the main ridge, digging in and defending against subsequent German counterattacks. There were constant operations along the ridge during June and July, with the 3rd Division involved in strengthening and developing trenchwork along its front line. During operations on 11 and 12 July, Norman and several other members of the 37th Battalion were recognised for their disregard of danger and display of great gallantry in attending to wounded during heavy hostile artillery near Messines. The Alpine Observer reported on 19 October 1917:

PRIVATE NORMAN RICHARD GOW, son of Mr and Mrs Richard Gow, formerly of Harrietville, recently came under the notice of general officer commanding the brigade with which he is associated at the front. The order reads as follows: - 37th Battalion AIF - Laudatory 10th Inf Brigade, Routine Order No 111 - The general officer commanding the brigade, desires to convey to the undermentioned officer and men his appreciation of their gallant conduct on the night, 11 and 12 July, near Messines. During the hostile shelling of a road, casualties were caused to a party passing along the road, two men being killed and six wounded.

Lieut Birrell immediately organised the party mentioned below and rendered first aid to the wounded. Transport was obtained subsequently, and the casualties were evacuated to the RAP. The whole of the work was carried out under very heavy shell fire, but Lieut Birrell, with his men, showed a total disregard for danger, and displayed great coolness and devotion to duty under very trying circumstances:- Lieut Birrell, Sydney Henry, 37th Battalion; No 61, Sig Willox, Leslie Lewis, 37th Battalion; No 2308, Pte Donnell, John, 37th Battalion; No 2325, Pte Gow, Norman Richard, 37th Battalion; No 2411, Pte Whitcross, Charles McMillan, 37th Battalion; No 1880, Pte Mitchell, William Charles, 37th Battalion.

The commanding officer of the battalion desires to convey his congratulations and to express his appreciation of the gallant conduct of the above-mentioned officer and men.

In late September, Norman was in the hospital with influenza, fortunately missing the Battle of Broodseinde. He was back reporting for duty at 37th Battalion headquarters on 8 October 1917, just in time for the first offensive at Passchendaele. The 37th Battalion was in heavy fighting, and its advance was impeded by intense machine gun and sniper fire. The weather had also turned bad, with heavy rain hampering the allied advance. After a determined German counterattack, 800 men from the New Zealand Division were cut off in no-man’s land, and most were killed. On 13 October, Norman was hit by artillery fire, sustaining a shrapnel wound to his right arm, and was evacuated to the 24th General Hospital in Estaples. When Norman rejoins the battalion in December, they have been relieved from the front line and are resting and training. Around Christmas time, Norman was able to catch up with fellow Harrietville native John Bromley, who was serving as a driver with the 1st Pioneer Battalion. John writes in part:

I am attached to the Australian Corps headquarters MTS. One good point about this place, we are away from shell fire. I met both Tom and Norman Gow a few days ago. They are both looking fit.

With the situation on the front expected to remain stable until the spring, Norman was granted two weeks’ leave on 22 February 1918. Despite the popularity of Paris among the Australian troops, he decided to return to England. Perhaps he attended the wedding of his cousin Bill Gow to Violet Olive Wood in early March? Not long after returning to his battalion in mid-March, the Australian troops were soon back in action.

In early 1917 the new Russian revolutionary government signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers, releasing as many as fifty German divisions from duty on the Eastern Front. German General Erich Ludendorff now planned to use his numerical advantage in troops and equipment to make a rapid advance against allied rail and port infrastructure. The offensive began on 21 March 1918, with an attack against the British 5th Army at Saint-Quentin. The 3rd Australian Division was still resting in the rear when the German offensive began. Quickly, the division was sent to reinforce the defences at Ypres. When a German attack in this sector did not materialise, the division was quickly sent to defend the railhead at Amiens. The division’s artillery and reserves struggled to keep up with the infantry during the rapid deployment, and the first German attacks were repulsed with little support. On 30 March, the 11th Brigade repulsed a serious attack at Morlancourt, while the 9th Brigade was ordered to march south, where it was involved in a counterattack around Villers-Bretonneux. On 6 April, the Germans made an attack against the 10th Brigade positions, which was repulsed. The German offensive wavered during April 1918, and soon they were on the back foot. The Germans had made some spectacular gains, but they had lengthened their front line, and with troops on the point of exhaustion, they were vulnerable to counterattack. The Germans had failed to capture any vital allied infrastructure and now faced a determined response from allied troops, who continued to make small gains across the new front line. The 10th Brigade made advances in their sector of the front, capturing the village of Merris in July.

In June 1918, General John Monash, commander of the 3rd Division, was given overall command of the Australian Corps, and he immediately began preparing his troops for a pivotal role in the coming Hundred Days Offensive, an allied masterstroke that ultimately led to the end of the war. The offensive began with an attack on the Amiens sector on the morning of 8 August. Nineteen divisions of the British 4th Army poured across the enemy lines. The spearhead of the attack was the Australian Corps, comprising all five divisions, and the Canadian Corps, comprising four divisions. The 37th Battalion was held in reserve, as was the rest of the 10th Brigade. Aided by British tanks, the Australian troops advanced rapidly, with some units reaching their objective by early morning. The allied advance on the first day of the battle was eleven kilometres, one of the largest single-day gains of the war. Monash committed the 10th Brigade to battle on the afternoon of 8 August, and the brigade marched through the night, taking up positions just behind the village of Morcourt. The tactical situation was now changing rapidly, and often the assaults on German positions were hastily planned and lacked coordination. The carnage was appalling. The allied success was, however, having an effect on the morale of the German troops, and they began surrendering in large numbers. By 10 August, the Canadian and Australian troops had advanced into the old Somme battlefields of 1916. The ground was covered in deep shell holes, and tangles of barbed wire lay everywhere. Much of the ground was covered in brambles and thistles that had grown in the absence of other vegetation. The terrain now favoured the Germans, and casualties mounted. The 11th Battalion was caught by machine gun fire as it crossed open ground, and within seconds, eleven of its officers were either killed or wounded, prompting this entry in the battalion diary: “men whom neither the A.I.F. nor Australia can afford to lose.”

General Monash now tasked the 10th Brigade with advancing toward the village of Proyart and, after capturing it, continuing onward to the Somme River. The 37th Battalion would take the lead, but although Monash had formulated the plan, Lieutenant Colonel Knox-Knight, commander of the 37th Battalion, had grave doubts. Six tanks were attached to the brigade for the assault, and the tank officers thought the job was crazy! The Germans, fully expecting an allied assault, had fortified their positions along the route. As soon as the Australians advanced, fierce fighting erupted, and it continued through the night and into the morning of 11 August. The Australians were only just able to extricate themselves before dawn broke on the morning of the eleventh. The 37th Battalion lost a quarter of its complement during the assault on Proyart; among those killed was Norman Gow. A notation in Norman’s service record notes: ‘Buried isolated grave ¾ mile S. of Proyart and 9 ¼ miles E.S.E. of Corbie.’ Norman’s body was never recovered, and his name is recorded on the Villers-Bretonneux memorial for soldiers whose resting place is Known unto God.

Norman’s parents were living in South Yarra when they learned of his death. The family having recently sold their hotel on the Dargo High Plains, where most of the family’s eleven children were born. His heartbroken parents wrote about their beloved son, killed at the age of 21 years and 10 months:

A dear kind son that all did love,
His face no more we’ll see,
Until we meet in heaven above,
To spend eternity.