Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

 
#2234 PRINGLE  Luke  52nd Battalion
 
 
Luke Pringle was born at Martinsville, south of Newcastle NSW, in 1889. The Pringle family, Luke and Margaret, were farming in the area and George and his siblings attended school there. Lured by the prospect of good farming and grazing country in the South Burnett, the family moved to Cloyna near Murgon and established themselves on a property named ‘Field view’ at Merlwood. Luke, as the eldest son, worked on the family farm, and continued to do so for almost 18 months after his younger brother, George, had enlisted.
On 25th March 1916, Luke journeyed to Maryborough where he attended the recruitment centre. He advised the officer that he was 25 years old, a single farmer from Cloyna. Like many of the recruits from the Murgon district, Luke was also a member of the Cloyna Rifle Club. Luke was given a few days grace to settle his affairs and he reported to Enoggera on 10th April where he was placed into the 11th depot battalion before being allocated to the 4th reinforcements of the 52nd Battalion on 10th May. The reinforcements boarded the “Boorara” in Brisbane on 16th August. After stops in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle to take on more reinforcements, the “Boorara” sailed via Durban and Sierra Leone and arrived in Plymouth on 13th October 1916.
 
After a short stay at the 4th Division Training Battalion at Codford, Luke crossed the English Channel from Folkstone on 12th December and was taken on strength by his battalion on 19th December. The 52ndbattalion War Diary records that 63 partially trained reinforcements were taken on strength on that day; with a notation that they would not be absorbed into the companies proper until they had received further training.
 
During the winter of 1916/17, the Australian troops in France experienced some of the coldest weather that had occurred in that region. For the 52nd Battalion occupying the trenches at Flers, the battalion war diary records the struggle of the front-line troops in dealing with frostbite, trench foot and sickness. There would appear to have been jubilation all round when the battalion was relieved in February and went into billets in Nissen Huts at Bazentin where there was a generous supply of firewood to heat the accommodation.
 
During that winter, the Germans had been quietly constructing a 150 kilometre long defensive system some 20 kilometres behind the positions they held at the end of 1916. This system of fortifications, which the Germans named the Seigfreid Position but was named the Hindenburg Line by the British and French, had been constructed on more favourable ground to provide almost impenetrable defence by employing fields of barbed wire, concrete gun emplacements and deep dugouts. As spring approached, the German armies facing the British on the Somme began a careful strategic withdrawal to the new positions. As the Germans withdrew, the British forces cautiously followed. The 4th Division of the AIF came up upon the new defences at Lagnicourt. The 52nd Battalion was in reserve for an attack on 2nd April but nonetheless suffered some casualties.
 
The advance to the Hindenburg Line signalled the end of operations for the British Forces in France. The Somme front was occupied by garrison troops while front line units, which included the AIF, were moved north into Belgium to prepare for a new assault in the Ypres salient. The 4th Division troops went into billets at Neuve Eglise and engaged in a heavy syllabus of training and refurbishment in preparation for the opening battle of what became known as 3rd Ypres or more commonly Passchendaele. Luke Pringle was promoted to Lance Corporal in anticipation of the coming battle on 16th April 1917.
 
A major stumbling block to the operations planned for the Flanders campaign was a low ridge which ran roughly north south from near the city of Ypres to the villages of Messines and Warneton. Since quite early in the war, the Germans had occupied the ridge which gave them a commanding view of the British preparations. To counteract this advantage, the British and later Australian tunnelling companies had been undermining the German positions on the ridge and by the time the battle was ready to begin, 19 tunnels had been packed with combinations of gun cotton and ammonal. These mines were fired simultaneously at 3:50am on 7th June 1917. Once the dust and smoke cleared, brigades of Australians from the 4th and 3rdDivisions advanced up to the Oosstaverne Ridge and established a new front line. The 52nd Battalion, as part of the 13th Brigade set off from the jumping off tapes at 9:30 am.
 
After the initial shock of the mine explosions which killed many thousands of soldiers, the Germans quickly reorganised and counterattacked with heavy artillery. The combination of underground explosions and heavy shelling created a battlefield strewn with craters, some of which such as Hill 60 and The Caterpillar are still visible.
 
During the 52nd Battalion’s charge on 7th June, Luke Pringle, who was in charge of a machine gun section, was reported missing. Some men who were nearby reported that they had seen Luke in shell crater lying wounded and the report of missing was amended to read “Wounded and Missing”. This information was relayed to Luke’s mother in Murgon who after receiving no clarification wrote to the authorities in Melbourne requesting some news.
 
The reply she received, based on no further information from the front other than he was wounded, stated that her son’s wounds were not stated as serious and that in the absence of information to the contrary, it could be assumed that favourable progress was being made. This was a standard form of reply and in many cases, including this, created a false hope for the concerned family.
 
It was only after enquiries were begun with the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Service that witnesses stated that Luke had been seen wounded in a shell hole. He was wounded in the abdomen and had been bandaged and left in the shell crater as the attack moved on. There was no report of him being taken out by stretcher and his remains were never recovered. A closer inspection of the events of 7th June indicates that the 52nd Battalion’s advance was threatened when a Regiment of British Infantry failed to turn up to protect the 52nd ‘s right flank. To cover the gap in the line, the 52nd had to spread themselves very thinly across the front. A standard practice at the time was for advancing infantry to fire flares to indicate their position to their supporting artillery. There was a fear that if attention was drawn to their scattered defences by firing flares, the Germans might mount a counterattack. As a consequence, no recognition signals were given.
 
The Australian artillery, having received no signals assumed that the positions were still in enemy hands began to drop high explosive shells on the trench line. Eventually the 52nd had to withdraw through their own barrage to the start line, leaving dead and badly wounded behind. In all the confusion, it took some time for accurate information to be collated and it was not until 19th November that a court of inquiry determined that Like Pringle was killed in action on 7th June 1917 at Messines. His remains were never located.
 
Luke Pringle is one of the more than 54,000 British and Dominion Troops who were killed in Belgium and have no known grave. To honour their sacrifice, a memorial was constructed at the west gate of the Ypres city wall; The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing. Each evening since 1928, with a brief pause during German occupation, the citizens of Ypres conduct a commemorative service under the arch of the gate which concludes with the laying of wreaths, the recitation of the Ode, and the playing of the Last Post by the city’s bugle corps.
 
The Pringle family had lost two sons in the Great War, neither of whom had a final resting place.