Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From Francois Berthout

4794 Gordon Dow,
5th Australian Infantry Battalion,
15th Platoon, D Company,
2nd Brigade, 1st Australian Division

Through the gentle warmth of a winter sun, rest in peace, in the silence of waving poppies, thousands of young men who, more than a hundred years ago, answered the call of duty and fought side by side, far from home on the sacred grounds of the Somme where they gave their today in the frozen blood of the trenches and together, for peace, for justice and freedom, in the mud, under bullets and shells, under fire and poison gas, sacrificed their youth and gave their lives so that we could have a tomorrow, a world without war in which we could forever stand united to preserve what they fought and fell for and today, in the remembrance, in eternal silence, behind the rows of their immaculate graves, they still stand young and proud watching over their comrades who did not have the chance to live old, to return home but found in France, the love and eternal gratitude of a country that will forever be grateful to them and that will forever watch over them just as I always would with the deepest respect to honor the memory, lives and sacrifices of these young men so that their stories and their names live forever.

Today, it is with the utmost respect and with the deepest gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these men, one of my boys of the Somme who came from Australia to fight in France and who for all of us, gave his life, his everything.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 4794 Gordon Dow who fought in the 5th Australian Infantry Battalion, 15th Platoon, D Company, 2nd Brigade, 1st Australian Division, and who was killed in action 106 years ago, on February 10, 1917 at the age of 35 on the Somme front.

Gordon Dow was born on 8 September 1880 to William and Isabella Dow of Emerald Hill, in South Melbourne,Victoria,Australia. His father had come to Australia from Scotland, and worked for many years as an engineer, but his first love was violin making. When Gordon was still a small boy, his father retired from engineering and became a "renowned expert on violin construction," with a little workshop he used to restore violins that were sent all over the world. Gordon was educated at the Dorcas Street School in Melbourne. He became a well-known figure in South Melbourne, and a popular sportsman. He played cricket with the South Melbourne Cricket Club’s second eleven, and was "one of the leading players of the successful Leopold Football Club." His oldest brother William went on to be the city treasurer for South Melbourne, but on the outbreak of war in 1914, Gordon held the more modest job of bookkeeper for McCauley’s furniture warehouse.

Gordon enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on July 15, 1915 in Melbourne, in the 5th Australian Infantry Battalion, 15th Reinforcement.He served in a number of training depots in Australia for several months, including Broadmeadows, Royal Park and Ballarat, probably in an administrative capacity related to his bookkeeping skills. He received notification that he would be leaving for active service overseas in early March 1916, and so, on March 3, 1916, just days before he left Australia, Gordon married Amanda Jackson,of 50 Anglesea Street, Bondi, Sydney, New South Wales, at St. Silas’s Church in Albert Park.

On March 7, 1916, Gordon embarked with his unit from Melbourne, on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire and sailed for Egypt and arrived in Suez on May 8 then the same day, was sent to Cairo where he served in the 2nd Training Battalion, again probably in an administrative capacity.Two months later, on July 7, Gordon returned to the 5th Battalion and on July 27, embarked from Alexandria, on board "Arcadian" and proceeded for England.

On August 10, 1916, Gordon arrived in England and marched for Perham Downs, Wiltshire, served in the 2nd Training Battalion then in the 1st Australian Division Base Details. On November 12, he joined the 5th Battalion with which he embarked the same day on board "SS Victoria" and proceeded overseas for France.

On November 13, 1916, after a quick trip down the English Channel, Gordon arrived in France and with his comrades was disembarked at Etaples and marched to the 1st Australian Divisional Base depot. A little over a week later, on November 22, he proceeded to join his unit and was taken on strength on November 25 with the 5th Battalion in the Somme, in the small village of Vignacourt.Shortly after, on November 30, the battalion embarked by train from Vignacourt railway station and was sent to New Carlton Camp, near Buire where they were billeted until the morning of December 6.

On the afternoon of December 6, 1916, Gordon and the 5th Battalion left New Carlton Camp and joined the Gueudecourt battlefield where they relieved the 13th Australian Infantry Battalion and occupied several positions known as the "Grease Trench", "Goodwin's Post", "Pilgrims Trench" and "Pioneer Trench".
Unfortunately, the following day, on December 7, 1916, after a single day of combat in the trenches of Gueudecourt, Gordon was wounded in the face by the explosion of a shell which killed one of his comrades and wounded twelve others. Gordon was immediately evacuated and admitted to the 5th Australian Field Ambulance and then to the 36th Casualty Clearing Station the same day. Two days later, on December 9, he was transferred to the 11th Stationary Hospital in Rouen where the doctors considered that his injuries were not serious and after a few days in the hospital at Etaples, joined the 1st Australian Divisional Base depot on December 19, proceeded to join his unit on December 31 and rejoined the 5th Battalion on January 2, 1917, again in the Somme, in a rest camp in Buire.At this time, the Somme experienced one of its coldest winters, and active operations had died down for a time. This meant that defensive work, construction, and surviving the cold, wet and snowy conditions became a daily part of life. Nevertheless, battalions did sometimes send patrols of men into no man’s land to keep an eye on enemy activity and bring back any information they could.

On January 14, 1917, Gordon and the men of the 5th Battalion left Buire and moved into Billets at Warloy-Baillon where they underwent a period of training including bayonet fighting, tactical exercises and then on January 23, marched for the town of Albert.Two days later, on January 25, they received the order to join the High Wood West Camp and on February 10, entered the trenches of Bazentin-Le-Petit.

Unfortunately, on the same day, just one month and eight days after he rejoined his battalion, Gordon met his fate. On the night of February 10, 1917,Gordon volunteered to be a member of a raiding party, comprising four officers and 103 other ranks. Attacking a German held position near Bazentin-Le- Petit known as "Bayonet Trench", the party was held up by enemy barbed wire emplacements, and suffered a number of casualties before being forced to withdraw.

One of the eight men killed on the raid was Private Gordon Dow. He was shot in the head and chest, and died soon after reaching the dressing station. His body was brought into the back lines by the raiding party, and he was buried nearby.

Today, Gordon Dow rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at Bazentin-Le-Petit Military Cemetery, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "Beloved husband of Amanda Dow, he bravely answered the call."

In Australia news of Gordon Dow’s death was reported in the South Melbourne newspapers. A report in the Record noted that "what makes the news sadder still than such sad news would otherwise have been, is that the deceased was married a few days prior to his departure (smiling, cheerful, and determined to do his duty to the Empire) for the front. Mingled with the sorrow that is felt at the loss of such an estimable citizen is deep and abiding sympathy for the bereaved widow, parents and relatives."

Gordon, determined to do what was right, ready to give your life for the noblest causes, it is with courage that alongside your comrades you answered the call of duty to fight by proudly carrying the values and the colors of Australia behind the bagpipes and bugles that punctuated the steps of a whole generation of men who, in the prime of their lives, with the ardor of their youth, far from home, marched forward on the soils of a country they did not know but for which they were ready to give everything and with their heads held high, pushed forward by their desire to fight, beyond the fields of poppies, joined with faith and confidence the trenches of the great war under the fire of the artillery which sent on them the fires of hell preceded by the fatal symphonies of hurricanes of steel which fell in whirlwinds of fire on the battlefields of the Somme which, tirelessly, mercilessly, were pounded, plowed and scarified s by this outburst of fury in the face of which so many young boys lost their nerve and, in tears, remained paralyzed by the fear which seized their stomachs and saw a few meters from the parapets the true face of the war which mowed down their lives from their mates, they saw the blood that flowed in the face of the machine guns that rained around them the despair and desolation that transformed these once silent fields into execution fields martyred by kilometers of barbed wire in which so many men, husbands, brothers fell without being able to escape but despite what they saw, despite what they went through, they remained united to each other in the most beautiful bond of camaraderie alongside their French brothers in arms and together joined the fight for peace to prevail, they held firm and resolute to the front line without ever taking a single step back. In this nightmare of fire and steel, the young Diggers did more than they could, they went beyond their limits without regret and together, knees deep in the mud, frozen, torn by hunger and thirst , living with the rats in a permanent smell of death, they never complained and kept their sense of humor to counter fate and remained united in the face of adversity, in the face of a world war which tried to take all humanity from them but they fought together with compassion and showed on the battlefields of Pozieres, Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux the courage of a whole generation of men, of the whole young and strong Australian nation who volunteered to help our old country to come out of the darkness and to rise from the fields of ruins that the war caused in an indescribable storm in which so many men killed each other and each advance was won in the blood that flowed in terrible fights in hand-to-hand combat, in slaughterhouses in which friends and foes fought to their last breath with bayonets, trench shovels, steel helmets and fell together into shell holes which were no more than mass graves which the tanks tried to dodge by crushing everything under their steel tracks, in the din and chaos of their engines, of their cannons which pulverized everything in front of them like steel monsters which replaced the chests of the men and the ardor of the cavalry charges above which, in the dark skies, faced young pilots, proud aces in whirling battles in their fragile wooden machines which twirled and fell in balls of fire on the battlefields, in an apocalypse that seemed to have no end but after so much sacrifice, effort and bravery,the young Australian soldiers, alongside their French and British brothers, brought a new hope for peace which spread through the music of the bells of November 11, 1918 like a message saying " never again". Today, more than a hundred years have passed and the sound of cannons and machine guns has died down, roses grow on the old lines of barbed wire and millions of poppies grow tirelessly where so many lives were lost but these young men, gone, have not disappeared, they still stand solemnly behind their white graves, their memory has never faded and I will always watch over them who are our sons so that their sacrifices are never forgotten, so that in our tomorrows, their names live forever. Thank you so much Gordon, for everything. At the going down of the sun and in the morning,we will remember him,we will remember them.

I would like to warmly and respectfully thank the Australian War Memorial, as well as Mrs Meleah Hampton, Historian, Military History Section, for their invaluable help without which I would not have been able to write this tribute.

Son of William Henry and Isabella Dow; husband of Amanda Dow of 50 Anglesea Street, Sydney, NSW

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal