Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

 
#6286  ANDREW John                        26th Battalion
 
John Andrew was born in Helidon at the foot of the Toowoomba Range to James and Elizabeth Andrews. He attended school at Helidon and then probably worked on his parents’ farm. John’s attestation papers record that John had been a member of the Helidon Troop of the Australian Light Horse for three and a half years before he resigned due to leaving the district. It is possible that upon leaving Helidon, John went to work on a farm in the Bell district.
 
John attended the Toowoomba recruiting depot on 2nd August 1916. He stated his age as 27 years and occupation farmer. John named his mother, Elizabeth, as his next of kin. John was taken on by a depot battalion at Enoggera where he was issued with uniform and given inoculations. Eventually, John was assigned to the 18th reinforcements for the 26th Battalion.
 
The reinforcements travelled by train via Wallangarra to Sydney where they boarded the “Demosthenes” on 23rd December 1916, and sailed via South Africa and Sierra Leone to arrive in Plymouth, England, on 3rdMarch 1917. The reinforcements made their way to the 7th Brigade Training Battalion at Rollestone on Salisbury Plain for further training.
 
John spent over four months at Rollestone before being sent across the English Channel to the Australian transit camp at Havre on the French coast. He finally marched in to his battalion’s lines on 11th August 1917 but was then transferred temporarily to the Australian Corps Ceremonial Guard for duty during visits by senior officers and other dignitaries. John was posted back to his battalion on 2nd October.
 
The 26th, as part of the 7th Brigade, was preparing to move up to the front line for an assault on Broodseinde Ridge on 4th October, part of a series of engagements which are collectively referred to as the 3rd Battle of Ypres. It is unlikely that John was included in the assault as he had been seconded to other duty while the battalion rehearsed the attack but he probably joined the troops on the frontline for subsequent failed attempts to capture the village of Passchendaele.
 
The Ypres campaign had begun in September 1917 and with the capture of Westhoek Ridge and Polygon Wood, it appeared to the British commanders that they may have finally hit upon a way to force the Germans out of their defensive positions which they had held since early 1915. In the first week of October, the landscape over which the further attacks were to take place became an impenetrable bog in which the sucking mud, fed by unseasonal rains, consumed men and equipment. Battalions moving up to the front from the Ypres ramparts had to wade through trenches filled with mud and slush. By the time they arrived at the front exhausted, they were in no shape to form up for an assault. Passchendaele signalled the end of the Ypres campaign and the weary Australian battalions were relieved and went into warm, dry billets in camps of Nissen huts in the rear miles from the fighting.
 
John and the 26th enjoyed a period of rest and recreation before beginning training again for the German offensive expected in the spring of 1918. British intelligence had predicted that the main thrust of the offensive would be directed against the front just south of Ypres at Messines and it was there that the five divisions of the AIF were stationed.
 
In fact, the major thrust of Operation Michael was aimed at the British 5th Army which was holding the line on either side of the Somme in Northern France. In only a few days, towns and villages that had been taken at the cost of much British and Australian blood in 1916 were back in German hands. The British Army on the Somme, hopelessly outnumbered, fell back in disarray.
 
In desperation, the British Commander General Haig ordered four of the five divisions of the AIF to rush south from Belgium to take up defensive positions to protect the vital communication hub of Amiens. The 26th Battalion, as part of the 7th Brigade in the 2nd Division began their trek south on 2nd April and were in position with other Australian units on a line stretching from Villers Bretonneux to the Ancre River.
 
On 11th April, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig issued his famous order of the day in which he stated that “with our backs to the wall………each one of us must fight to the end.” The German advance had been slowed but the situation was critical. On 25th April 1918, in a daring nighttime pincher movement by two Australian infantry brigades, the German offensive was halted in the small village of Villers Bretonneux. The 26th continued to hold the line around Villers Bretonneux while engaging in harassment of the enemy by aggressive patrolling at night in no man’s land.
 
In June, the 7th Brigade was put into a limited attack at Morlancourt in an attempt to remove German forces from high ground. On 4th July, a similar action at Hamel, scrupulously planned by the Australian Corps Commander, Lieutenant General John Monash resulted in an outstanding result in ninety-three minutes. The actions at Morlancourt and Hamel had produced a number of bulges in the Australian line which opened the front to enfilading fire. During the week of 15th to 22nd July, a number of attacks were planned to “straighten the line.” During one such attack on 18th July, John Andrew received a bullet wound to the abdomen. He was taken to the 6th Field Ambulance by stretcher bearers and then sent to the 47th Casualty Clearing Station where succumbed to his wounds.
 
John was buried in a British Cemetery adjacent to the CCS at Crouy northwest of Amiens. He was 29 years old.