Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 5690 JENKS Thomas Henry (Harry)                         25th Battalion
 
Harry Jenks was born to parents William and Rosina Jenks in Brisbane around 1893. At some point, Rosina was widowed and she and her two sons, Harry and Allen, moved to Booie outside Nanango when Rosina married Frederick Birch, a widower with five sons of his own. As the boys grew up in the blended family, most of them worked on the family farm. Harry’s mother stated that Harry was working as a teamster prior to taking the train from Kingaroy to Maryborough to enlist on 27th April 1916. Harry informed the recruiters that he was 23 years old and his occupation was recorded as labourer. He was obviously a fit young man, standing 6’ tall and weighing 11 and a half stone.
 
Harry was placed into the 11th Depot Battalion at Enoggera before being taken on as a member of the 15threinforcements of the 25th Battalion. Two of his step brothers, Harry and David Birch were in the same group of reinforcements, having enlisted two months earlier. After a period of home leave, the boys embarked on the “Clan McGillivray” for overseas on 7th September. The embarkation roll shows that Harry Jenks had allocated 4/- of his daily pay of 5/- to his mother at “Fairleigh”, Booie via Kingaroy.
 
The reinforcements were at sea for two months with coaling stops at Fremantle, Capetown and Sierra Leone before arriving in Plymouth Harbour. During the voyage, Harry was admitted to the ship’s hospital with mumps, a very common disease at that time. Once on English soil, the reinforcements were marched in to the 7th Brigade Training Battalion at Rollestone on Salisbury Plain. On 13th December 1916, Harry boarded a cross-channel ferry for the night crossing of the English Channel to the 2nd Australian Division Infantry Depot at Havre on the French coast. There was very little need for frontline reinforcements during the winter of 1916/17 and the reinforcements remained in the relative comfort of barracks at Havre. On 5th February 1917, Harry was marched out and taken on strength by the 25th Battalion.
 
In the early spring of 1917, the 25th Battalion as part of the 7th Brigade was engaged in holding the line in front of the town of Bapaume. In the lull in fighting of the previous winter, the Germans had constructed a 150 kilometre long defensive barrier, which they named the Seigfreid Position but the British labelled the Hindenburg Line, some distance to the east of their previous positions astride the Somme. As the German forces began a strategic withdrawal to this new position, the British forces cautiously followed, taking the towns of Bapaume and Noreuil along the way. By the first week in April, elements of the 5th British Army under General Gough, which included two Australian divisions, came up against the Hindenburg defences at Bullecourt.
 
Two attempts were made to breach the Hindenburg defences in April 1917 at Bullecourt, neither of which was successful. The 25th Battalion played a mainly supporting role at Bullecourt. This brought an end to the Somme campaign and General Douglas Haig, the overall British commander on the Western Front turned his attention north to Belgian Flanders and the Ypres salient.
Haig, had finally got his wish to conduct a totally British campaign (without the French), in which he included Dominion troops, aimed at spearing through the German defenders to the Belgian ports on the English Channel. To do so he planned for a series of battles in the summer and autumn of 1917, each of which created a stepping stone to the next objective. The first of these stepping stones was a ridge line which was occupied by the enemy and overlooked the ground that was to be used for the build up of British forces. The 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 beginning of the 3rd Battle of Ypres (often incorrectly referred to as Passchendaele) occurred at Messines, where 19 underground mines were exploded on 7th June 1917. Two Australian divisions, the 3rdand 4th ,were included in the order of battle at Messines. Meanwhile the 2nd Division’s battalions which included the 25th Battalion, had been in a rest and recovery phase since Bullecourt and were included in the plans for the next phase of the campaign, an attack against the Westhoek Ridge as part of the battle of Menin Road. Compared to the less than satisfactory outcomes of the Somme Campaign, the Flanders campaign at first achieved good results with ground being gained relatively easily costing considerably fewer casualties.
 
Menin Road was for the 25th a success and the men were relieved by British troops to reorganise for the next phase of the campaign. Following on from the success at Westhoek Ridge, two other AIF divisions attacked at Polygon Wood. This operation was also a success and the new front line had moved east to the base of a low ridge; Broodseinde.
 
On 4th October, the 25th and the rest of the 7th Brigade were occupying the jumping off tapes at the base of Broodseinde awaiting the creeping artillery barrage that would cover their advance. In one of those strange coincidences. The German defenders had planned a counterattack at the same time and as the two forces advanced towards each other up either side of the ridge, the German infantry were caught in the open. The ridge and the town of Zonnebeke were taken and the troops dug in once more. During this action, Harry Jenks was seriously wounded. He was taken to the 10th Casualty Clearing Station where he was admitted with a fractured skull, a penetrating chest wound and a serious wound to his right thigh.
 
Once his wounds were assessed and bandaged, Harry was loaded onto a hospital train and transferred to the #2 Canadian General Hospital at Le Treport on the French Coast. His right leg was amputated but the combination of shock and chest wound led to Harry dying of his wounds on 12th October. He was buried in the Mont Huon Military Cemetery at Le Treport. Harry’s mother received a parcel of his personal belongings including an identity disc, belt, knife, pipe, razor, an English French dictionary and a broken wristwatch.
Of the six sons and stepsons of Frederick Birch, Harry Jenks was the only one who failed to return from the war.