Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

John Charles Speck was born at Sandy Creek, six miles east of Gawler, South Australia on 21 March 1888, to Thomas Speck and Priscilla (nee Underwood). John was the second of eight children. His father, Thomas, spent the majority of his working life as a self supported gold miner / fossicker. In January 1883 while getting wattle bark on the Barossa Ranges, at a place called Dead Horse Gully, Thomas Speck picked up a nugget of gold which turned the scale twelve (12) ounces avoirdupois. Some doubt was cast at first upon the genuineness of the find, but a number of people examined the nugget, and it was tried with acid, and, without doubt, it is gold, although there is a large admixture of iron stone with it. Prior to the war John Charles Speck was working as a labourer and assisting his father fossicking for gold.

1915

On Monday 18 January 1915 John signed his A.I.F. Attestation Papers at the Oaklands Army camp, six miles south of Adelaide. John was two months off his twenty-seventh birthday. The Oaklands Army camp was located on the 450 acre ‘Oaklands Estate’ situated on the Brighton railway line with its own railway station. The camp was also used for practice manoeuvres for the Light Horse Regiments.

In February 1915 John Charles Speck, regimental number 1938, was assigned to the 5th Reinforcement for the 16th Infantry Battalion. The 16th Battalion was originally formed six weeks after the outbreak of the First World War and was predominately made up of Western Australian recruits, with approximately one quarter from South Australia.

On 8 March John, with his father, mother and family attended his uncle’s funeral. Samuel Speck, his father’s younger brother, died the day before, at Blanchetown, aged sixty-four years, from pneumonia and pleurisy. It would be four months later that John would learn that his cousin, Sam the son of Samuel, would also die from pneumonia and pleurisy on 20 June 1914, aged twenty-six years.

John Charles Speck left from Outer Harbour, South Australia on 20 April 1915 aboard the transport ship ‘HMAT Hororata’, with the 16th Infantry Battalion - 5th Reinforcement and arrived at Alexandria, Egypt on 1 June. It was here that they learnt of what had transpired, on 25 April and the days afterwards, on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

After one month’s training, at the Mena Camp, John Charles Speck and the other reinforcements, were despatched to Gallipoli. Prior to their departure they had been told to stop shining their badges, buttons and any other shiny surfaces on their uniforms were to be dulled. There were many snipers in the Turkish held higher ground who would pick out their targets by the glint of the sun. All officers were told to wear regular belts and bandoleers and to dress similar to the lower ranks, so as to not attract attention from the snipers.

The reinforcements arrived at Anzac Cove on 13 July and joined the 16th Battalion who were heavily involved in establishing and defending the front line at the Anzac Cove beach-head. The narrow, shingle beach had a high bank and was 600 yards long and only 20 yards wide. On the night of 6 August the 4th Infantry Brigade, including the 16th Battalion, advanced in an attack on the enemy positions on Koja Chemen Tepe (Hill 971), the highest point of the Sari Bair Ridge. Because of the difficult terrain, which was a tangle of ravines, they made slow progress and by the dawn of 7 August had not reached their objective and found themselves under enemy fire. John Charles Speck was wounded, with a gun-shot wound to his left hip, and evacuated, with a number of other wounded soldiers, the 3 miles back to the beach area. The assault on Hill 971 was attempted again on 8 August but failed with 765 casualties.

On the beach, awaiting medical evacuation, John Charles Speck found himself with two hundred plus other wounded soldiers. The casualty clearing stations were stretched to the limit and the barges, being towed to the overcrowded transport ships, were working flat out.

On 9 August, John was evacuated to Alexandria via the hospital ship ‘HMHS Esmeralda’ and admitted to the 1st Australian General Hospital, formerly the Heliopolis Palace Hotel, Cairo on 13 August and treated until 18 August when he was transferred to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Cairo for recovery. On 8 October, John was transported, via the troopship ‘HMT Monitor’, to the 3rd Australian General Hospital at Mudros, the Greek port on the Mediterranean island of Lemnos. John never rejoined his Battalion at Gallipoli as the allied troop withdrawal, from the Gallipoli Peninsula, commenced on 8 December through to 20 December1915, where a total of 90,000 troops were evacuated. On 30 December John disembarked from ‘HMAT Ascanius’ at Alexandria and was ‘taken on strength’ at the Overseas Mustapha Base. While stationed at the base John met Jane Edwards, a British Nurse, and from January through February they enjoyed the sights of Alexandria in each others company.

1916

During this time the A.I.F. was being expanded and reorganised and the 16th Battalion was split, with some soldiers being transferred to the 48th Battalion. The budding romance was cut short when John was transferred, on 3 Mar 1916, to the 48th Battalion and relocated to the Tel-el-Kebir Training Camp, sixty-eight miles north-east of Cairo.

On 2 June 1916 the 48th Battalion sailed from Alexandria on the troopship ‘HMT Caledonia’ to Marseilles and then by train to the Western Front. The battalion relieved by the 27th Battalion on Tuesday 8 August. During the handover John Charles Speck met up with his brother Harold Speck, who was part of the 27th Battalion. The Speck brothers had not seen each other for two years and caught up with all their news.

The 48th Battalion’s first major battle on the Western Front was at Pozieres in the Somme valley. This battle was a two week action to gain control of the French village of Pozieres and the ridge on which it stands. During the advance the battalion endured a ferocious German bombardment and they forced back two German counter-attacks. Just one day after the Speck brothers had met, on 8 August, John Charles Speck was wounded by a piece of flying shrapnel to his foot and brought into the casualty clearing station. With a severe injury he was evacuated, on 9 August, the 90 miles to the No.4 General Hospital at Camiers, north of Etaples.

Requiring surgery, John was taken aboard the troopship ‘HMT Antwerpar’ on 12 August, and transported to the Belmont Road Auxiliary Military Hospital in Liverpool, England. After surgery, John was transferred to the No.1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital on 12 October 1916, situated at ‘Harefield Park’, Harefield, Middlesex, a home for convalescing wounded soldiers.

Since meeting Jane Edwards, the British Nurse in Alexandria, John and Jane had been keeping in touch by letters. John had recently found out that Jane was now back in England and she was pregnant, with his child. After one week at Harefield Park, John was granted two weeks leave and he made his way, the 109 miles north, to Dudleston, Shropshire and arrived there on Thursday 19 October.

On Wednesday 25 October 1916 John Charles Speck, age twenty-eight, married Jane Annie Edwards, age twenty-seven, at Dudleston, Shropshire. After nine days together, John had to report back to the No.1 Command depot at Perham Downs, a depot set up for receiving troops fit to be drafted to their units at the front-line. This was a very bleak camp on the Salisbury Plains and covered in snow when John arrived. He was assigned to the 12th Training Battalion on 7 November where he was brought up to a fitness level to enable his return to France.

John became a father on Wednesday 8 November 1916 when Kathleen May Speck was born at Dudleston. John went A.W.L. (Absent Without Leave) on Tuesday 12 December, presumably to visit his wife and daughter.

1917

On Sunday 4 February 1917, John and other returning soldiers, were sent by train to Folkstone, Kent where they were shipped back to Etaples, France. John, and others returning to the 48th Battalion were transported the 37 miles to the Mametz camp where the battalion was resting. The weather was bitterly cold and snowing most days.

During March 1917, the German army had withdrawn to the Hindenburg Line with the aim of reducing their front-line to make their trench positions easier to defend. During this time the 48th Battalion were on the move, after a reorganisation and training stint at Becourt camp, they moved to Henencourt Wood for drill manoeuvres and training, before relieving the 13th Battalion at Ecoust-St. Mein, one mile west of Bullecourt.

To capitalise on the German army withdrawal an attack was planned on Bullecourt on 11 April 1917 by the 4th Australian and 62nd British Divisions. Bullecourt was one of several heavily fortified villages incorporated into the defences of the Hindenburg Line. After relieving the 13th Battalion, the men of the 48th Battalion were tasked with constructing ‘jumping off’ trenches around Ecoust-St. Mein.

A normal trench was about six foot deep, allowing a man to walk upright, without fear of being shot by rifle fire. To enable soldiers to shoot rifles from the trenches, fire-steps were built two foot higher than the bottom of the trench. A soldier was then able to fire his weapon while standing on the fire-step. The ‘jumping off’ trenches were made by digging one or two step platforms, above the fire-steps, into the exit sides of an existing trench.

The 48th Battalion were assembled in the forward trenches on Tuesday 10 April and the ‘First Battle of Bullecourt’, as it was later named, was planned for 0430 hours on Wednesday 11 April. The British Tanks that were to support the advance were late arriving and, as they moved forward, they were easily visible in the snow by the light of the enemy flares. None of the tanks advanced further than one-hundred yards before they were put out of action by the German six-pound shells.

A number of the German six-pound shells landed amongst the 48th Battalion in their ‘jumping off’ trenches. After they went over-the-top the 48th Battalion managed to break into the German trenches. The supporting British artillery fire was withheld, as it was not immediately known how far the Australians had advanced, and eventually the Australians were forced to retreat.

At the subsequent 48th Infantry Battalion roll call, John Charles Speck was noted as ‘Missing In Action’ and his family in Australia were notified in May 1917 of this fact. By the end of June both his wife in England, Jane, and his family in South Australia, had been notified that he had been ‘Killed In Action’. There was no indication as to the whereabouts of his body until 27 September 1917 when the Australian Red Cross Society – Wounded and Missing Enquiry Section had followed up with other soldiers, of the 48th Battalion, and identified Lance Corporal W. G. Zbierski who witnessed the death. In his statement, at Perham Downs on 1 September 1917, Lance Corporal W. G. Zbierski wrote, ‘No.1938 Pte Speck J.C. 48th Btn was killed on the 11.4.17. - I was close by at the time and can definitely say that he was killed instantly by shell fire.’ His body was never found or recovered.

Sources

Australian War Memorial - www.awm.gov.au (www.awm.gov.au)

The Immigrants, Paul M. Hoskins, Xlibris, 2013