Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

#3477 CLIFTON Frederick Archibald Thomas                                    25th Infantry Battalion
 
Fred Clifton was born in the London Borough of Bow around 1896 to Frederick William Clifton and Nina Blanche Clifton. He attended a London County Council School and also had training as a musician. In 1906, Fred’s father died and his mother took it upon herself to emigrate to Queensland. Nina aged 37, and Fred aged 12, arrived in Brisbane in November 1908 and proceeded to the Southern Downs town of Leyburn where Nina married Mr Benjamin Humphreys, a widower and butcher. Benjamin Humphreys had a son, Leonard who was two years older than Fred.
 
Fred probably assisted in farming tasks or in the butchery before relocating to Esk where he boarded with Mrs Georgina Allen while he worked in a sawmill there as a mill hand. His mother remained in Leyburn. The news of the landings by the Australians on the Gallipoli shore sparked a new wave of enlistments in the AIF. It would seem that Fred, and a mate of his Wynn Blank who also worked at the sawmill, decided to journey to Brisbane to enlist. Fred presented himself at Adelaide Street Recruiting Depot on 31st August 1915. He stated he was 19 years old and came with a note from his mother in Leyburn giving her permission for him to enlist. Fred gave his occupation as mill hand and his address as C/- Mrs G. Allen, Esk. He named his mother, Nina Humphreys, as his next of kin.
 
Fred and Wynn Blank were placed into a depot battalion at Enoggera before being assigned to the 8th reinforcements of the 25th Battalion. Presumably, Fred received a period of home leave to see his mother before the reinforcements embarked on the “Kyarra” in Brisbane on 3rd January 1916. The embarkation roll shows that Fred had allocated 4/- of his daily pay of 5/- to his mother. Two other reinforcements became mates with Fred and Wynn; Fred Dance a jockey from Marburg and Meralyn Sturgess from Chinchilla. The “Kyarra” docked at Suez in early February 1916 and the reinforcements were transported to the large infantry depot at Tel el Kabir on the Suez Canal. There was a lot of reorganisation going on to accommodate an expansion of the AIF, however the 25th Battalion, to which Fred would ultimately be posted, returned from Gallipoli at almost full strength and was not in any need of fresh reinforcements.
 
The 25th Battalion departed Alexandria on 15th March 1916, enroute for Marseilles and the Western Front. Fred and the rest of the 8th reinforcements under the direction of Lieutenant Carey, who had been with them since Enoggera set sail for Marseilles six days later and upon arrival in France proceeded to the infantry depot at Etaples on the French coast south of Boulogne.
 
General Haig, Supreme British commander on the Western Front launched his long awaited “big push” in the south of the British sector through the Somme River valley on 1st July 1916. It was to be the largest battle of the war so far, but poor planning and low expectations of “Kitchener’s New Army” led to dismal failures almost everywhere with the British suffering 60,000 casualties on the first day. In spite of this, Haig was determined to push on and he ordered three Australian Divisions moved south from the Armentieres sector to Albert to take part in the Somme offensive.  The 25thBattalion, part of the 7th Brigade of the 2nd Division moved up to billets at Vaux on 10th July to begin training for the Somme offensive. Fred joined the battalion there on 13th July.
 
The village of Pozieres, half way between Albert and Bapaume, sat on the highest point of that part of the battlefield and offered a strategic advantage to whichever side held it. The Germans had ample time to prepare and had constructed formidable defence lines around two trench systems labelled OG1 and OG2. Pozieres village was taken by the 1st Division on 26th July. The second division’s objective was to take a blockhouse which had been built on the site of a windmill in the village of Pozieres. The windmill was behind two lines of trenches, and provided a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. On 27th July the 25th battalion moved up to Brickfields Camp where each man was issued with a triangular tin disc to be sewn onto the pack as an aid to identification. The discs were most unpopular as the men thought it would provide a good aiming point for enemy fire.
The attack, the first major offensive by the 25th Battalion since arriving in France, was to begin just after midnight on the 29th July. Probably soon after midnight, as the men from the 25th rose up from the starting tapes to move forward, heavy German artillery fire in the form of high explosives shells rained down on the advancing Australians.  The attack was a failure, with the 25th Battalion suffering 343 casualties (from a strength of a little less than 1000 men). Among the casualties was Fred Clifton, listed as missing. The Military authorities in Melbourne (then the temporary national capital) and the Australian public at large were not prepared for the scale of casualties in July and August of 1916 which would run to 23,000 for the four divisions involved. Families were provided with scant information by base records in Melbourne, which itself was relying on cable traffic which was often garbled.
 
When Nina Humphreys was informed that her son was missing, she immediately set about to find out as much information as she could by enlisting the services of the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Service. Over time, witnesses who knew Fred (one said he was an excellent pianist) provided information, the most promising was from a soldier that claimed the battalion had received a post card from Fred in a POW camp. This was a common reaction to learning that mates had just disappeared on the battlefield without a trace. It was also not uncommon for friends to state that they had heard the casualty was in hospital suffering from memory loss. All of the information gathered by the Red Cross was supplied to Nina, some of which gave her false hope.
 
The most reliable account came from two different men. Both stated that Fred, who was Lieutenant Carey’s orderly and hence message runner, and the Lieutenant were leading the platoon. Carey was wounded but he continued on until a large shell landed between he and Fred, killing both. Carey’s body was ultimately recovered for burial but of Fred Clifton there was no trace. It was not until 12 months after Pozieres, after enquiries were made through the American authorities (neutral at the time) that a court of enquiry determined that in the light of no evidence to the contrary, Private Frederick Clifton was killed in action on 29th July 1916. He was 20 years old and a widow’s only son.
 
Nina Humphreys had also lost her step son Leonard, killed at Gallipoli. She and Benjamin moved to Townsville before eventually settling in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo. In 1938, some 20 years after the end of the First World War, the Australian Government constructed the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. The memorial, which is the site of a service each Anzac Day, was dedicated by the newly crowned King George VI. The memorial records the names of over 10,000 Australian soldiers who lost their lives in France and have no known grave; Frederick Clifton among them.
 
On the site of the Pozieres windmill today is a commemorative stone which reads:
“The ruin of the Pozieres windmill which lies here was the centre of the struggle on this part of the Somme Battlefield in July and August 1916. It was captured by Australian troops who fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefields of the war.”