Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

John Alan FLY (Alan)

Military Medal

 Recommendation:-

'For great coolness and gallantry during the operations near ZONNEBEKE, East of YPRES, during the period 28/30th October 1917. This N.C.O. established a Lewis Gun post 300 yards in front of our line to support the Corps on our left, and although the post was three times blown in he held on and by his coolness and courage set a fine example to his men.'

Recommendation date: 5 November 1917

The Fly family were pioneers in the Bendigo district. John’s grandfather and two uncles arrived in Melbourne in 1853 from England, then came on to Bendigo in 1858. After the brothers tried their luck at gold they became builders and are associated with some of Bendigo’s earliest notable buildings.

Being the eldest son, John was named after his father and grandfather, however it appears he was known as J. Alan Fly. When J.Alan enlisted he named his mother Elizabeth Sara Fly as his ‘Nearest of Kin’.

Alan Fly enlisted on July 6, 1915 at the age of 23. His younger brother Leslie 22 enlisted the following day no doubt motivated at the prospect of being in the same unit, and going off to war together with the 6th Battalion with his elder brother. Both were law clerks at different firms in Bendigo and both had been educated in early years at the Bendigo Central School and then later at Mr. Pearce’s Grammar School. They embarked together on HMAT A32 Themistocles on 28 January 1916 from Port Melbourne with the 6th battalion reinforcements.

Alan would be promoted to Lance Corporal in January 1917 four days before the Reinforcements would leave Melbourne.

In 1917, the battalion participated in the operations that followed-up the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, and then returned to Belgium to join the great offensive launched to the east of Ypres. [1]

Alan would earn his Military medal at the Second battle of Passchendaele which commenced on October 26, 1917.

British Field Marshall Haig is largely blamed for this senseless loss of life on the Flanders killing fields. Haig went on with this battle, even though the rain and bitter cold had set in. He ordered another attack, which failed miserably, with men struggling up to their knees and waists in the dreadful stinking mud and with their rifles and machine guns clogged with it. The only solid objects in this endless waste of cratered mud were the German concrete pillboxes with their machine guns which were protected from the mud and which operated only too well. This attack cost 7000 casualties.

Ninety thousand British or Australian bodies were never identified, 42,000 were never recovered; these had been blown to bits or had drowned in the dreadful mud morass. Many of the drowned were exhausted or wounded men who had slipped or fallen off the duckboards and were unable to escape the filthy, foul-smelling glutinous mud, sinking deeper to their deaths as they struggled.

Alan would survive this dreadful battle, be promoted to temporary Corporal and receive his bravery award on December 15, 1917 at the Head quarters Base in France.

He would be given time back at training base on Salisbury Plain in England over the winter of 1917/18 returning to the front in early April, 1918. Alan was wounded on June 7, 1918 gassed and invalided to England. He would spend over 18 months in hospital and AIF camps before returning to Australia in May 1919. 

Alan’s brother Leslie would serve three years at the front being unfortunately ‘killed in action’ on the Somme on August 10, 1918 two days after the Battle of Amiens as the war turned in favour of the Allies. At the time Alan would be recovering in hospital in England following the gas attack.

SERVICE DETAILS: 

Service No. 4495

Place of birth: Sandhurst (Bendigo)

Religion: Church of England

Occupation: Law clerk

Address: 14 Langston Street, Bendigo

School: Bendigo Central School No 1976, Mr Pearce’s Grammar School.

Marital status: Single

Age at enlistment: 23

Next of kin:Mother Mrs S Fly, 14 Langston Street, Bendigo,

Enlistment date: 6 July 1915

Unit name: 6th Battalion, 14th Reinforcement

Embarked: HMAT A32 Themistocles on 28 January 1916

Final Rank: Corporal                 

Military Medal Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 95

Date: 27 June 1918

Fate: Returned to Australia 12 May 1919

ZONNEBEKE - Situated north of the French border, Zonnebeke is small town in western Flanders in Belgium. The town was in the centre of the Ypres Salient, in World War I, and was completely destroyed. The battle involving J.Alan Fly was known as the Third Ypres or Second battle of Passchendaele which commenced on October 26 and concluded on November 10, 1917.

C.E.W Bean the AIF official war correspondent described it: -

‘Nearly every attack was made on a wide front, The British loss - 400,000- was considerably less than on the Somme. The German loss perhaps equalled the British. But eight offensives in the mud made the name of this battle one to shudder at: and Lloyd George felt that his government was not strong enough to prevent Haig’s committing his army to such battles in the next year, he decided to stop him by the characteristically indirect method of keeping him short of the necessary men’.[2]

[1] Virtual War Memorial Australia web site - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U51446

[2] Anzac to Amiens, C.E.W.Bean. Penguin Books.2014. P.376