Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Son of Lawford and Annie DIGGENS, Tannymorel, Queensland.

Ernest Diggens was 21 years old when he presented himself for enlistment at Adelaide Street on 6th June 1916. He gave his mother’s name, Mrs Annie Diggens as his next of kin and his address as Mount Gravatt near Brisbane. Ernest stated his occupation as labourer but later documents completed by his mother state that he was a farmer; perhaps farm labourer is a fair description.

He was born in London and his mother reported on the Roll of Honour Circular that he attended Francis Xavier College in Bruges, Belgium. He had previous military training in the Westminster Regiment; a Territorial Unit similar to Australia’s Citizens Forces, before emigrating with his family to Australia when he was 18 years old.

Ernest was posted to a training battalion at Enoggera two days after enlisting and was promoted to acting corporal, perhaps on the basis of his previous military experience. He was drafted as part of the 18th reinforcements of the 25th Battalion, a Queensland unit that was part of the 2nd Division and which had been overseas since the middle of 1915. Along with reinforcements for other Australian Units, Ernest departed Australia on 22nd December 1916 bound for England.

Upon arrival in Plymouth in March 1917, Ernest went into camp on Salisbury Plain. At the end of May, he attended a musketry school where he was assessed as first class with a good knowledge of the operation of the Lewis gun. At this time, Australian infantry battalions were being issued with increasing numbers of the light Lewis machine gun and Ernest would eventually be the number one gunner on a Lewis gun team in “C” company.

Ernest was deployed overseas to Havre on 3rd July and after some more training was finally taken on strength by the 25th in Flanders in August 1917. The battalion was at that time in a rest area preparing to go into the line on the Menin Road, just outside Ypres.

After the success of Menin Road, the 2nd Division continued its steady advance eastwards towards a ridge upon which were situated the villages of Zonnebeke and Passchendaele. During an attack on Broodseinde Ridge on 4th October, Ernest received a gunshot wound to the elbow. His parents, who had by this time moved to Colinton in the Brisbane Valley near Toogoolawah received the standard telegram: “Regret advise Pte Diggens wounded. Will advise anything further received.”

The wound was not serious and after treatment at a casualty clearing station and the nearby Canadian Hospital he was sent to the #3 Convalescent Depot. Ernest was found in the town (probably Ypres) without a pass on 11th October and was given five days confined to company lines and fined two days pay. Fully recovered, Ernest rejoined the battalion where they were rotating in and out of the line at Messines, just south of Ypres.

All of the Australian Divisions were sent to rest areas in Flanders during the winter of 1917/18. It was here that the five divisions were combined into a single corps under the command of Gen. John Monash.

Ernest was granted three weeks leave to England in March 1918 and on his return joined the rest of the battalion as they were moved back to the Somme to counter the German advance that had begun in March and which by late April was threatening the important city of Amiens. The 2nd Division were held in reserve during the battle of Villers Bretonneux (25th April 1918, Anzac Day). Ernest was admitted sick to hospital on 9th May. The records do not state the nature of his illness but it is likely that it was one of the many diseases to which men exposed to the elements were susceptible; such as trench fever.

Ernest did not rejoin his unit until 24th August, by which time Monash had succeeded at Hamel (4th July) and Amiens (8th August, which Ludendorff described as the blackest day). The Germans were now in full retreat back to the heavily fortified positions on the Hindenburg Line, although occasional counter attacks continued to make the Australians wary.

On 29th August, just five days after his return from hospital, Ernest Diggens was killed instantly when an enemy shell landed in the shell crater he was occupying near the village of Barleux, at the foot of Mont St. Quentin.

Red Cross Wounded and Missing Reports indicate that the battalion burial party buried Ernest in a grave marked with a plain wooden cross and the map reference of the grave was recorded.

Ernest’s parents; who had by this time moved to Tannymorel outside Warwick, would eventually receive his personal effects, 2 wallets, 2 certificates (perhaps one was from the musketry school) and some photographs. At the conclusion of hostilities, the Imperial War Graves Commission began to consolidate scattered burials from the Somme battlefields, Ernest’s remains were exhumed and reburied in the Assevillers Military Cemetery outside the town of Peronne. His parents were sent three photographs of his grave and in 1923, the Empire Medal and the Victory Medal as well as a bronze plaque and a commemorative scroll were also sent.

The memorial to the 2nd Division is located at the top of Mont St. Quentin, not far from where Ernest Diggens fell. The first memorial erected featured a digger with his foot aggressively posed on the throat of an eagle. It was destroyed by an invading German army in 1940. The current memorial is less confronting and features a digger in slouch hat with feet astride gazing down on the watcher below.