Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From François Berthout

Captain Walter Roy Sheen
56th Australian Infantry Battalion,
14th Brigade, 5th Australian Division
 
In the fields of the Somme, through the poppies and the autumn roses, stand, immaculate and eternal, the white graves of thousands of young men, a whole generation of heroes who, for their country and for France, did their duty with honor in the prime of their life and who, in the trenches, in the mud and barbed wire fought and fell alongside their comrades, their brothers who gave their lives for the freedom and peace in which we live thanks to them and in which we will always stand with respect in front of them to honor their memory and bring them back to life so that they will never be forgotten.

Today, it is with the deepest gratitude and the utmost respect that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys of the Somme who gave his today for our tomorrow.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Captain Walter Roy Sheen who fought in the 56th Australian Infantry Battalion, 14th Brigade, 5th Australian Division, and who was killed in action 105 years ago, on October 22, 1916 at the age of 26 on the Somme front.

Walter Roy Sheen was born on April 15, 1890 in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia, and was the son of Joseph Sheen and Emma Ann Sheen (née Goodchild), of Ardath, 8 Jersey Street, Marrickville, New South Wales.Before the outbreak of the war, Walter served in the Senior Cadets, worked as a clerk and then married Louisa Evelyn Sheen (née Smith), lived in Kelvin Grove, Tennyson Street, Dulwich Hill, Sydney, New South Wales and in 1913 had a daughter, Olive Evelyn Sheen.

Walter enlisted at Goulburn on May 5, 1915 as Lieutenant in the 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, 8th reinforcement and after an intensive three month training period, embarked with his unit on board HMAT A54 Runic on August 9, 1915 and sailed for Gallipoli.
On November 4, 1915, Walter and his battalion were disembarked in Gallipoli where he served until evacuation in December then was sent to Greece where he arrived on December 22 but was admitted the same day to the 2nd Field Ambulance in Mudros suffering from jaundice then transferred to 3rd Australian General Hospital in Lemnos suffering from rheumatism. A little over two weeks later, on January 8, 1916, he was admitted to the hospital ship "Caresbrook Castle" and sailed for Egypt.

On January 11, 1916, Walter arrived in Egypt and was disembarked in Alexandria and the next day was admitted to the 19th General Hospital in Alexandria then to the 1st Australian General Hospital in Cairo on January 17. A month later, on February 2, he was admitted at the Helouan Convalescent Home then at the Australian and New Zealand Convalescent Hospital on February 16 and finally discharged to Giza Class "A" the same day.

On February 16, 1916, after being released from hospital, Walter was transferred to the 56th Australian Infantry Battalion and taken on strength on March 12 at Tel-El-Kébir and a month later, on April 29, was promoted to the rank of Captain at Ferry Post, Egypt, but a month later he fell ill again and was admitted to the 1st Australian Stationary Hospital in Ismailia, was discharged on June 6 and rejoined his battalion the next day then joined the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) and embarked on June 19 from Alexandria, on board "Huntsend" and proceeded overseas for France.
On June 29, 1916, Walter reached the French coast and was disembarked in Marseilles and alongside the men of the 56th Australian Infantry Battalion, entered the trenches for the first time on July 12 and fought their first major engagement in one of the deadliest battles for the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front on July 19 at Fromelles.

The attack on Fromelles on July 19, 1916 was the first major battle fought by Australian troops on the Western Front. It was a feint designed to prevent the Germans reinforcing their troops on the Somme, where the Allies had launched a major offensive on July 1. The ruse, however, was unsuccessful.

Towards the evening of July 19, 1916, the Australian 5th and British 61st Divisions attempted to seize 4000 yards of front line centred on the "Sugar Loaf".

However, the British bombardment, which commenced on July 16, had warned the Germans that an attack was likely. As the troops moved into position on July 19, they were unaware that they were being watched by German observers a mile away. The Germans heavily shelled the assembly area and communications trenches, causing hundreds of Australian and British casualties before the attack even started.

The assault began at 6 pm with three and a half hours of daylight remaining. The front line to the north of the Sugar Loaf was on average 200 metres wide and the Australians quickly crossed no-man’s-land, seized the German front line, and then pushed on for 140 metres in search of a supposed third and last line of the German trench system. No such line existed and the Australians began forming a thin disjointed series of posts in the intended position.

Other Australians attacked opposite the Sugar Loaf where no-man’s-land was 400 metres wide. The Germans had survived the British shelling and quickly manned their machine guns. Within 15 minutes they had decimated the attacking waves of Australians, forcing the survivors to find shelter. British troops attacking south of the Sugar Loaf suffered a similar fate and made no progress. The British planned a second attempt to capture the Sugar Loaf salient and asked the Australians for help. This plan was cancelled but the news arrived too late to stop the Australians mounting another attack with equally disastrous results.

The next morning the Australians that had breached the enemy’s lines were forced to withdraw to their own lines. The Australians suffered 5,533 casualties in one night, the worst 24 hours in Australia’s military history. Many fell victim to German machine-guns. The Australian toll at Fromelles was equivalent to the total Australian casualties in the Boer War, Korean War and Vietnam War put together. It was a staggering disaster that had no redeeming tactical justification whatsoever. It was, in the words of a senior participant, Brigadier General Harold Edward "Pompey" Elliott, a "tactical abortion".

The battle of Fromelles was catastrophic for the 56th Australian Infantry Battalion which lost hundreds of men but Walter survived and the 5th Australian Division continued to man the front in the Fromelles sector for a further two months.
For his bravery during the terrible fighting at and around Fromelles, Walter was awarded the Military Cross on August 29, 1916 with the following citation:
"For conspicuous gallantry in action. He took out a party of men during a very heavy bombardment, and, by his personal example and bravery, succeeded in rallying some men who were retiring, and in bringing them back to their original line. He thus secured the position against enemy attack."(Commonwealth Gazette number 62,April 19,1917).

A month later, on September 26, 1916, Walter was slightly wounded at Fleurbaix but remained with his men and on October 21, was sent to the Somme where unfortunately, he was killed in action the next day, on October 22, 1916 by a shell near Flers, he was 26 years old.

Today, Captain Walter Roy Sheen rests in peace with his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at AIF Burial Ground, Flers, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "He fought the fight for honour and right."

Walter had a brother who fought in the Great War, Lieutenant Sydney John Sheen who bravely served in the 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion but unfortunately, he was killed in action in the Somme on September 20, 1918, he was 29 years old and now rests in peace at Tincourt New British Cemetery, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription "Son in law of Mr. George Stacey of 378 Auburn Street Goulburn."

Walter, you who were young, it is by listening to your heart that you responded with determination to the call to duty alongside your brother Sydney and it is by watching over each other that you both did a step forward to join your comrades and your brothers in arms on the battlefields of the great war on which you fought bravely in the name of peace and freedom on the sands of Gallipoli and in the mud and blood of the Somme on which the poppies of remembrance grow today between the innumerable rows of white graves, the last resting places of a whole generation of young boys who, in the hell of war, under the shells and the bullets, became men who stood shoulder to shoulder in the camaraderie and brotherhood which still bind them today and in which they did their duty with loyalty until their last breath of life.in this hell that was their war and in which they sacrificed their youth, they showed bravery, courage and humanity in the face of brutality, they faced their fears and faced their fates under the howl of the enemy artillery which traumatized them and who, day and night buried alive and crushed their friends under these steel storms which pulverized everything and which transformed formerly peaceful landscapes into putrid quagmires on which fell friends and enemies in unimaginable bloodbaths,results of courageous assaults led by exceptional men who charged in the face of the murderous fires of the machine guns with only the steel of their bayonets for weapons but who never retreated, even in the face of death they gave their all and were ready to give their lives so that their comrades, their friends, their children could live in the peace for which they suffered together during four years of a war which was to end all wars but in each other, they found the strength to hold the line, they remained smiling and convinced that what they were doing was the right thing to do so that peace could light up the darkness and today that light still shines through the old battlefields and the cemeteries of the Somme and who, day after day bring these men to life through the eternal shroud of red poppies that remind us of what so many of these young men did for us and over whom I would always watch with infinite gratitude and pride in my heart.Forever young, the war did not shatter their dreams and their hopes which still live in each of us.Gone but not and never forgotten, their memory, like the autumn roses will never fade.We will always be keen to keep their memory, their stories strong and alive so that they never cease to live and today, Walter, Sydney, it is from the bottom of my heart that I would like to thank you, for everything what you did for us, for all that so many young Diggers, my boys of the Somme did for us and of which I will never stop telling the story so that their names can live forever and that their courage, their sacrifices are never forgotten.At the going down of the sun and in the morning,we will remember him,we will remember them.