Virtual
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Australia

He was 24 and the son of John and Rebecca Gates, of 19, Brook St., Dungannon, now in Northern Ireland Ireland.

He is remembered on the marble tablet and stained glass Memorial Window in the east transept of St Anne’s Church of Ireland located in Church Street, Dungannon, 100 metres from the main Square of the town [Date Unveiled :19/03/1922.]

He is also honoured on the Dungannon War Memorial in Market Square, Dungannon, BT70 1JD, Northern Ireland.

 
#4797 GATES Thomas             15th Battalion
 
Thomas Gates was born in the village of Coalisland, County Tyrone, Ireland. His parents were John and Rebecca Gates. Thomas attended school at Coalisland and then presumably worked in local jobs. At the age of 21, he emigrated to Australia where he found his way to the Kingaroy district. Soon after his arrival in Australia, Thomas travelled to Brisbane to enlist where he and another young man from the Kingaroy district, Charles Davey, both were accepted into the AIF on 21st September 1917.
 
Charles was also a recent immigrant and the closeness of their ages, occupations, British heritage and the fact that both were engaged in farm work in the Kingaroy district quickly formed a bond which prompted them to enlist together. Both young men were allocated to the 15th draft of reinforcements for the 15thBattalion at Enoggera. On 28th March 1916, the reinforcements boarded the “Commonwealth” in Brisbane for overseas service. The 15th Battalion was part of the 4th brigade of the 4th Division AIF.
 
By the time Thomas and Charles arrived in Egypt in early May 1916, all of the Australian battalions that made up the newly expanded AIF had already left, or were about to leave for the Western Front, and were at full strength. With no immediate need for reinforcements, the 15th reinforcements re-embarked at Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast and sailed for the 4th Training Battalion in England. The 4th Training Battalion supplied reinforcements for the 4th Brigade of the AIF; of which the 15th Battalion was part.
 
During the months of August and September, the 15th Battalion was heavily involved in the battles at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm, suffering significant casualties. The reinforcements in England were shipped to France via the British Depot at Etaples to bring the battalion back to full strength. Thomas and Charles were taken on by the 15th Battalion on 4th October 1916. While in in winter quarters, Thomas and Charles parted company when Charles was transferred to a Light Trench Mortar Battery.
 
During the lull in fighting over the 1916/17 winter, the Germans constructed a 150 kilometre long defensive barrier, the Hindenburg Line, some distance to the east of their previous positions astride the Somme. German forces began a strategic withdrawal to this new position once the roads were passable again, and the British forces followed. By the first week in April 1917, elements of the 5th British Army under General Gough, which included two Australian divisions, came up against the Hindenburg defences at Bullecourt.
 
Gough planned to use the battalions of the 4th and 12th Infantry Brigades of the AIF as his spearhead in an attack at Bullecourt. The 15th Battalion moved up to the assembly areas on the 8th April. Gough had originally planned for days of artillery bombardment to cut the barbed wire, followed by an infantry assault supported by a creeping artillery barrage. As the time for the attack drew closer, Gough had a conversation with a junior officer from the British Tank Corps who convinced the general that tanks would be able to smash through the wire more effectively than cannon fire. What the officer did not reveal was that the tanks were only training tanks with well worn machinery prone to breakdown; and that the crews were inexperienced.
 
At the last minute, Gough changed his plans, dispensing with the artillery altogether. He ordered the infantry and trench mortars to move up to the jumping off tapes in preparation for the attack on the 10th April. The men lay on the snow covered ground awaiting the arrival of the tanks, all of which failed to make the start line on time either because of breakdowns or getting lost. Gough postponed the attack for 24 hours until the next day when the two brigades of Australian infantry rose up from the snow covered ground and trudged towards the formidable defences before them following the same plan as the previous day. There was no artillery support and the tanks mainly failed for the second time. The few tanks that did proceed past the start line either became stuck in shell craters and tank traps or were put out of action with accurate artillery fire.
 
Many of the attacking infantry were hung up on the bands of wire which remained intact where they were cut down with enfilading machine gun fire. After gallantly holding a small section of captured trench for most of the day, the men of the 15th Battalion were forced to withdraw back to their starting line once their ammunition was exhausted. Thomas was fortunate to have survived his first major engagement unscathed.
 
After Bullecourt, which the Australian War Historian Charles Bean described as having as much chance of success as a plan to capture the moon, the entire AIF moved from France to the rear areas in Belgium to prepare for the Ypres Campaign, which became more generally known as Passchendaele. Thomas was sent to a field ambulance on 29th May with influenza symptoms. By the 1st June, he was in the Northampton War Hospital where he finally recovered. Thomas was granted a two week furlough on 23rd July and he may have taken the opportunity to visit his family at Dungannon.
 
By the first week of September, Thomas was back in France and he rejoined his battalion on 16thSeptember. While Thomas had been in England, the Ypres campaign had begun with the battle of Messines in June. The next phase of the campaign was a series of small actions which leapfrogged each other along the line of the Menin Road which crossed the low lying ground from Ypres towards the low ridge on which the villages of Zonnebeke and Passchendaele were located.
The 15th battalion had been training to go back into the line in an attack near Zonnebeke. In the first week of October 1917, the battalion began moving up from the rear areas behind Ypres in preparation for the hard slog in the clinging mud along the Menin Road. The battalion was supported by the usual creeping artillery barrage as they pushed on towards their objective. During this action, it was reported that Thomas Gates had been wounded then amended to killed in action. He was one of ten men who fell that day. There is no burial report or Red Cross Inquiry.
 
Thomas was buried in the Divisional Collecting Post Cemetery beside another 15th battalion man killed that day, Lance Corporal Hugh Scott, an Irish immigrant from Donegal. When permanent headstones were being erected in the Collecting Post Cemetery, there was some uncertainty of the location of Thomas and Hugh’s graves. Their headstones read “Believed to be buried near this spot.”
 
Thomas’ parents were each granted a pension of 7 shillings and sixpence a fortnight.
Thomas’s good friend, Charles Davey also did not survive the war. He is buried in France. The two young men who had enlisted with such high hopes are commemorated together of the Kumbia Roll of Honour.