Albert Edgar YATES

YATES, Albert Edgar

Service Number: 3971
Enlisted: 8 July 1915, Bendigo, Victoria
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 21st Infantry Battalion
Born: Manchester, England, August 1882
Home Town: White Hills, Bendigo, Victoria
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Engineer/Traveller
Memorials: Bendigo White Hills Arch of Triumph
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World War 1 Service

8 Jul 1915: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 3971, Bendigo, Victoria
8 Feb 1916: Involvement AIF WW1, Private, 3971, 21st Infantry Battalion, Enlistment/Embarkation WW1, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '13' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Warilda embarkation_ship_number: A69 public_note: ''
8 Feb 1916: Embarked AIF WW1, Private, 3971, 21st Infantry Battalion, HMAT Warilda, Melbourne
24 Aug 1916: Wounded AIF WW1, Private, 3971, 21st Infantry Battalion, Mouquet Farm
13 Sep 1919: Discharged AIF WW1, Private, 3971, 21st Infantry Battalion

Help us honour Albert Edgar Yates's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Jack Coyne

Albert Edgar Yates     SN 3971

Albert went to enlist in Melbourne on February 8, 1915. He stated that he was 33 and half years of age and that his Next of Kin was his wife Mary Yates c/o of the White Hills Post office.

Albert said he was born in Manchester, England. He was a traveller by trade and read later he was working for the Singer Sewing Machine company. He had completed an 8 year apprenticeship with the Lancashire / Yorkshire Railways.

On the question of previous military service he stated he had served 3 years in the British army in the machine gun section in Nigeria. All the above sounds like a perfect set of skills for a Dominion soldier however, when it came to the medical a week later in Port Melbourne, there was one problem. Albert was only five feet, two inches tall. 

The requirements to join the Expeditionary force in August 1914 were 19–38 years, height of 5ft 6in and chest measurement of 34 inches. In June 1915 the age range and minimum height requirements were changed to 18–45 years and 5ft 2in, with the minimum height being lowered again to 5ft in April 1917. During the first year of the war approximately 33 percent of all volunteers were rejected. (Source - https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/enlistment  )

When news of the change in minimum requirements in June 1915 reached Albert he would quickly attempt to enlist again. On July 8, 1915 he fronted up in Bendigo Town Hall to enlist, this time he would meet the new height requirements.

On his attestation paper he was even younger this time. He stated he had just turned 32 years of age, that he was an Engineer not a traveller, and his prior military service was four years with the Volunteer Loyal Norfolk Brigade and just two years with the machine gun company in Southern Nigeria. He had even changed religious affiliation in those five months moving from the Presbyterian church to a Congregationalist. Mary was still his wife. 

It is not known when Albert arrived in Australia however, with the outbreak of the war and the opportunity of serving in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) for King and Empire there was certainly incentive enough for Albert to enlist. There may also be a chance to get home to the old country. 

Albert’s neighbour in White Hills and fellow northerner from England Clifford (Cliff) Senior was also keen to enlist and he signed on with the same battalion a week later, their service numbers in sequence.  

Albert & Cliff would be assigned to the 21st Battalion. The Battalion was raised, as part of the 6th Brigade, at Broadmeadows in Victoria in February 1915. Recruits hailed from all over the state of Victoria.

Albert Yates would go into the Bendigo camp at the Epsom Race course that same day, July (28th) and be in training through till early December (2nd). The camp had the added advantage of not being far from his homes in White Hills.

On December 3, both Albert and Cliff would be transferred into the 9th Reinforcements for the 21st Battalion and they along with the other recruits made the train journey to Melbourne and to the large Army camp at Broadmeadows on the outskirts of Melbourne’s north.

Two months later on February (8th) 1916 they would embark for war. The ship carrying the 9th Reinforcements was the HMAT Warilda and it would leave from Port Melbourne. The HMAT A69 Warilda weighed 7,713 tons with an average cruise speed of 16 knots or 29.63 kmph. It was owned by the Adelaide SS Co Ltd, Adelaide, and manned by Australian officers and mainly by Australian crews. (Later the Warilda was torpedoed and sunk by a submarine in the English Channel, in August 1918.)

Their destination was Marseille on the south coast of France. The voyage would be long and hot, nearly 7 weeks as the journey involved stops at Albany, Colombo, the Suez Canal, Alexandria and then finally up into the cooler Mediterranean. They would arrive in Europe March 27, 1916. From Marseilles it was 600 miles of hard train travel through the lush interior of France in late winter, early Spring reaching the AIF staging base at Estaples on the coast in Northern France 

Albert and the other 9th Reinforcements would be ‘Taken on Strength’ (TOS), ‘in the field’ into the battle worn and depleted 21st battalion who had landed in Galipoli almost exactly a year earlier.

Captain A. R MacNeill in the Official History of the 21st Battalion A.I.F. would describe those first three months and the arrival of the reinforcements -                                                                       ‘During the three months, April, May and June, 1916, we had received a good ‘breaking in’ to warfare as practised on the Western Front. Our 9th Reinforcements joined us, and the unit kept well up to strength, not being depleted by any disastrous actions, or suffering from bad weather or conditions. The weather was perfect, and the country looked beautiful. On the whole we voted that the war in France was a good war, particularly in the month of May, 1916’         (Source -  The Story of the twenty-first : being the official history of the 21st Battalion, A.I.F. / editor, A.R. MacNeil.)

 

In April, 1916 the 21st Battalion was the first Australian battalion to commence active operations on the Western Front. During the battle of Pozieres it was engaged mainly on carrying duties.

The twenty first would suffer its heaviest casualties of the war during the fighting around Mouquet Farm. The Australian War Museum describes the battle –                                                           ‘Mouquet Farm was the site of nine separate attacks by three Australian divisions between 8 August and 3 September 1916. The farm stood in a dominating position on a ridge that extended north-west from the ruined, and much fought over, village of Pozieres. Although the farm buildings themselves were reduced to rubble, strong stone cellars remained below ground which were incorporated into the German defences. The attacks mounted against Mouquet Farm cost the 1st, 2nd and 4th Australian Divisions over 11,000 casualties, and not one succeeded in capturing and holding it. The British advance eventually bypassed Mouquet Farm leaving it an isolated outpost. It fell, inevitably, on 27 September 1916.’ (Source AWM -https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/E1352 ) 

Albert and Cliff would survive both the battles, however, Albert Yates would be wounded on August 24 at and Mouquet Farm. He would be taken out of the line for treatment and rejoined his unit two weeks later on September 2. Albert’s wife, Mary would be notified by telegram from the Base Records Office that he had been wounded on September 17,1916. 

The Official History of the 21st Battalion A.I.F. outlines the dreadful impact on the battalion of these two battles -                              ‘The Battalion at this time numbered 11 officers and 491 other ranks all told, our casualties during the Pozieres-Mouquet Farm operations being — Officers Killed, 9, wounded, 14, missing, 1 (P O W ); total, 24. Other Ranks Killed, 61, wounded, 459, missing, 131, total, 651’

Albert would be in and out of the Field Hospitals over the dreadful winter of 1916/17, suffering from Influenza, however he would be back full time in the desperately cold trenches of the Somme from late January.

In February 1917 the Germans commence a strategic withdrawal, falling back 25 miles to establish stronger positions along the Hindenburg Line. The Hindenburg Line was a formidable defensive system on ground specifically chosen, with intersecting arcs of machine gun fire, and shellproof dugouts to withstand losses from the preceding barrage with easy access and exit for their garrison.

In March, Troops of the AIF 4th Division assaulted the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt in what was a poorly planned and executed attack. Bullecourt was a key defensive position for the Germans where the line bent or pivoted. The battle cost the 4th Division over 3,000 casualties, of which 1,170 were taken prisoner – the largest capture of Australian troops on the Western Front.

In May 1917, the Australians penetrated the German line but met determined opposition, which frustrated the plan. Drawing more and more forces in, renewed efforts on 7 May succeeded in linking British and Australian forces, but inspired a series of ferocious and costly German counter-attacks over the next week and a half. Following the repulse of the counter-attack of 15 May, the Germans withdrew from the remnants of the village. Although the locality was of little or no strategic importance, the actions were nevertheless extremely costly: AIF casualties totalled 7,482 from three Australian Divisions. (Source - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/E73 )

Summer saw the brigade and Battalion spend time in Divisional Reserve, behind the front line training and recovering from the second battle of Bullecourt.

In early August (2), 1917, Albert Yates is missing. The circumstances of his disappearance are not fully known, however, in a Court of Enquiry held ‘in the field’ on September 8, it is declared ‘that number 3972 Pte Alb Yates illegally absented himself from the AIF 21st battalion on 02-08-17 and is still absent’.

The penalty for desertion was the firing squad in the British army. The behaviour of Australian troops would continue to be a sticking point throughout the war. Looser discipline was considered by many of the superior officers as an acceptable ‘price’ when put beside their performance on the battlefield. Australians and New Zealanders were known as among the most fearsome and willing troops of the Allied forces.

Nothing is heard of Private Albert Yates until AIF Administrative Headquarters in London message the Defence Department in Melbourne on May 29, 1919 six and half months after the war has concluded.

It effectively says Albert Yates was serving in the Royal Air Force in India as a ‘First Class Craftsman’ Clifford. A.’ He has been returned under escort to an Army depot in England and will be returned home to Australia when transport is available.

The term desertion is used and the forfeiture of pay of 625 days is viewed as correct punishment. It appears Albert has used his young White Hills friend Christian name ‘Clifford’ as a surname to enlist in the Air force.  

With the war over, in a hand written confession delivered on April 17, 1919 Albert spills the details of his desertion (His words) – later reclassified as ‘Absent illegally’

In précis, he states he was on leave in London (not recorded in his Service record) from France and on August 2nd, 1917 that he fraudulently enlisted in the Royal Air force on October 1, 1917. I was placed under arrest on November 28, 1918 on my admission of the above and returned to England 29th January, 1919.

Whereas approximately 346 soldiers were executed by the British Army during the First World War, this sentence was not carried out by the Australian Army. After the dreadful bombardments of Pozieres in 1916, absence without leave increased alarmingly. Growing concerns over this issue saw some senior Australian officers urge that Australian soldiers should face the same sanctions that applied in the British Army . However the general feeling, both in Australia and in the services, was steadily against the infliction of a death penalty on men who had volunteered to fight in a cause not primarily their own. (Source – AWM https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/desertion )

It appears Albert was very lucky. He was considered to have ‘Absented himself illegally’ and not considered a deserter.

The trial of the Albert Yates was dispensed with on his confession. The fact that he was serving the British Air force in India possibly also worked in his favour. What was communicated to his wife Mary back in White Hills we do not know. Albert had agreed when he enlisted that she would receive three fifths of his pay and when this stopped in September 1917 she was possibly without any income.

At the time of his admission Albert may have also received news that his mother had died in Bendigo on September 28, 1918.

He would be taken the AIF base at Weymouth, he would gain a berth on the HT Rio Negro and leave Devenport, in Cornwell on May 29 arriving back in Melbourne on July 22, 1919.

He would even return to White Hills 6 weeks earlier than his colleague Clifford Senior whose name he used to enlist in the air force.    

Private Albert Yates of the 21st Infantry Battalion is remembered by the people of White Hills. The names of the local lads who sacrificed their lives and those that were fortunate to return from the Great War are shown on the embossed copper plaques on the White Hills Arch of Triumph, at the entrance to the White Hills Botanic Gardens.

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