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Australia

From Francois Somme

Pte 7051 James Henry Crowe,
34th Australian Infantry Battalion,
9th Brigade, 3rd Australian Division, AIF
 
More than a hundred years ago, in our villages and fields of the Somme, fought, lived and died during four nightmarish years, thousands of young men, a whole generation who, in the trenches, in the mud and despair, endured a hell never seen before and who, in the darkness, in an indescribable madness, fought fiercely under rains of bullets and tons of shells which, in a funereal and haunting symphony, poured chaos through cataclysmic explosions that were crossed with courage and determination, under the murderous fire of machine guns, by so many brothers and fathers, sons and friends who were relentlessly mowed down far from home but who, for their country and France, did their duty with bravery and who, in the name of the highest values, in fraternity and camaraderie, advancing together to protect peace and freedom, amidst the poppies, shed their blood and paid the supreme sacrifice of their lives taken too soon while they were in the prime of their lives and who, in the deadliest battles of the great war, sacrificed their all so that we might live. They were Australian and French, New Zealanders and British, Canadians and South Africans but in the fire, in the fight, in death and remembrance will always be above all men to whom we owe so much and who deserve that their stories be told so that their memory is forever perpetuated and that what they endured, for each of us, never happens again and that is why I will always watch over these heroes who rest in peace in the peaceful cemeteries of these sacred grounds of the Somme, so that their names live forever.

On this day, it is with infinite gratitude and with the utmost respect that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys who, for us and our children, for Australia and France, gave his life. I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 7051 James Henry Crowe who fought courageously in the 34th Australian Infantry Battalion, 9th Brigade, 3rd Australian Division of the Australian Imperial Force, and who was killed in action 106 years ago, on 22nd August 1918 at the age of 20 on the Somme front.

James Henry Crowe, affectionately known as "Jim" was born on 18 August 1898 in Cootamundra, Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council, New South Wales, Australia, and was the son of Robert Daniel Crowe (1853-1912) and Emily Elizabeth Crowe (née Parish, 1863-1938). He had four brothers, Robert Thomas Crowe (1883-1945), John Cecil Crowe (1893-1936), Edward Stacey Crowe (1901-1974), Raymond Anderson Crowe (1904-1969) and four sisters, Susan Maud Crowe (1886-1936), Agnes Emily Crowe (1888-1965), Ellie Elizabeth Crowe (1891-1937) and Myrtle Alice Crowe (1896-1966). James was educated at Cootamundra District School, New South Wales and after graduation served in the Senior Cadets and then in the 43rd Infantry Battalion (Werriwa) with the Citizen Military Forces and then worked as a Pastry-Cook until early January 1918.

On 6 January 1918, driven by a burning desire to do his duty, James announced to his mother that he was to join the newly formed Australian Imperial Force. Distressed and fearing for her son's life, this news was hard on Emily who reluctantly let her son go and he enlisted the following day, on 7 January 1918 at Cootamundra, New South Wales, in the 19th Australian Infantry Battalion, 21st Reinforcement and then, after a brief training period of just over a month, he embarked with his unit from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A71 Nestor on 28 February 1918 and sailed for England, arriving in Liverpool on 20 April. From there he was sent by train to Fovant and transferred to the 45th Australian Infantry Battalion on 5 June. Shortly afterwards he marched to Codford and completed his training in realistic war conditions on Salisbury Plain and on 15 July proceeded overseas to France from Folkestone.

On July 18, 1918, after a short trip on the English Channel, James arrived in France and was disembarked at Le Havre and joined the Australian Infantry Base Depot then on July 21, was transferred to the 34th Australian Infantry Battalion which was initially raised in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, at Maitland in January 1916 during an expansion of the AIF that took place after the Gallipoli campaign. Assigned to the 9th Brigade of the Australian 3rd Division, the majority of the battalion's personnel were volunteers that came from Maitland, New South Wales, many of whom had been coal miners, and as a result the unit became known as "Maitland's Own". Its initial recruits, though, came from north-west New South Wales, having marched from Walgett.

On 21 July 1918 James was taken on strength and joined the men of the 34th Battalion into billets on the Somme at Vaires-Sous-Corbie and relieved the 35th Australian Infantry Battalion north of Le Hamel near Villers-Bretonneux on 24 July and began to suffer heavy enemy shelling from 26 July (including gas shell attacks). On 1 August they moved to Daours where the day was spent reorganising the battalion and taking baths and the following day marched to La Neuville and on 7 August orders were given for all to be ready for an imminent major attack which was explained in detail, the attitude of the 34th Battalion being described at this precise moment as "Men in wonderful spirit and confident of success". This battle, which began the following day, on 8 August, will remain famous as one of Australia's finest successes of the entire war and will mark the end of the German army. It was the battle of Amiens.

The Battle of Amiens was an Allied four-pronged, three stage attack on the defensive lines of the German Army focused around the then town, now city, of Amiens. The Battle of Amiens occurred over several days, one month after the decisive Allied victory at Le Hamel, which saw the first use of Australian General Monash’s concept of "combined arms", in which infantry, tanks and aircraft worked together simultaneously to achieve a shared goal. Amiens saw combined arms used on an even larger scale, with General Monash as one of the orchestrators and planners of the assault. The Battle of Amiens involved British, Canadian, Australian and French divisions simultaneously attacking the thinly stretched and understrength German 2nd and 18th Armies.
Following the Battle of Le Hamel, which shook the German Army to its core, the Allies had one month to plan the attack for which Le Hamel was the test for,a multi-pronged major attack along the German line using the new concept of combined arms. In 1918 the German Supreme Army Command still believed that infantry was centric to success. With no tanks and artillery batteries short of both men and cannons, the Germans had no chance of success. If the German command did change their strategies and tactics, by August 1918 they did not have the resources or manpower to action them. Defending their trenches was no longer tenable,advice from the front which the German Command routinely ignored.

Following the German victory against Imperial Russia in 1917, Germany launched the "Kaiserschlacht" on 21 March 1918 to break through the allied lines on the Western Front win the war. On 30 May 1918 after 5 days of planning, German assault divisions arrived at Marne, France after initial success, then grew exhausted and halted, now left defending fronts 2-3 longer. In Major Von Bose’s words the German army was left "hollowed out" after the relentless offensives of 1918 following three years of war and that no element of the army could withstand a major attack. Two weeks after the Battle of Le Hamel, a French spearhead involving 350 tanks with air support using combined arms tactics shattered the German positions at Marne. This form of attack had never been seen from the French before, intelligence from Marne was never passed along to the Supreme Army Command.

The German 2nd Army for weeks sent reports to the Supreme Army Command, advising that the German lines around Amiens were no longer tenable, that any position along the line could not defend against anything more than a skirmish, a major attack was believed to occur soon and that the lines should be moved back at least 10 miles (16km); the 2nd Army was told to, "stop being so pessimistic". After the French victory at Marne, a major German attack was cancelled and 10 divisions were disbanded and sent to reinforce along the German line, none of whom were sent to reinforce Amiens.

These reports advising to move the lines back were sent prior to the build up to Amiens. After being told to stop being pessimistic, the German 2nd Army began hearing the sounds of hundreds of tanks moving behind and among the Allied lines at night, these daily reports were ignored. In 1916 Australian and Canadian troops were considered no more than "militias" by German intelligence. In 1918 this was not the case, Canadians were considered the Allies’ best, followed by Australians then British and then the French. In 1918 Australians and Canadians were used and regarded as shock troops and used almost exclusively for coordinated, important attacks to shatter German lines. The 2nd Army sent distressed reports that multiple Canadian and Australian divisions had arrived with more coming, and with this intelligence the German command did nothing. For weeks prior to the Battle of Amiens, German planes were repelled every day and never even crossed No Man's Land due to major Allied increases in air power.

The skies belonged to the Allies weeks before the battle, the Germans could gain no intelligence by air; however, Major Von Bose believes that a "reconnaissance by force" could have pierced the Allied skies for long enough to gain intelligence on Allied positions. 36 hours before the Allied attack, a German plane by chance saw over 100 tanks harboured in some woods on the Allied northern flank, the pilot’s report was either lost or ignored.
In Major Von Bose’s words, Field Marshal Von Hindenberg and General Ludendorff were arrogant; after the defeat of Imperial Russia, Germany was in a position to offer concessions to the Allies on the Western Front in which Germany would claim vast areas of the Imperial Russian corpse. Instead of this course of action, Von Hindenberg and Ludendorff chose to launch multiple offensives on the Western Front, certain after their recent victory. Instead the offensives weakened the German army until it was compromised. Major Von Bose stated that "the men did not lose Amiens, German command did" and also stated "it should not have happened that the German command was so completely surprised by the enemy attack".

In contrast to the German lack of planning, the Allies’ plan had very few gaps. Allied soldiers captured in the days before the attack knew nothing of it. General Monash decreed that news of the attack would not be given to the allied soldiers until midnight on the night of 06-07 August 1918, the day before the attack. The Germans feared a major attack but those they captured were deliberately ignorant of what was to come. Where the Canadian and Australian shock troops could be seen from the German lines, only enough to be seen were placed there to allow the Germans to strengthen the wrong parts of the line.

The rest of their units were moving behind out of site to new positions, and the Canadian and Australian positions changed along the line every six hours to spread misinformation from allies captured the day before the attack. The allied shock troops would not move to their final positions until two hours before the attack on the morning of 08 August 1918. Allied air superiority allowed German artillery, strong points and communication lines to be mapped and pre-sighted by allied guns.

German artillery guns each covered 200-400m of the line, and most of them were too damaged to fire. At 0400h north of the Somme, British troops in assault kit were seen manoeuvring in No Man's Land near Thomas Gully, an area of the line without a single obstacle in the Allies’ way. Artillery was called in on the British scouts but was brief and ineffective. In the lead up to the Battle of Amiens, German artillery was sparing with its shells, it’s believed due to either a shortage or from the superior Allied artillery preventing resupplies to the German forward lines for weeks prior. German sentries later claimed a different result would have happened at Thomas Gully if they were given the materials for obstacles, artillery shells to defend them, and enough men to both fire the guns and man the trenches. The allied attack was planned for 0520h on 08 August, in the hour before the attack some of the heaviest fog witnessed on the Western Front descended on No Man's Land and the German lines, leaving the defenders blind, visibility was down to 20 paces. All along the 32km line, Allied troops pushed forward using the natural concealment, with Australians reportedly making it the closest, 150m from the German lines, just behind where the first Allied artillery shells were going to land.

When the attack came, all 32km of the German line were heavily shelled by Allied artillery, the rolling bombardment took 15 minutes by design, and screened the advancing infantry and tanks as they approached the defenders’ positions. German artillery had long been pre-sighted and only a few guns survived the first minutes of the attack, let alone the day. After the guns were wiped out, German communication lines were severed, isolating units less than 100m from each other. At first, German commanders in the Australian sector believed the bombardment was retaliation for a German shelling of Villers-Bretonneux, not realising that the entire line was under attack. After five minutes, German commanders began to realise that this wasn’t the routine shelling that was a daily occurrence by this point in the war, and was actually cover for a massed attack, but it was too late. The only obstacles in the Australians’ way were two anti-tank mines which never detonated. Six minutes into the bombardment, the first German trenches fell to Australian diggers, not even halfway into the rolling bombardment.

Runners had never even left the defenders’ lines before the ANZACs seized them. In the days before the attack, Australians conducted daily raids, skirmishes and nuisance patrols in their sector; causing the Germans to reinforce their lines due to casualties and to respond to the pattern once it had been established. Thus, when the German lines fell on 08 August 1918, there was no defence in depth in the Australian sector. ANZACs stood at the doors to bunkers and yelled down to the Germans inside, taking shelter from the presumedly routine shelling,that if they didn’t surrender, the ANZACs holding the only escape routes would lob grenades into the bunkers. The Australian troops captured 60% of their sector’s defenders in the first ten minutes of the battle, by 0530h, German artillery guns along the line had already started running out of shells. Another five minutes at 0535h and the Australians had captured their entire sector for stage 1 of the attack, as the last shells of the initial bombardment were being fired. Australian tanks hadn’t even reached the lines when they fell.

The first British troops reached the defences in 5-7 minutes with the German 5th and 6th companies of the Reserve Infantry Regiment falling immediately, their lines taken at 0527h. By the time some defenders reached their positions, they’d already been cleared by the British troops who were already behind them, despite this no attack was attempted on the exposed British backs. In the British sector the defending division on the right fell immediately, along with the left flank, and with that the main line of resistance had fallen. Defending units like the RIR 265 had approximately 375 men to defend 1600m of the line. At 0600h, Thomas Gully fell to British troops. The British used roads as arteries for tank deployments and from 0630h onwards, British tanks and troops branched off and encircled German lines one by one with mass surrenders taking place. One such road that would become an artery for the Allied advance on the British-Canadian sector’s border was Corbie-Bray road, it had no defenders at all, despite German commanders realising this 24 hours prior. The British advance halted at Corbie-Bray road at 0720h, they had strict orders not to advance further as the grand strategy involved reinforcements replacing the front line attackers at the completion of each stage. British commanders resisted due to the speed and success of their attack, but they obeyed orders reluctantly. This time spent halted gave the German defenders time to regroup and hold out until 1300h, though their lines and the communications between them were still chaotic. A communique from one defending unit to another didn’t reach its destination until an hour later, long after both units had fallen. German survivors later stated that if the British pushed on rather than halting at Corbie-Bray road, the sector’s defenders would have collapsed immediately and the sector taken hours earlier; however, British discipline and adherence to orders prevented this. In the British sector, Morlancourt fell at 0700h and the British halted at 0720h. If no halt occurred, large groups of surviving German artillery who regrouped would have been captured instead, and the British wouldn’t have been stalled until 1300h. Poor coordination led to German reinforcements running into each other, leaving massive gaps in the defender’s lines in the British and Canadian sectors.

The Germans defending the Canadian assigned sector had been in position for less than 12 hours when the attack came. They didn’t know the ground, they weren’t integrated into other units and spread out along the line; they were simply assigned a stretch of unfamiliar ground to defend by themselves and in the face of mounting intelligence and reports of massed Allied tank movements and reports of Australian and Canadian shock troops arriving in theatre. They were defeated immediately. The only point along the line where the Canadians stalled was at and around The Sunken Road. The Sunken Road was a muddy quagmire due to the mixture of the miserable weather and constant shelling. The ground was so soft and muddy that most of the allied artillery shells in the initial bombardment never detonated. They impacted and were absorbed into the mud, leaving the defenders and their defences mostly untouched. This proved to be the only stand against the Canadians the Germans could muster,however short-lived. German survivors later said they could have held The Sunken Road indefinitely if it wasn’t for the heavy fog. Without the fog the movements of both infantry and tanks would have been seen well in advance and artillery guns brought to bear on the advancing Allies. General Monash and his British counterparts were beyond lucky for the fog to descend in such thickness the morning of the assault.

The Battle of Amiens would span over multiple days, as pockets of German resistance were wiped out or more likely captured, and as the Allied supply train caught up to the troops at the front. On that first day of the battle, the day referred to by the German command as "The Catastrophe", the Allies took 11km of ground. The Germans withdrew to establish an even weaker defensive line, which immediately capitulated upon contact.

Sadly, two weeks after the Battle of Amiens, on 22nd August 1918, James met his fate and was killed by a shell along the Bray-Corbie Road. He was 20 years old.
After his death, James Henry Crowe was initially buried in Taille Wood Cemetery, Etinehem, on the South side of the Corbie-Bray road and was reburied in 1919 in Beacon Cemetery, Sailly-Laurette, Somme, where he now rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms, and his grave bears the following inscription: "Gone but not forgotten."

One of James Henry Crowe's brothers also fought bravely in the Great War. John Cecil Crowe served in the 19th Australian Infantry Battalion. John survived the war and returned to Australia on 22nd July 1919. He died on 18th April 1936 at the age of 42 in Cootamundra, New South Wales, leaving behind a widow and two children. He now rests in peace in the Cootamundra General Cemetery.

James, in the trenches, more than a hundred years ago, you gave your life but since 1918, your memory has never ceased to live and today, we stand respectfully before you to remember you and honour the memory of the man that you were and who, for Australia, with courage, fought so bravely on the battlefields of the Somme alongside your brothers who, at your side, in incredible endurance, in unfailing courage, did their duty with determination to preserve peace and freedom then threatened by the darkness and madness of an insane war which pushed an entire youth into infamous quagmires through which they killed each other. Under the shells, in misery, in a hell never seen before, these young men who came from so far away, held with conviction all along the front line, all along a path paved with blood and sacrifices which, for the young Diggers, began on the beaches and burning hills of Gallipoli where the spirit of ANZAC was born and from where Australia emerged as a strong and great nation. Under machine guns, at Lone Pine, at Suvla Bay, at the Nek, the men of the entire Australian Imperial Force showed themselves among the bravest and animated by a strong bond of camaraderie, by an ardent fighting spirit, charged with audacity and faith, under an arid sun, bayonets forward, like devils with lion hearts, delivered their first battles which were already heavy in lives lost and murderous in blood shed but this was only the beginning of a nightmare, of an endless war which guided their steps and called them to the battlefields of the Western Front. Young but already so brave, they who were just a few months before just children, students, farmers were now veterans of a terrible conflict, scarred and tormented men who knew only death in life and whose innocence was crushed under devastating artillery that reduced their comrades to pieces but, despite everything, in July 1916, when they arrived at Fromelles, they advanced towards the front line to the sound of bugles and with a smile on their faces that expressed all the courage of the entire Australian nation. After so much suffering endured in the Dardanelles, they saw France as a paradise dotted with flowering orchards, fields gilded by ears of wheat, vast plains with fragrant flowers caressed by gentle rivers but, this Eden quickly transformed into a slaughterhouse, a meat grinder in which the young Australian soldiers were literally mowed down without mercy and almost annihilated between the 19 and on July 20, 1916, in Fromelles, everything was blood everywhere, the once peaceful fields were strewn with the lifeless bodies of men too young, sometimes unrecognizable under their wounds, who nevertheless heroically but without hope of success, charged onto this field of death from which too few survived and who, after that, were forever changed and haunted by death, by suffering but unfortunately, Fromelles was not the end of this nightmare. On July 23, 1916, after so many sacrifices had already been made, the hell on earth of the Somme began for the Australians at Pozieres, even more terrible than anything they had ever endured and here, on lunar soil, they suffered day and night from the most horrible shelling of the entire war. With nowhere to hide or flee, they were crushed, buried under a storm of roaring steel but once again, they held the front line with bravery.

Attack and counterattack followed one another at a pace as frantic as it was deadly and ended through the barbed wire, in the middle of the poppies in terrible hand-to-hand combat where blood flowed in torrents on bayonets, rifle butts and trench shovels. This nightmare was bloody but it was also once again marked by courage, fraternity, camaraderie, endurance and the perseverance of the Australian soldiers who in 1918, once again after hard battles at Villers-Bretonneux and Amiens, brought us the long-awaited peace but the road was long and in the fields of the Somme, so many of them paid the supreme sacrifice.

More than a hundred years have passed, the fields of the Somme have become peaceful again and in our towns and villages like here in Amiens, the graves of these heroes stand solemn and remind us every day what was the price of our peace, of our freedom. More than a hundred years have passed but here, in letters of gold, on our walls is forever inscribed, like a message to future generations "do not forget Australia".

We will never forget and today, I am proud to live here and to watch over these young men to whom I owe so much and for whom, with love and dedication, I would give the time of my life to perpetuate their memory, to keep their souls alive but also to keep strong and alive the ANZAC spirit and the soul of Australia of which I am proud and honored to be an adopted son.

Thank you so much James, for everything you did alongside all your comrades who, in the Somme, will always have our eternal gratitude as well as our deepest respect.At the going down of the sun and in the Morning,we will remember him,we will remember them.

In the portrait photo, James Henry Crowe is standing on the far right. His brother, John Cecil Crowe is in the middle, seated. He died on 18th April 1936 at the age of 42 in Cootamundra, New South Wales, leaving behind a widow and two children. He now rests in peace in the Cootamundra General Cemetery. On the far left is a friend of theirs, Pte number 7776 Wilfred Murray Cook, 13th Australian Infantry Battalion. Wilfred survived the war and returned to Australia on 6 September 1919. Wilfred died on 25 May 1948 at the age of 50 in Ararat, Victoria, Australia and is now resting in peace in the Ararat General Cemetery.