Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From François Berthout

Pte 4311 John Henry Storey
46th Australian Infantry Battalion,
12th Brigade, 4th Australian Division
 
Today in the Somme the sun rises to lay its rays through the old battlefields and fields of poppies on which stand silently the white graves of thousands of young men who rest in peace on the soil of a friendly country for whom they have done and gave so much and who will be forever grateful to them. Forever young, they stand by our side, united in the mateship that war and death has never broken and it is together, united around them that we will keep their memory, their stories strong and alive so that they are remembered with dignity, with love and respect, to remember them is to bring them back to life, it is to shine the flame of Remembrance that they transmitted to us and that I would always carry with pride so that they live forever.

Today, it is with the greatest gratitude and 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 and his life for our tomorrow.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 4311 John Henry Storey who fought in the 46th Australian Infantry Battalion, 12th Brigade, 4th Australian Division, and who was killed in action 105 years ago, on August 11, 1916 at the age of 21 on the Somme front.

John Henry Storey was born on August 2, 1895 in Boort, Victoria, Australia, and was the son of John and Ellen Storey, of Godfrey Street, Boort, Victoria. John Henry was educated at the Boort State School then served in Cadets and before the outbreak of the war, worked as a butter maker.

John enlisted on July 13, 1915 at Boort, Victoria, in the 6th Australian Infantry Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 13th Reinforcement, and after a period of five months training, he embarked with his unit from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A64 Demosthenes on December 29, 1915 and sailed for Egypt.

On March 13, 1916, John arrived in Egypt and was disembarked in Cairo with his battalion but was admitted the same day to the 4th Auxiliary Hospital suffering from mumps then was discharged to duty on March 21 and on March 25, was posted in the 2nd Training Battalion in Heliopolis then a little over a week later, on April 3, was transferred and taken on strength in the 46th Australian Infantry Battalion at Serapeum, a battalion which was raised in Egypt on February 24, of which half of the men were veterans of Gallipoli and coming from Victoria.

Two months later, on June 2, 1916, John proceeded to join the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) in Alexandria and the same day, embarked with his unit on board Kinsfauns Castle then proceeded overseas for France where he arrived on June 8 in Marseilles and two months later, on July 4, he was sent to Pozieres, in the Somme, which was the first major engagement of the 46th Australian Infantry Battalion but also of the AIF on this front which would suffer, in less than seven weeks, catastrophic losses. Initially, the 46th battalion provided carrying parties for supplies and ammunition during the 2nd Division's attack on 4 August, and then, with its own division, defended the ground that had been captured. The 46th endured two stints in the heavily contested trenches of Pozieres, as well as a period in reserve.

Unfortunately, it was in Pozieres, near the windmill, that on August 11, 1916, John met his fate and was killed in action. His file reports that he was first buried to the right of the windmill, in the Australian front line with two of his comrades then was exhumed and re-buried in Pozieres British Cemetery, Somme, where he rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms, and his grave bears the following inscription "Greater love hath no man he gave his life for his friends."He was 21 years old.

John, you who were young, at the dawn of a life full of promise and expectation, it is in the trenches and on the battlefields of the great war that you gave your youth for the greatest causes for which a man can fight with all his heart alongside his comrades and his brothers in arms and in the Somme, did their duty with the greatest bravery, with honor and loyalty to their country which they made proud and for France, a country they knew little about but for which, together, they gave and did so much through the poppy fields on which they fought and served with pride and on which they shed their blood and gave their lives and today it is on these sacred grounds of the Somme, on these lands of remembrance that I walk with respect to learn from these men, to understand what they went through through their eyes, to honor their memory with gratitude but also to share their stories so that what they did for us, their courage and their sacrifices are never forgotten and today it is from the bottom of my heart that I would like to thank you John, for all you have made for us, for Australia and for France which will never forget you and which will take care to keep alive and strong your history and those of all the young men who fought and fell by your side for the peace and the freedom that we will always protect as you did by standing in the trenches, in the mud, under artillery fire, under infernal rains of fire and steel that transformed once peaceful landscapes into lunar landscapes, into fields of death, nightmarish quagmires which, in mud and blood, buried thousands of young men who fell in no man's land, under the fire of rifles and machine guns that spit, in blood-red flames, death and desolation on a world on the verge of annihilation and on which, for four years of endless hell, a whole generation of young men fought and lived in horrifying conditions and saw their friends, their brothers and fathers who fell one after the other in the violence and the carnage that were the assaults and the charges with the bayonets which ended in bloodbaths in which, wave after wave, under the bites of the steel and lead they were mowed down in the barbed wire. But despite all the horrors they went through, they remained united and strong and held their positions beyond bravery in the face of death and showed the courage, the determination of a whole generation who fought with conviction under the same uniform, united in the mateship which was their strength and which gave them the courage and perseverance to hold out and go over the top under a downpour of bullets.In this war which was theirs, the cost of peace was excruciatingly high but they never backed down and fought to put an end to all wars, they fought with determination, they fought like lions sacrificing their youth because they knew that the future of mankind would depend on their courage and their actions on the battlefields.Not all of them received medals for their acts of courage but they were all heroes who served with faith and bravery for their country, for their loved ones and many of them did not have the chance to return home but found , here in the Somme, in France, their last resting place, always united alongside their comrades in the eternal brotherhood in which they stand proudly, invisible but present through the fields of poppies and the peaceful white cities, behind their white tombs which carry for eternity, the names, the stories and the faces of all these heroes who will always be honored and remembered with the greatest respect and whom I wish to keep alive so that their memory never fades, I will always be present for them and their families for whom I would always proudly carry the flame of Remembrance which here, in the Somme, for my boys of the Somme, will never cease to shine.Thank you so much John,for everything.At the going down of the sun and in the morning,we will remember him,we will remember them.

Served in the Cadets. Enlisted 13 July 1915,

Date of enlistment from nominal roll 12 July 1915

6th Battalion, 13th reinforcement 

AWM embarkation roll number 23/23/4

unit embarked from Melbourne onboard HMAT A64 Demosthenes on 29 December 1915

46th Battalion