Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 5387 McINTYRE  Edgar Joseph                    26th Battalion
 
Edgar McIntyre was born in Coonamble NSW. His family moved to the Bell district where Edgar’s father Thomas took up a selection at Bell. Edgar worked on the farm until March 1916 when he enlisted in the AIF.
 
Edgar presented himself for enlistment to the recruiting depot at Toowoomba on 1st March 1916. He stated he was single, 34 years old, and his occupation was farmer of Bell. Curiously, Edgar did not name his father Thomas as his next of kin, perhaps because of his age. Instead he named his nearest male relative, James McIntyre, as his next of kin. James was a cousin of Edgar and worked as an accountant in Nundah Qld.
 
Edgar reported to the training camp at Enoggera ten days after enlisting at Toowoomba and was placed temporarily into the 11th Depot Battalion. On 14th April, he was taken on as part of the 14th echelon of reinforcements for the 26th Battalion. Prior to his departure for overseas, Edgar attended a photographic studio to have his portrait taken. The photograph, a print of which is held by the Australian War Memorial, shows Edgar in a resolute pose sporting a spectacular moustache.
 
On the 9th August 1916, the reinforcements boarded the “Itonus” in Brisbane for a two month voyage to England. The reinforcements landed at Plymouth and proceeded by train to the 7th Brigade Training Depot on Salisbury Plain. In December, Edgar sailed from Folkstone on a channel ferry for the large British base at Etaples, just south of Boulogne. On 19th December, Edgar joined his battalion in billets around Fricourt in the Somme region.
 
The winter of 1916/17 was particularly bitter and very little fighting was possible. The 26th, as part of the 7thbrigade of the 2nd Division of the AIF spent the winter shifting from camp to camp and engaging in training for the offensives that would occur once the roads thawed to allow troop and material movements.
 
During the winter, the Germans had secretly constructed a 150 kilometre long defensive barrier, which they named the Seigfreid Position but the British labelled the Hindenburg Line. The Line was some distance to the east of the front line positions astride the Somme. In March 1917, the German forces began a strategic withdrawal to this new position and the British forces cautiously followed. On 26th March, the 26th battalion was tasked with advancing against strong defences near Warlencourt. During this action, Edgar received a gunshot wound to his knee and lower thigh.
 
Edgar was taken to a field ambulance station and then on to the 3rd Casualty Clearing Station where he was loaded onto an ambulance train and taken to the 3rd Stationary Hospital at Rouen. Edgar’s wound was considered sufficiently serious to warrant hospitalisation in England, even though the telegram addressed to James McIntyre stated his wound as “mild.”
Edgar was admitted to the 3rd Southern General Hospital at Oxford on 10th April where he would remain for four months.
 
Edgar was discharged to a two week furlough in August of 1917 and he may have taken the opportunity to see the sights in southern England, even if he was walking with a stick. When his leave expired, Edgar reported to Dartford camp and then Codford Infantry Depot.
 
Edgar transited through the 2nd Division Base Depot at Etaples to re-join his battalion on 15th January 1918. For the AIF, the winter of 1917/18 was nowhere near as brutal as the previous winter; due primarily to the Australians being billeted in Nissen huts which kept them warm and dry. The Australians were encamped in and around the Belgian town of Poperinghe in anticipation of a German assault in the spring of 1918.
 
The latter part of 1917 had produced a change in the strategic situation as far as the German command was concerned. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia brought about the end to fighting on the Eastern Front. A peace treaty between Germany and Russia released up to sixty German divisions which, once re-equipped and re-trained, could be used to press home a distinct advantage on the Western Front. The window for exploiting this advantage was however rather small as the entry of the United States into the war and an expected surge in troop numbers from July 1918 onwards would swing the advantage back to the Entente. The German commander, Ludendorff had only a short time to press home his advantage.
 
While in camp near Poperinghe, Edgar was posted to the 10th Corps Farm on 22nd February 1918. The 10thCorps (X Corps) was a British Formation which was stationed in the Ypres salient during the early months of 1918. It appears that a number of pig farms were being operated in the Etaples area by British troops and it is possible that it was to one of these that Edgar was posted. The pig farms, apart from providing fresh meat, supplied rendering works which manufactured pig fat for use in weapon lubrication. There is no evidence to suggest the type of farm that Edgar was posted to.
 
On 16th June 1918 Edgar was posted back to his battalion, the 26th, which had been working hard in the defence of the French city of Amiens. The German offensive had begun in late March 1918 and the advance was halted back on the Somme where the two combatants had fought each other two years before. On the 1st June, John Monash was appointed corps commander of the AIF with five full divisions at his disposal and he set about planning a counter offensive.
 
The first major offensive action by the AIF took place at Hamel on 4th July 1918. Monash had meticulously planned to employ all the power of the forces at his disposal; tanks, aircraft, artillery and deception. The plan for the assault, which employed troops from the 2nd Divisions of the AIF allowed for the battle to last ninety minutes. The 26th Battalion men, as part of the 2nd Division, had attached to their ranks several companies of men from the U.S. Army’s Illinois National Guard; and Monash had deliberately chosen American Independence Day for the battle. The battle of Hamel which was supposed to last ninety minutes in fact was over after ninety three. Monash was lauded a brilliant strategist and he was given the task of contributing to the planning an even larger assault which became known as the Battle of Amiens.
 
Employing the lessons he had learned at Hamel, Monash again planned a coordinated attack using tanks, aircraft which dropped ammunition and water to forward troops, smoke screens and mobile artillery. The battle was timed to commence in the early dawn of the 8th August over three stages of an 11 kilometre advance with the 2nd and 3rd Divisions of the AIF in the spearhead.
 
Sometime during the advance, Edgar McIntyre received a gunshot wound to his chest. He began the familiar route of transfer to the 6th Field Ambulance and then on to the 61st Casualty Clearing Station where he died of his wounds on 9th August 1918. Edgar was buried in the Vignacourt Military Cemetery adjacent to the CCS.
 
Edgar’s personal effects; an identity disc, 2 razors, a pipe and tobacco pouch and some letters were delivered to his sister, Lillian, of East Brisbane. Lillian was named as the beneficiary of Edgar’s will and was entitled to his accumulated pay and war gratuity.
 
Thomas McIntyre, Edgar’s father still living in Bell, was presented with his son’s war medals, memorial plaque and commemorative scroll. Edgar’s headstone at Vignacourt bears no details save for his name, unit, rank and date of death. There is no personal inscription chosen by his family.