Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

#34 COX Norman Victor  11th Machine Gun Company

Norman Cox was born in Gympie and spent his early life there with his widowed mother, Mary Jane Cox at Jones Hill, Gympie. When he completed his schooling he moved to Howard where he worked as a coal miner and served with the 4th Infantry Regiment (Wide Bay) in Maryborough.

Norman travelled to Brisbane to enlist at the Adelaide Street Recruiting Depot on 21st February 1916. He stated he was 19 years and three months old and gave his address as Post Office, Howard, North Coast Line. Norman stated his occupation as miner. He was assigned to the 11th Machine Gun Company which was being raised at Chermside.

The 11th MG Coy, when fully trained, was to form part of the support units for the 11th Infantry Brigade, part of the 3rd Division of the AIF. The 3rd Division, to be trained at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain, was under the command of a newly promoted divisional commander, Major General John Monash, and was to be fully assembled with recruits directly from Australia. When Norman arrived at Chermside, everything was new. There were no machine guns and in any event recruits like Norman would not be qualified to fire the heavy Vickers Machine Gun until they had qualified at rifle shooting.

The 11th MG Coy travelled by train to Sydney where they boarded the transport “Borda”. The company disembarked in Suez and went briefly into camp at Ismalia before re-embarking on the Borda in Alexandria for a voyage across the Mediterranean to Marseilles. Once in France, the company boarded a train bound for Havre where they boarded another ship for the crossing of the English Channel to Southampton. The men finally marched in to their camp at Amesbury on 23rd July.

Training continued throughout August and September and gradually stores and equipment arrived, including gun limbers and horses. For the first time, the men began to learn how to fire the Vickers guns, a water cooled machine gun mounted on a heavy tripod fed by cloth ammunition belts. Much time would be spent training in the assembly and disassembly of the weapon and its component parts. On the 27th September, King George V travelled on his private train down to Larkhill to inspect the 3rd Division. As the more than 22,000 men marched past, the King and Monash sat astride their horses chatting amicably about a range of topics. The King was very impressed with Monash and his Australians. They would meet again in France in 1918 when the King invested Monash with his knighthood.

In November 1916, the entire 3rd Division was deployed to the front in the area around the French Belgian border. Just before sailing, Norman was promoted to Lance Corporal, making him second in charge of a gun crew. Just five days after arriving in France, Norman reported sick to a Casualty Clearing Station where he was diagnosed with influenza. After spending time in hospital at Boulogne, Norman rejoined his company on 3rd January 1917. When sent up to the line, the gunners were mainly employed in indirect night firing. In other words, they fired hundreds of rounds out into no man’s land with no clear target to deter raiding parties. In March 1917, 11th brigade was stationed around Ploegsteert Wood (soldiers called it Plug Street), again engaged in indirect night firing.

The 3rd Division had been trained in England for a specific task, the coming campaign in the Ypres salient in Belgium. The first battle of this campaign would be conducted along the Messines Ridge, just south of Ypres. The 11th brigade was withdrawn from the front line in May to prepare for its first major engagement at Messines. Unlike the poorly planned assaults undertaken by the British on the Somme in 1916, the 1917 campaign was planned with adequate preparation and with achievable objectives. All the troops taking part in the Messines battle inspected a large sand model of the ground over which they would advance.

The battle of Messines began at 3:20 am when 19 underground mines that had been placed in tunnels under the German lines on the ridge were fired. The sound was so loud that it could be heard in England. Once the smoke and dust cleared somewhat, the infantry moved out with successive battalions passing though each objective until the final objective was reached; the black line. The Machine gun companies then had to carry their guns and equipment over the captured ground, pocked with shell craters where they would establish new defensive firing positions to hold the ground gained.

With the German forces driven off the Messines Ridge, the British were no longer exposed to observation as they prepared for the next phase of the offensive. The 3rd Division was withdrawn from the front in July and August to rest, reequip and train for the next battle.

The 11th brigade was in camp around Poperinghe, just west of Ypres and out of reach of German artillery.

On 29th September, a German aircraft (probably a Gotha bomber) dropped two large bombs on the men of the 11th MG Coy as they slept in Nissen Huts. The company war diary recorded that nine men were killed outright and 64 were wounded. One of those killed was Norman Cox.

Norman and nine other men from the 11th MG Coy ( one of the wounded succumbed to his injuries the next day) were buried side by side in a cemetery near the Elizabeth Hospital that became the Poperinghe New Military Cemetery. The burial would have conformed to the protocol for full military honours; clergy in attendance, a firing party and the playing of the Last Post.

In due course, Mary Jane Cox received a war pension of two pounds per fortnight and her sons medals and commemorative plaque. When permanent headstones were erected in the Poperinghe cemetery, Mary Jane chose the following inscription for her son’s headstone: IN MEMORY OF THE DEARLY LOVED SON OF MRS COX OF GYMPIE AGE 20 & 10 MONTHS.