Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 1716  McLEOD Hector McDonald               31st Battalion
 
Hector McLeod was born in Victoria around 1883. His parents, Angus and Elizabeth may have moved to South Australia when Hector was young and Hector spent time at Mt Gambier and Naracoorte. Like many men from the rural areas, Hector would appear to have travelled widely around Australia working at various labouring jobs. In 1915, Hector was working in the Nanango district in the South Burnett in Queensland.
 
Hector attended the Brisbane Recruiting Depot on 20th July 1915. It is possible there had been a recruitment drive in the Nanango district in July 1915 as Hector was one of at least four men who enlisted around that time. (Archie and Ron McDonald, Gregor McGregor). Hector advised the officer that he was 33 years old and worked as a labourer. He named his father of West Wyalong as his next of kin. After passing the medical, Hector reported to camp at Enoggera where he was taken to the reinforcements of the 31stBattalion.
 
Hector, at 33 years had probably spent his whole adult life as an independent person and military discipline came as a rude shock. While in camp, he was “crimed” on three occasions for being drunk on parade, making off with another soldier’s rations, and being away from camp. It also likely that a possible motive for enlisting was the six shillings a day pay (with one shilling deferred until discharge or death), far more that he could earn as a rural worker. When Hector, as part of the 2nd Reinforcements of the 31st Battalion boarded the “Kyarra” in Brisbane on 3rd January 1916, the embarkation roll shows that Hector had not allocated any part of his pay to a relative or to a bank account. The usual allocation for most soldiers was three shillings a day and married men or those supporting other family members often allocated four shillings.
 
The 2nd Reinforcements landed at Suez on 31st January 1916. The Australian camps in Egypt during the early months of 1916 were a hive of activity as new battalions were created by combining Gallipoli veterans and recruits from the camps. The 31st Battalion had arrived in Egypt as a complete unit and was spared the disruption that reorganisation brought. In February, the battalion was posted to Serapeum as part of the Suez Canal defences to meet a possible Ottoman incursion. The battalion remained in the canal zone for several months changing camp from Serapeum to Tel el Kabir and then Moascar. On 1st April, Hector was taken on strength by the 31st Battalion, part of the 8th Brigade of the 5th Division of the AIF at Duntroon Plateau. Hector was placed in “A” Company; the same company as Archie and Ron McDonald from Nanango, whose names also appear on the Nanango War Memorial.
 
On 16th June, the 31st took trains to the docks in Alexandria for the six day crossing of the Mediterranean; arriving in Marseilles on 23rd June 1916. The 31st was one of the last battalions to arrive in France. Some battalions from other divisions had been on the Western Front since March. Once disembarked, the battalion boarded several trains for a rail journey that took two days, arriving at Morbecque in Belgian Flanders where they went into comfortable billets. The comfort would not last long.
 
On 8th July 1916, having only been in France for a few days, the 31st was posted to the Bois Grenier Line just south of Armentieres for a short stint in the reserve line. On 16th July, the 8th Brigade was posted into the front line for an attack against the 20 metre high Auber’s Ridge near the village of Fromelles. The entire 5th Division, supported by the 61st British Division were tasked with a frontal assault to take place on 17thJuly. The plan for the assault was the work of General Richard Haking and was virtually a repeat of a similar plan that he had employed in May against the same part of the front. On that occasion, and employing far more experienced troops, the outcome was quite disastrous. Haking wanted to use the 1st AIF Division for the July attempt but the divisional commander Harold “Hookey” Walker, backed up by General Birdwood, refused point blank to be part of what he surmised would be a disaster. The 5th Division was Haking’s second choice, in spite of the fact that half of the 5th Division battalions had only been in the line for two days and the other half had not been in the front line at all. The British 61st Division which would accompany the Australians had only limited exposure to the frontline as well.
 
To allay fears of poor planning, Haking had a letter printed and distributed to the troops about to enter the battle which outlined the planned phases of the battle and timings of artillery barrages. The letter requested that those receiving the letter keep the contents secret. Of course, the secret got out! Due to rain which would hamper the ability of artillery range spotting, the assault was postponed until the 19th.
 
At zero hour, the 8th Brigade battalions charged the enemy front line (which had been abandoned) and then went another 600 metres looking for the trench line that was their objective. They found a shallow ditch filled with water! The German defenders displayed large signs that said “Why so long; you are 24 hours late!” A previous sign read “ADVANCE AUSTRALIA – IF YOU CAN!” The men of the 31st Battalion found themselves horribly exposed to grazing machine gun fire coming from three sides. The British 61st Division which was supposed to advance in line with the Australians received a severe hammering suffering 50% casualties and with his troops exposed, Haking decided to call off further attacks. Unfortunately, this message was not received by the commander of the AIF’s 15th Brigade, “Pompey” Elliott who sent his Victorians out to be mown down. He wept as the survivors of the charge dragged themselves back to the start trench.
 
The attack on Auber’s Ridge, which was better known by the name of the village behind the German lines, Fromelles, proved to be the highest loss rate for a single day in the history of the Australian Army. Casualties for the 5th Division, which went into the line with about 18,000 men were appalling. There were 5,500 casualties; 2,000 killed, 1300 missing presumed killed with the remainder wounded. Most of the junior officer corps had been wiped out. The division was finished as a fighting force for the rest of 1916.
 
Statements by witnesses in Hector’s platoon provided to the Red Cross after Fromelles related that Hector was cut down with machine gun fire as his platoon raced across the boggy ground towards Auber’s Ridge on 20th July, exactly one year since he enlisted. Hector’s file contains a handwritten note stating he was buried but there is no date attached and no indication as to when this burial occurred. It is possible that Hector’s remains were among the 410 Australians found on the Fromelles battlefield after the Armistice. None of these could be identified. The authorities decided not to mark the individual graves, but to record on a memorial the names of all the Australian soldiers who were killed in the engagement and whose graves were not known. The VC Corner Australian Cemetery and Memorial was built to commemorate nearly 1,300 Australian casualties. There are no headstones at VC Corner but rather a series of panels with the names of the 1300 missing, only some of whom are presumed to be buried in the unmarked graves, including the 410 unidentified recovered from the battlefield. Hector’s name appears on Panel #3.
 
Following work by amateur historians from Victoria in 2006, a mass grave site containing the remains of a further 250 soldiers from the 5th Division was identified some distance from the front line of 1916. A world wide search for descendants of those lost at Fromelles began in 2009 in an attempt to identify those men through DNA and forensic dentistry. So far 180 of those 250 have been identified, Archie McDonald among them. No identification has been made of Hector McLeod but the work of the Unrecovered War Casualties Australia Unit continues.