Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 1919 JULL Alfred                  52nd Battalion
 
Fred Jull was born at Enoggera, the eldest son of Alfred Ernest and Mary Judd. The family moved to the Woodford area where they were involved in dairying.
 
Fred’s father enlisted in November 1915. At the time he was 44 years old. Alfred was in camp at Enoggera when Fred Jull attended the recruitment office in Adelaide Street on 5th January 1916. He told the recruiting officer he was 24 years old and worked as a timber getter. Fred named his mother, Mary, as his next of kin as his father was at that time in camp at Enoggera. Fred spent the first few weeks in a depot battalion. He may have briefly met up with his father in camp before Alfred was discharged from the army with flat feet.
 
Fred was initially assigned to the Pioneers but eventually was drafted into the 3rd reinforcements of the 52ndBattalion. On 30th April 1916, Fred embarked on the “Clan McGillivray” in Brisbane bound for overseas service. He had allocated 3/- of his daily pay of 5/- to his mother. The reinforcements landed at Suez and transited through the AIF camps in Egypt before boarding another ship at Alexandria on 6th August and sailing on to Southampton and the 13th Brigade Training Battalion at Rollestone. On 18th October 1916, Fred’s younger brother George, who was a butcher in Woodford, also enlisted.
 
As Fred and the other reinforcements were making their way to England, three divisions of the AIF that were already in France came up against the formidable German defences at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm. Casualties in the campaign which was part of the Somme offensive were staggering with the AIF alone suffering 23,000 wounded, dead or missing. There was an urgent need for reinforcements and Fred was given orders to report to Folkstone for a night crossing of the English Channel to the huge British training and transit camp at Etaples, arriving there on 2nd November. Two weeks later he was taken on strength by the 52nd Battalion.
 
The arrival of a large draft of reinforcements coincided with the onset of winter, for which the Australians were ill-equipped. AIF troops rotated in and out of the front line where there was very little fighting taking place; both sides being more consumed with fighting a bitter winter. No long after arriving in the front area, Fred was charged with “mutilating” his great coat (the only uniform item that offered some protection from the sub-zero temperatures). He had to pay the cost of a new coat; 15/-.
 
On 25th February 1917, Fred was posted to the divisional bomb school (Mill’s hand grenades) for two weeks. When he returned to his battalion, things were on the move. Once the spring thaw of 1917 arrived and movement across the battlefield was again possible, the British discovered that during the winter, the Germans had constructed a formidable barrier some distance behind their own lines (The Hindenburg Line). As the Germans began a systematic withdrawal to this new position, the British Command ordered their forces to follow maintaining contact with the withdrawal.
 
The 52nd Battalion, as part of the 13th Brigade of the 4th Division, advanced warily through the townships of Bapaume and Buire, following the trail of destruction left by the retiring enemy. By the end of March, the advance had brought the British forces in sight of the Hindenburg Line. On 27th March, the companies of the 52nd Battalion began to move up to the front-line trenches in preparation for an assault against the Hindenburg Line at Lagnicourt. The attack began with the usual artillery barrage to shelter the advancing infantry as they rose up from the jump off tapes and trudged across the snow-covered ground. While following the creeping barrage, Fred was hit by a large German shell fragment. He was taken from the battlefield to the Brigade Field Ambulance where he died of blood loss and shock the following day. Fred was buried in what became the Bapaume Australian Cemetery. A small parcel of Fred’s personal effects including an identity disc, a watch and strap and some letters was sent to Mary Jull at Woodford.
 
Fred’s father Alfred had a second attempt at enlisting in April 1917 and made it all the way to a training camp at Larkhill near Stonehenge before he was discharged as being too old and having flat feet. Brother George survived the war. When headstones were being erected in military cemeteries across France and Belgium, Alfred and Mary Jull chose the following inscription for Fred’s headstone: IN MEMORY OF THE DEARLY LOVED SON OF MR & MRS JULL OF WOODFORD.
 
Fred Jull is commemorated on the Honour Board of St Matthias’ Church in Woodford and a commemorative tree in the Memorial Avenue.