Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

#1723 LEE Stanley Adolphus  MM     12th Battalion
 
Stanley Lee was born in Ballarat to parents James and Mary Lee. As a boy, Stanley attended the Golden Point State School in Ballarat where he is commemorated on the Honour Roll. Stan’s name also appears on the Keswick Methodist Sunday School Honour Board which would suggest that the Lee family moved from Victoria to Adelaide while Stan was still young. Stan informed the recruiting officer that he was a blacksmith and it is likely that he had been apprenticed to an engineering firm; perhaps where his elder brother Tom was employed as a fitter. It is possible that Stan had journeyed to the South Burnett in Queensland as he is also commemorated on the Nanango War Memorial.
 
When Stan reported to the recruitment depot at Oaklands in Adelaide on 14th January 1915, he stated he was 19 years old and employed as a blacksmith; perhaps at Broken Hill as he informed the recruiting staff he was at that time serving in the 12th Field Company Engineers based in that city. Stan had probably journeyed down to Adelaide from Broken Hill to see his parents who were living in Wakefield Street in the city of Adelaide.
 
Three weeks after Stan enlisted, his elder brother Tom also enlisted. The boys were allocated to the 4threinforcements of the 12th Battalion. The 12th Battalion was raised at the outbreak of the war and was comprised of companies from Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia (the so-called “outer states”). The 12th Battalion was one of four battalions making up the 3rd Infantry Brigade which included a Queensland battalion (9th) a fully South Australian battalion (10th) and a Western Australian battalion (11th).
 
Stan and Tom, in the company of about 100 South Australian reinforcements boarded the “Port Lincoln” at Port Adelaide on 1st April 1915. Each of the boys had allocated 2 shillings from their daily pay of 5 shillings to Mary Lee. The reinforcements were headed for the AIF camps in Egypt. The original 12th Battalion had left camp near Cairo by the time the 4th reinforcements marched into camp and was then camped on the island of Lemnos practising boat drills for the forthcoming landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25th April.
 
The reinforcements remained in Egypt while the 3rd Brigade, including the 12th Battalion were chosen as the covering force for the 25th April landings; being the first ashore at 4:10 am. The 12th Battalion suffered heavy casualties during the first days of the Gallipoli campaign with 25 killed, including the battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Cox and the grandson of Peter Lalor of Eureka Stockade fame, Captain Joseph Lalor. There were also 286 wounded and 90 missing.
 
Stan and Tom Lee were among the party of 2 officers and 129 other ranks who were taken on by the 12thBattalion on 26th May, the day after there had been a ceasefire for 8 hours to allow both sides to retrieve and bury their dead. The 12th battalion war diary estimated that the Turkish dead amounted to 7000. Soon after his arrival at Gallipoli, Stan reported to a Field Ambulance with a case of Gonorrhoea, which he had no doubt contracted on his last leave in Cairo. He was sent to Cairo for treatment and did not return to his battalion until 17th September 1915. On 30th November, Stan transferred to a trench mortar unit but one week later he was evacuated from Anzac Cove on the Hospital Ship “Glennart Castle”. Stan was taken in by the 1st Australian General Hospital in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis suffering from synovitis of the knee and chronic fatigue.
 
Stan spent almost the entire year of 1916 in and out of hospital and convalescent depots suffering from general debility and neurasthenia; what would be called today chronic fatigue. On 26th November, Stan boarded the “Minnewaska” in Cairo and sailed to England where he was placed in an infantry depot at Perham Downs on Salisbury Plain. On 24th January 1917, Stan crossed the English Channel to France and on the 7th February was reunited with his battalion.
 
During the lull in fighting of the winter of 1916/17, the Germans constructed a 150 kilometre long defensive barrier, some distance to the east of the positions they held astride the Somme. The Germans named the barrier the Seigfreid Position but the British labelled it the Hindenburg Line. With the approach of the spring of 1917, the German forces began a strategic withdrawal to this new position. The British forces cautiously followed, taking the towns of Bapaume and Noreuil along the way. By the first week in April, elements of the 5th British Army under General Gough, which included the Australian divisions, came up against the Hindenburg defences. When Stan rejoined the 12th Battalion, the 3rd brigade was rotating in and out of the front line, often occupying trenches abandoned by the withdrawing Germans. There were many isolated actions against the Hindenburg defences during that time, the most notable being at Bullecourt in April.
 
In May, the 3rd Brigade was engaged in heavy fighting in the region of Boursies, between Bapaume and Cambrai. On the 8th May, the 12th Battalion acquitted itself very well with Captain Newland and Sergeant Whittle both being awarded a Victoria Cross. There were also several men recommended for the Military Medal, including Private Stanley Lee. The citation in part reads “This soldier displayed conspicuous bravery under heavy fire delivering messages between company and battalion HQ…..and also guiding stretcher bearers to wounded comrades.” Despite concerted efforts along the length of the Hindenburg Line, the defences could not be breeched and the British and Dominion Forces withdrew from the Somme to prepared for a new offensive in Belgian Flanders.
 
For Stan and the men of the 12th, time was spent in resting and training around Ribemont throughout June and July 1917. In August, the battalion moved up to Lumbres in Northern France for brigade manoeuvres and inspections by brigade staff. While the 1st and 2nd Divisions had been resting, the 3rd and 4th Divisions of the AIF had taken part in the massive attack against Messines Ridge south of Ypres. Messines paved the way for a series of small contained assaults along the line of the Ypres to Menin Road. In September, the men of the 1st Division moved up from the rear areas to the ramparts of the ruined city of Ypres. At 5:00 am on 19th September, the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the AIF began an advance under a creeping artillery barrage to capture Westhoek Ridge and Anzac Ridge which became known as the Battle of Menin Road. The concentrated nature of the advance and the superior firepower afforded to the British and Australian gunners made for a quick and decisive victory, which was followed up almost immediately by the 4th and 5th Divisions at Polygon Wood. The gains at Polygon Wood were leapfrogged by the 1st and 2nd Divisions on 4th October 1917 in an assault against the Broodseinde Ridge on which the villages of Zonnebeke and Passchendaele became the ultimate goal.
 
The late summer weather which had aided the British advances up until Broodseinde quickly deteriorated. Almost incessant rain turned the battlefield into a sea of stinking, squelching mud which could trap men, animals and equipment to the point of exhaustion. The British Commander General Douglas Haig continued to push his divisional commanders to advance on Passchendaele, but it was not to be. Passchendaele was eventually taken in November by the Canadians but it was a hollow victory. The fact that the largest commonwealth war cemetery in the world, Tyne Cot, is located a few hundred metres from the village of Passchendaele is testament to the extent that men were thrown into such a hopeless task. Haig was condemned for his decision to push on at Passchendaele and it earned him the sobriquet of “Butcher Haig.”
 
All five divisions of the AIF were in desperate need of a rest after the Flanders campaign. The troops went into warm comfortable billets around the Belgian town of Poperinghe where they could visit the divisional baths to have filthy uniforms cleaned, be issued with clean underwear and take part in various sporting activities. On 5th December 1917, Stan was granted two weeks leave in England where he left a number of valuable items; a watch, two brooches made from silver coins and his Military Medal, in the care of a Miss Lucy Richardson.
 
The latter part of 1917 produced a change in the strategic situation as far as the German command was concerned. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in October 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.
 
The British Commander, General Haig, was fully expecting a German assault in the spring of 1918 but he guessed incorrectly that the main thrust would be aimed at the Ypres salient in Belgium, where he had kept his best divisions. When Operation Michael began on 21st March, the main assault was aimed along the line of the Somme River, the scene of so much fighting and hard won victories in 1916. The British 5th Army, which was holding the line astride the Somme was unable to hold the German onslaught which in some places amounted to a five times numerical advantage. As the British retreated, often in disarray, the German Stormtroopers retook all of the gains made by the British in the Somme campaign and were within a few days of capturing the vital communication city of Amiens. If Amiens fell, Haig might well have lost the war; the situation was deadly serious.
 
Haig ordered his most successful and battle hardened troops, four of the five divisions of the AIF in Belgium to race south to establish a defensive line in front of Amiens. The 1st Division, which comprised the 1st to 3rdBrigades remained in Belgium to meet any threat which may eventuate in that theatre. The Australian and British forces on the Somme eventually halted the German advance during April 1918 and by July were in a position to mount a sizable counter offensive which was based upon a co-ordinated battle plan that was the brainchild of the Australian Corps Commander Lieutenant John Monash.
 
The battle of Amiens commenced on 8th August 1918 with the judicious use of tanks, artillery, aircraft for spotting and resupply; and four divisions of Australians, three divisions of Canadians and two British divisions and cavalry. The brigades of the 1st Division had been holding the line in Belgium successfully all through the first half of 1918, on one occasion being the only formation of organised troops between the enemy and the Channel coast. Once the threat was no longer seen as serious, the 1st Division travelled south to Amiens, at Monash’s insistence to meet up with their comrades, but arrived too late to be involved in Monash’s plans for the 8th August and were instead assigned a reserve role.
 
Amiens was, by the standards of WW1 battles, a resounding success. The front on the south bank of the Somme progressed forward ten kilometres. Thousands of Germans were taken prisoner, much heavy artillery was captured without a shot being fired and casualties for the British forces were remarkably light. By the end of the day, Monash was able to send a message to Haig, “the Union Jack is flying over Harbonnieres.” Monash was lauded as a tactical genius and every senior British and French commander went to his HQ at Bertangles to bath in the limelight. Haig also came to Bertangles, a huge compliment given Monash’s rank (he was not even a full general). During Haig’s congratulatory speech, the great man broke down and wept. He recognised that on a single day the Australians and Canadians had shown him how to win the war. The constant arrival of dignitaries, military and civilian, put a brake on Monash’s ability to concentrate on any planning for further operations. In an unparallelled moment, King George V travelled to Bertangles to invest Monash as Knight Commander of the Bath; Arise Sir John! The first time a British sovereign had knighted a soldier in the field in over five hundred years.
 
The lack of serious planning for advances over the next week after Amiens became manifest when the 1stDivision, which had been champing at the bit, was put into the line to support further advances by the Canadians and French on the right flank. The usual meticulous planning and timing was absent and as a result artillery barrages were ineffective against an enemy which although thoroughly routed on 8th August was still capable of inflicting serious damage. On 11th August, the 12th Battalion as part of the 3rd Brigade was tasked with attacking Crepy Wood as part of an overall assault on Lihons by the 3rd Brigade. The brigade suffered over 3000 casualties, one third of which according to the 12th Battalion war diary, were caused by their own artillery “dropping short.” Charles bean, the official historian, noted that the follow up campaign after 8th August was a great example of “how not to follow up a great attack.”
 
One of the casualties at Crepy Wood was Stanley Lee, aged 23. He was most probably killed by artillery, either enemy or friendly. His body was never recovered. At the end of the war, some of Stan’s personal effects were returned to the family in Adelaide, among them the watch, brooches and Military Medal kept safe by Lucy Richardson in England.
 
In 1938, some 20 years after the end of the First World War, the Australian Government constructed the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. The memorial was dedicated by the newly crowned King George VI. The memorial records the names of over 10,000 Australian soldiers who lost their lives in France and have no known grave; Stanley Lee among them.