Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

"...5377 Private Peter Lafranchi, 22nd Battalion from Eganstown, Victoria. A 27 year old farmer prior to enlisting on 12 January 1916, he embarked for overseas with the 14th Reinforcements from Melbourne on 28 July 1916 aboard HMAT Themistocles (A32). Following further training in England, he proceeded to France where he joined the 22nd Battalion on 4 December 1916. Pte Lafranchi was killed in action near Favrevil, France on 3 May 1917 and is commemorated on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, France with others who have no known grave." - SOURCE (www.awm.gov.au)

From François Berthout and Debra Talbot.

Pte 5377 Peter Lafranchi
22nd Australian Infantry Battalion,
6th Brigade, 2nd Australian Division
 
Villers-Bretonneux, eternal symbol of the courage and sacrifices of the Australian soldiers who fought and fell in the Somme and on the battlefields of northern France,it is on these sacred grounds that the names of 11,000 brave men are etched and reverently remembered, who have no known graves but who, standing among the poppies alongside their friends and brothers-in-arms, wait to be found to join their brothers, their mates who rest in peace behind the rows of their white graves. Gone but not and never forgotten, we will always remember these heroes who for France, for peace and freedom gave their today, their lives, their everything and on whom I will always watch with love to keep their memory alive, so that they will not only be known to god but to each of us where in our hearts and in our thoughts they will live forever.

Today, it is with the utmost respect and the deepest gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these men, one of my boys of the Somme who gave his today for our tomorrow. I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 5377 Peter Lafranchi who fought in the 22nd Australian Infantry Battalion, 6th Brigade, 2nd Australian Division, and who was killed in action 105 years ago, on May 3, 1917 at the age of 29 in Pas-De-Calais but whose name is remembered and honored in the Somme.

Peter Lafranchi was born in May 1888 in Eganstown, Victoria, Australia, and was the son of Julian and Ann Bridget Lafranchi, of Eganstown Post office, Victoria. He had five brothers, Joseph James (1875-1944), Alex (1878- 1879), Victor William (1886-1970), Thomas Robert (1876-1946), Alfred Francis (1880-1971), and six sisters, Anne Geneva (1882-1923), Desellina (1884-1902), Teresa Mary (1873 -1953), Alice (1878-1879), Eleanor Desellina (1883-1902) and Maud Mary (1884-1964). Peter was educated at the kooroocheang State School then at the Eganstown Catholic School and after graduation, worked as a farmer.

Peter enlisted on January 12, 1916 in Melbourne, Victoria, in the 22nd Australian Infantry Battalion, 14th Reinforcement, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Armstrong Crouch and after a six-month training period at Broadmeadows Camp, Victoria, he embarked with his unit from Melbourne, on board HMAT A32 Themistocles on July 28, 1916 and sailed for England.

On September 11, 1916, Peter arrived in England and was disembarked in Plymouth and joined the 6th Training Battalion then two months later, on November 16, embarked from Folkestone, on board "SS Victoria" and proceeded overseas for France.

On November 17, 1916, after a quick trip down the English Channel, Peter arrived in France and was disembarked at Etaples where he joined the 2nd Australian Divisional Base Depot, marched out to unit on December 3 and was taken on strength the next day in the 22nd Battalion at Flesselles, in the Somme, near Amiens, where the battalion underwent a period of training including particular attention to musketry exercises until December 17. The next day they marched through Amiens and arrived in Billets at Ribemont, reached Fricourt on December 20 and advanced in support between Flers and Gueudecourt where they relieved the 59th Australian Infantry Battalion from the "Needle trench" then relieved the 21st Australian Infantry battalion and occupied several trench systems known as "Zenith trench", "Gusty Trench", "Spring Trench" and "Spectrum trench", a sector "in very poor condition" and very close to the German lines because the battalion's war diary tells us as follows "we hear coughing sounds, the enemy snipers are very active, we live in mud and water". During this period on the front line, the 22nd Battalion also suffered German artillery fire and was relieved on January 6 by the 23rd Australian Infantry Battalion and marched to "B Camp" at Trones Wood on January 11.

On January 18, 1917, Peter and the 2nd Battalion marched to Merricourt and then into Billets at Ribemont on January 20, where they underwent a further period of training including assault exercises. A little over a week later, on the 29 January, the Battalion left Ribemont for the Becourt Wood Camp in Becordel-Becourt under a radiant sun but "on a ground as frozen as iron". On February 1, they joined the Shelter Wood Camp near Contalmaison which they left on the 5 February and marched the next day for the ruined village of Martinpuich where they remained until February 8, joined Le Sars the next day where they relieved the 23rd Australian Infantry Battalion and described the enemy trenches in front of them as follows "The enemy front line is a deep continuous trench heavily wired with listening posts in front of or in the wire." On 15 February the 22nd Battalion was relieved by the 26th Australian Infantry Battalion and moved back to the Shelter Wood Camp then for the Villa Camp.

On February 21, 1918, after a short period of rest, the 22nd Battalion moved back to the front line at Le Sars where a few days later, on February 25, they led an assault with the support of the 21st Australian Infantry Battalion to take and hold the "Gallwitz Trench" and the "Malt Trench" but the men were mown down by machine gun and sniper fire. The battalion's war diary indicates that during the attack even the stretcher-bearers and the wounded were targeted.Unfortunately for the 22nd Battalion the Australian artillery did not break through the enemy barbed wire lines and scouts were sent out to find any breaches in the barbed wire but they too were killed and 50 percent of the men who had taken part in the attack attack fell.
After the attack on Le Sars, the 22nd Battalion moved back to Shelter Wood Camp on February 27 and a month later, on March 27, marched to "B Camp" in Mametz then on April 12, were sent to Becourt Camp via Sausage Valley and Pozieres then on April 14, embarked by train for the front line between Vaulx-Vraucourt and Noreuil, Pas-De-Calais where they relieved the 18th Australian Infantry Battalion and less than a week later, on April 19, moved to Favreuil, near Bullecourt where the 22nd Battalion relieved the 28th Australian Infantry Battalion and on April 25, celebrated the ANZAC Day by sports exercises then in the days which followed, followed a training period including exercises of attacks in preparation for a next offensive which was launched on May 3, 1917 and known as the second battle of Bullecourt.
The plan given to Australian commanders for the First Battle of Bullecourt (10-11 April 1917), relied on a "surprise concentration" of tanks that would lead the infantry advance without the support of artillery bombardment. In the event not all the tanks arrived and those that did were quickly knocked out. Amazingly, the Australian infantry broke into the strong defences of the Hindenburg Line, but not surprisingly they were unable to hold their gains. The Australian war correspondent Charles Bean, who was assigned the role of official historian during the war, wrote that:
"Bullecourt, more than any other battle, shook the confidence of Australian soldiers in the capacity of the British command; the errors, especially on April 10th and 11th, were obvious to almost anyone."

The Second Battle of Bullecourt, fought between 3 and 15 May 1917, was a continuation of the British 1917 spring offensive north and south of Arras. The aim of the spring offensive was to support a major attack further south by the French under General Robert Nivelle. As the British had at the opening of the Somme in 1916, Nivelle sought a breakthrough of the German lines followed by swift defeat of the enemy on French soil. The French attacked on 15 April 1917 but failed. However, both British and French leaders agreed to continue operations, one of which was a combined British and Australian attack on the Hindenburg Line around Bullecourt where the Australians had failed so disastrously on 11 April 1917.

The infantry of the Second Australian Division advanced east of Bullecourt village at 3.45 am on 3 May 1917. The left flank, close to Bullecourt, was pinned in the wire but the right and centre, partly sheltered by a half-sunken road, seized and cleared the first two lines of enemy trench. At dusk on 3 May, the Australians held most of its first objective. Only the Canadians in the north and the Australians in the south made any progress on 3 May. The Australians extended their narrow foothold in the Hindenburg Line until it was like a mushroom on its stalk, with the head deep in enemy territory connected by a single long communication track. At dawn on 6 May, after 18 hours of bombardment, the Germans launched their sixth general counter-attack but stubborn defence by Australians prevented any German gain. Part of Bullecourt was seized by the British on 7 May and ten days later all the ruins were in their hands. On 15 May, the Australians fought off a final German counter-attack and the enemy decided to leave this piece of the Hindenburg Line to the Australians.

Captain Gorman, 22nd Australian Infantry Battalion described the second battle of Bullecourt as follows:
"The Battle of Bullecourt occupies a unique place in the Battalion’s annals. For no other struggle had the preparations been so complete, the rehearsals so thorough, or the general organisation so apparently perfect. Yet within a few minutes of its commencement, the combat developed into a pell-mell of violent hand-to-hand struggles, where the 6th Brigade met the flower of the German Army, and beat it into quiescence."

Unfortunately the losses in the 22nd Battalion were catastrophic during the day of May 3, 1917 and Peter was killed in action in the first waves which attacked Bullecourt during this fateful day, he was 29 years old.

Sadly, Peter Lafranchi's body was never found and his name is now remembered and honored with respect on the walls of the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, Somme, alongside the names of 11,000 Australian soldiers who fell in the northern France and who have no known graves.

Peter, it was in the prime of your life and with love of country that you answered the call of duty with conviction to join your friends, your brothers on the battlefield and to do your bit in the name of the highest values ​​that united a whole generation of young men who served their country with pride and who in the poppy fields of the Somme fought with determination under rains of bullets and hurricanes of fire and steel which transformed once peaceful fields into putrid quagmires, into fields of the dead scarified by kilometers of barbed wire into which so much blood and tears were poured and which, under the bites of tons of shells, were nothing more than lunar soils above which hovered the smell of death, sly and silent, waiting to take the young lives of innocent men who, in this hell on earth, through these open-air slaughterhouses, left behind their childhood and their innocence which was crushed without pity by avalanches of blood, in heroic charges through no man's land, in the clash of bayonets penetrating the flesh of men who wanted to live but who killed each other in this world which dragged them into madness, into fury and chaos of the darkest hours of history but despite the brutality and violence that reigned on the battlefields, they found in each other solidarity, fraternity, comfort and courage in the most beautiful spirit of camaraderie, a state of mind which is called ANZAC and which was born on the beaches and the blood red hills of Gallipoli but who guided a whole generation of heroes through Belgium, at Passchendaele, at Polygon Wood then in the Somme, at Pozieres, Amiens, Villers-Bretonneux, in Pas-De-Calais, at Bullecourt, where so many young Diggers fought and fell but they also found on their roads, in the villages, the love and admiration of the French people who adopted them as their sons, as their children and became the sons of France for which they did and gave so much without regard for their own lives, many fell in love with our country and many of us, through the eyes and smiles of these men fell in love with Australia, it is my case who learns every day from these young boys for whom I feel the greatest pride and the highest admiration, a respect that I try to express through my words to express to them the eternal gratitude that my country will always have for them who gave their lives so that we can stand in peace around their remembrance.More than a hundred years have passed since the end of the Great War, the machine guns and the cannons have fallen silent to give way to silence, but across the fields of the Somme, distant bagpipes are sometimes heard as well as the murmurs, the voices of thousands of young men who stand in the white cities, behind the countless rows of their graves between which the poppies grow, eternal witnesses of the bravery and the sacrifices of these young boys who came from so far to save us and over whom I will always watch so that their memory and that the ANZAC spirit live forever on these sacred grounds where they rest in peace and where they will always be remembered and honored with love and respect but also where they will always be loved as our sons and will forever be, through my heart, my boys of the Somme.Thank you so much Peter,for everything.At the going down of the sun and in the morning,we will remember him,we will remember them.