Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Son of Luke Pringle of 'Fieldview', Cloyna, Murgon, QLD. Brother of Luke Pringle who was killed in action on 7 June 1917 while serving with the 52nd Battalion and has no know grave. Name appears on Menin Gate, Ypres. Brother of Vera Cobb nee Pringle

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

Member of the Cloyna Rifle Club for about 2 years

#259 PRINGLE George  9th Battalion
 
George Pringle was born at Martinsville, south of Newcastle NSW, in 1892. The Pringle family, Luke and Margaret, were farming in the area and George and his siblings attended school there. Lured by the prospect of good farming and grazing country in the South Burnett, the family moved to Cloyna near Murgon and established themselves on a property named ‘Field view’ at Merlwood.
 
Soon after the declaration of war in August 1914, recruiting for the volunteer Australian Imperial Force began. George Pringle, and at least eight other young men from the Murgon district, took the train together to Gympie, the nearest recruiting centre. The nine Murgon boys were all single, in their early to mid-twenties and came from a farming background. They are likley to have known each other, perhaps through membership in the Cloyna or Murgon Rifle Clubs.
 
On 2nd September 1914, George and his mates enlisted in Gympie and were given travel warrants to take the train to Enoggera where they were taken on as recruits into “B” Company of the 9th Infantry Battalion; where they were given successive regimental numbers. George stated his occupation as farmer and named his father, Luke of Cloyna as his next of kin.
 
The 9th Battalion was the first Queensland battalion to be raised in 1914 and recruits came from as far away as Cairns, Charters Towers and Northern New South Wales. Uniforms and equipment were issued and rudimentary training begun. The Brigadier of the 3rd Brigade travelled to Brisbane to inspect the troops in early September. The battalion paraded through the streets of Brisbane prior to boarding the transport “Omrah” at the Pinkenba Wharf on 24th September 1914. The “Omrah” departed Brisbane the next day.
 
From the outbreak of the war, the Australian Government was greatly concerned with the German presence in the Western Pacific; particularly the ships of Admiral Graf von Spee’s China Squadron which has slipped out of the home port of Qingdao and was somewhere in the vastness of the Western Pacific. Until the location of von Spee’s fleet could be established, coastal shipping along the eastern seaboard of Australia was potentially at risk. The Australian convoy containing the AIF would have to wait in southern ports until the location and destination of the German cruisers could be established.
 
The “Omrah” made it into Port Phillip Bay unharmed and the battalion disembarked from their transport in Melbourne and spent from the 1st to the 16th of October in training, with the other battalions of the 3rdBrigade. On the 17th October, the battalion was inspected on the Melbourne Town Pier by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher. Fisher was well known to the Murgon Boys as he was their local member, having worked in mining in Howard and Gympie before entering Parliament as the member for Wide Bay. The Battalion then re-embarked on the “Omrah” and sailed for King George Sound, Albany to rendezvous with the rest of the first division transports before sailing for Egypt on 1st November.
 
During the voyage, one of the convoy escorts, HMAS Sydney, encountered the Light Cruiser EMDEN which had detached itself from von Spee’s squadron and had been creating havoc in the ports of India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Emden was despatched with superior fire power at the Cocos Islands and the convoy continued unmolested. The convoy arrived at Suez on 29th November and sailed through the Suez Canal to Port Said and then on to Alexandria where the battalion disembarked and marched into the Mena Camp on the outskirts of Cairo.
 
The three brigades of the AIF, some 1500 men, set about engaging in a training regime first on company and battalion levels and then brigade manoeuvres.  The work was hot and dusty but one saving grace was that Mena was so close to Cairo that men could easily take a tram into the city, whether they had a pass or not, to sample the delights on offer. To the Murgon Boys, none of whom had much experience of the world beyond their farms, Cairo and its exotic environment must have presented a memorable spectacle.
 
As the months at Mena passed, it became obvious that the Australians were being trained to become part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. On the 1st March 1915, the 9th Battalion and the other three battalions of the 3rd Brigade boarded transport ships for a journey across the Adriatic to the Island of Lemnos where the invasion force for the Dardanelles was being assembled. When the 9th arrived in Mudros Harbour on 7th March, the battalion disembarked and set up camp on the harbour shore from which position, the troops began to practice boat and landing drills.
 
The command of the entire AIF had been assigned to General William Birdwood (known universally as Birdie). Birdwood’s plan for the landing on the Gallipoli shore just north of Gaba Tepe was for the 3rd Brigade to be the covering force (first ashore) with the 9th Battalion taking up position on the far right of the line, closest to Gaba Tepe and the Turkish artillery emplaced there. The 9th Battalion men boarded the battleship HMS London late on the 24th April. The ships carrying the covering force slipped silently out of Mudros Harbour and headed for their designated station off the Gallipoli coastline. The men from “A” and “B” companies, who would be in the first wave climbed down the scaling ladders to a destroyer which would take them closer in shore before boarding lifeboats which in turn would be towed by steam launches to within a few hundred yards of the beach. All of this was achieved in complete silence and when the first of the 9thBattalion men waded ashore around 4:30am, there was very little opposition from the Turkish defenders.
 
The 9th had been given the task of advancing as far as a third ridge across the peninsula. No reconnaissance had been possible prior to the landing and the possibility of reaching the first day’s objective was exposed as being a mere folly. As more troops began to be landed in the full light of the morning, the combination of terrain, chaos on the beach and a breakdown in communication and leadership restricted the advance to precarious positions on the first ridge.
 
The situation at Anzac Cove was serious as the Turks held the high ground above the beachhead and there were few places that were not able to be targeted by the defenders. A number of senior officers were pressuring Birdwood to evacuate. In the end. The commander of the BEF, Gen Sir Ian Hamilton ordered the men to dig in where they were. The positions that had been reached on the 25th April were as far the Australians would go.
 
In the very early stages of the landings on the 25th, small groups of men took it upon themselves to charge uphill without waiting for orders from officers or senior NCOs. Many of those groups had managed to progress well beyond the first ridge but were unable to hold the positions due to a lack of reinforcements. Many of those men were not seen again. One such casualty was #253 William Shelton, one of the Murgon Boys, who shared a membership of the Cloyna Rifle Club with George. William is commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial and the Murgon War Memorial.
 
After the chaos of the first few weeks at Anzac some semblance of order was established. Trenches were dug, tunnels and saps were driven towards the enemy trenches. On 28th June, “B” and “C” companies of the 9th Battalion were ordered to attack a Turkish trench in the area of Bolton’s Ridge. The attack was not well planned, according to the battalion war diary, and the two companies withdrew after an hour and a half without waiting for orders from the Company commanders. “B” Company casualties were quite heavy with 12 men killed, 46 wounded and 15 missing.
 
One of those wounded was George Pringle who had sustained a gunshot wound to his knee. He was taken on board the Hospital Ship “Sicilia" ,  dying from his wounds on 7th July 1915. In accordance with the regulations at the time, George was buried at sea off Gaba Tepe with a chaplain in attendance.
 
The official telegram advising of George’s death was sent in error to Mount Morgan due to a problem with legibility of George’s attestation papers, instead of Murgon. In due course a few personal possessions were sent to the family in Murgon. At the end of the war, Luke Snr signed for George’s service medals, the 1914/15 Star, Empire Medal and Victory Medal.
 
As George was buried at sea, he is commemorated on the stone tablets of the Lone Pine Memorial. The name of William Shelton who went missing on the first day at Anzac and was one of the Murgon Boys and a member of the Cloyna Rifle Club is commemorated on the same panel.
 
In 1967, George’s sister Dora wrote to the authorities to apply for the Gallipoli Medallion, an award that was struck to mark the 50th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. The Medallion was not an official medal and could not be worn, however a small bronze badge was included which could be worn on a lapel.