Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

#5296 BLAKE Sidney Walter Colin                             26th Battalion
 
Sidney Blake was born in Brisbane to parents Sidney and Eliza Blake. Sidney jnr attended a school in Brisbane and also served in the school cadets. The family moved to D’Aguilar some time before the war where they engaged in farming.
 
Sidney journeyed to Brisbane to enlist on 1st March 1916. He advised he was 18 and a half years old; a farm labourer from D’Aguilar on the Woodford Line. Sidney’s medical details reveal he was quite a slight youth, standing 5’ 2” tall (well below the minimum height) and weighed a light 103 lbs (47 kilograms). Sidney was despatched to Thompson’s Paddock at Enoggera where he was placed in the 11th Depot Battalion for initial training. On 19th April, Sidney was allocated to the 14th reinforcements of the 26th Battalion.
 
The reinforcements boarded the “Itonus” in Brisbane on 8th August. The embarkation rolls show that Sidney had allotted 3/- of his daily pay of 5/- to his mother. The reinforcements landed at Plymouth in Devon on 18thOctober and proceeded to the 7th Brigade Training Battalion at Rollestone where further training ensued. On 25th November, Sidney went AWL for three days. Upon return to camp, he was given 3 days of field punishment in the guard house and a loss of six day’s pay.
 
On 13th December, Sidney and other reinforcements boarded a cross-channel ferry at Folkstone and arrived at the large British Transit and Training Base at Etaples on the French coast. On New Year’s Day 1917, Sidney was sent to the segregation camp probably with mumps, a common disease among the AIF.
 
The winter of 1916/17 was particularly harsh and very little fighting was conducted. When Sidney finally joined the ranks of the 26th Battalion on 4th February 1917, the battalion was about to begin a cautious advance across frozen ground in pursuit of withdrawing German forces. The Germans had spent the winter constructing an elaborate and formidable line of defence which became known as the Hindenburg Line. In the spring of 1917, German forces on the Somme withdrew to this new position.
 
The 26th Battalion advanced as far as the Hindenburg outposts at Warlencourt. On 28th February, an attack which included the 26th Battalion and other AIF units was planned. As troops walked towards the German position, it was realized that the barbed wire in front of the outposts had not been cut by artillery fire and the attack was cancelled. In retaliation, German artillery began to strafe the British and Australian positions with gas.
 
Perhaps in the confusion, Sidney became disoriented or just plain petrified. He may have been slow in donning his gas mask, this was after all his first exposure to battle conditions. Sidney was evacuated to the 5th Field Ambulance where he died of gas poisoning that same day. He was 19 years old. Sidney was buried in what became the Contalmaison Chateau Cemetery with the Reverend Cleverdon in attendance. His father received a parcel of his son’s personal effects which included a prayer book, wallet, fountain pen, photos and cards.
Eliza Blake was granted a pension of 35 shillings a fortnight.
 
After the war, the Imperial War Graves Commission began to erect permanent headstones in military cemeteries in France and Belgium. Sidney snr and Eliza Blake chose the following inscription for their son’s headstone: HE IS RESTING NOW IN HEAVEN ABOVE, NOT DEAD BUT GONE BEFORE. A memorial tree, honouring Sidney’s service, was planted in the Woodford Avenue of Honour at 41 Archer Street, Woodford.