Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Andrew Mahaffey #4501 25th Battalion

Andy Mahaffey was born at Milford, a farming community just outside Boonah. As a boy he attended Boonah State School up until the sixth grade. Andy probably worked as a rural labourer for some time after leaving school before being accepted as a police cadet in about December 1907 when he had just turned 21. Once sworn in as a constable he was stationed at the police depot from February to June 1908 before being posted to Woolloongabba. Andy resigned from the police in March 1911 and presumably returned to labouring in the Boonah district.

When the First World War broke out, two of Andy’s younger brothers, Henry and Robert enlisted almost straight away. It would seem that Andy delayed his enlistment so that he and Edward Messenger, a telephonist from Boonah could join together. Both men took the train to Ipswich on 26th November 1915 and were both accepted as reinforcements for the 25th Battalion. Andy was 29 years old but Edward was just 18, with a note from his parents giving their permission for his enlistment.

Both recruits were almost 6’ tall and weighed over ten stone. On 31st March 1916 the 11th reinforcements for the 25th Battalion boarded the “Star of Victoria” in Sydney. Andy and Edward are listed on the embarkation roll with consecutive regimental numbers. The reinforcements were bound for Egypt but the 25th Battalion, having come out from Gallipoli almost intact, had been sent on to Marseilles on 12th March. It would take Andy another four months before he finally joined his battalion.

Andy and Edward spent a month in Egypt before being shipped to Marseilles. While in a segregation camp there on 1st June, Andy and Edward broke out of the camp to see the sights of the Mediterranean City. They were each given three days field punishment # 2. When Andy finally was taken on strength by the 25th Battalion on 2nd August 1916, the battalion had just come out of the line, having fought its first major action on the western front at Pozieres. Between 25th July and 7th August, the 25th Battalion lost 25 officers and 660 men; killed or wounded.

In spite of his relative lack of experience, the need to replace Non Commissioned ranks saw Andy promoted to corporal after the battalion went into a rest camp at Poperinghe near Ypres in Belgium. Despite the coming of winter, the 25th were put back into the line on the Somme where they had to endure freezing conditions.

During the winter of 1916/17, the Germans constructed a heavily fortified line some thirty kilometres east of the positions they held in 1916. This line which the Germans called the Seigfreid Line but which the British called the Hindenburg Line provided an almost impenetrable barrier. One the line was complete in the spring of 1917, the German forces on the Somme began a strategic withdrawal back to the Hindenburg Line. The British forces; which included the Australians, cautiously followed the German withdrawal as occasionally the enemy would turn and fight.

In late March 1917, the 25th Battalion as part of the 7th Brigade AIF confronted some German resistance in the vicinity of Noreuil near Bapaume. To maintain contact with the enemy, small numbers of men were assigned to forward outposts in front of the main trench. On 24th March, a section from 7 platoon of B Company under Corporal Mahaffey were occupying a forward post in a mine crater when a German howitzer shell landed near the crater. Red Cross Wounded and Missing reports from eye witnesses record that Cpl Mahaffey was struck on the back of the neck by a shell splinter. There was no possibility of medical help reaching him and he died quite quickly. Two other men in that section were also killed.

Most of the Red Cross reports state that Andy was buried in the mine crater and although at least one witness claimed his remains were carried out by stretcher bearers, the facts would not match this account.

Andy was listed in a casualty list published in the Brisbane newspapers which prompted a Miss Lillian Whyte of Windsor to write to base records to enquire if the A. Mahaffey of 25th Battalion was in fact Andrew. She received a response that confirmed her fears. One witness interviewed by the Red Cross stated that Andy was intending to marry when he returned from the war. Lillian Whyte may well have been his intended.

The likelihood of locating Andy’s remains once the war concluded was not encouraging. The grave was probably not marked and the Somme battlefields would be fought over another two times before the armistice. Andrew Mahaffey is commemorated on the tablets at the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux on the Somme. He is amongst over 10,000 fallen Australians who died in France and have no known grave.

Andy’s mate Edward Messenger survived the war and returned to Australia in 1919.