Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

George Grey (also Gray) BUTLER #2561 15th Battalion

George Butler was born in Seaforth, Lancashire to parents Rupert and Johanna Butler. He reported to recruiting officers that he had served for three years in the Territorial Army ( volunteer reserve). In May 1911, George and his elder brother William boarded the S.S. Kaipara at London docks and sailed for Queensland. The passenger list shows both brothers as railway labourers.

Railway construction in the South East of Queensland was booming between 1900 and1915. The main lines from Brisbane spreading out north and west encouraged the building of branch lines which joined the main lines. Most of this construction was achieved by the government engaging contractors who were responsible for hiring their own workers and providing them with accommodation and food. There was so much railway work going on that contractors were forced to engage overseas labour, mainly from Britain.

The railway from Caboolture reached Woodford in 1909. A new contract was then let for the next section of line to Kilcoy, which was completed in 1913. George and William were probably engaged to work on the Woodford to Kilcoy line once they arrived in Brisbane in June 1911. When the railway contract ceased, William continued to work as a timber getter at Villeneuve (on the rail line east of Kilcoy). George may have also stayed in the district working as a labourer.

George presented himself for enlistment in Brisbane on 29th May 1915. He gave his age as 25 years and named his brother William as his next of kin. At Enoggera camp, George was allocated as part of the 8th reinforcements for the 15th Battalion which as part of the 4th Brigade AIF had been involved in the Gallipoli landings in April. On 16th August, the reinforcements boarded the “Kyarra” in Brisbane; arriving at the AIF depot at Ismalia in Egypt at the end of August.

Further training ensued until the reinforcements were loaded onto the transport “Kalgan” in Alexandria on 18th October. The 15th Battalion had been in front line service at Anzac since the first day. The battalion had manned the most dangerous spot in the Australian front line, Quinn’s Post, and had been part of the 4th Brigade’s ill fated attempt to climb the heights of Achi Baba during the August offensives. By October, the battalion was in need of a period of rest and recuperation and had been withdrawn to the island of Lemnos. George and the men of the 8th reinforcements landed on Lemnos on 23rd October to join the battalion but were placed in isolation due to an outbreak of mumps among the reinforcements. George was one of those affected.

The 15th Battalion remained in reserve on Lemnos throughout November. Decisions has been made secretly by Lord Kitchener, British Minister for War, to abandon the Dardenelles campaign and the size of the AIF at Anzac was steadily reduced. There was no point in putting the 15th battalion back into the trenches simply to be evacuated a few weeks later and so the battalion remained on Lemnos until finally withdrawn completely back to Egypt on 29th December 1915.

On 18th January 1916, George was admitted to the #1 Stationary Hospital in Cairo with a dose of Gonorrhoea. He would spend the next 59 days in the VD ward and received no pay for the period he was there. George rejoined his unit at Ismailia at the end of March.

After the evacuation of the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the AIF from Gallipoli, the entire AIF was expanded from two divisions to five. New Divisions were created, and new battalions brought up to strength supplied by the thousands of reinforcements in the camps in Egypt. The 15th Battalion had half of its men split off to form a new battalion (the 47th). Once all the arrangements were in place, the 4th Brigade which was now part of the new 4th Division sailed from Alexandria for Marseilles where they landed on 1st June 1916.

The newly arrived Australian Brigades were gradually introduced into the routines of trench warfare on the western front in the “quiet” northern sector of the front near Armentieres. The relative peace along the front was shattered with the opening of the Somme Offensive by the British on the 1st July 1916. The British Field Commander, Douglas Haig, had planned for the Somme offensive to be the beginning of a sustained push that would force the enemy to abandon the front. Instead, the young men of Kitchener’s conscript army were cut down as they walked into the teeth of the German defences. The first day of the Somme offensive resulted in 60,000 British casualties, with 20,000 killed.

In spite of the failure of the plan, Haig was committed to press on, putting more and more resources into attempts to take a few hundred metres of ground. Three weeks after the beginning of the battle, British Commanders called on three divisions of the AIF to be put into the line at Pozieres. The 1st Division AIF succeeded intaking the ruins of the village on 21st July and the 2nd Division were given the task of capturing a line of trenches on the crest of the ridge above the village between the 29th July and the 5th August. With both divisions exhausted and weakened, the 4th Division which included the 15th Battalion were moved up to the firing line on 6th August.

With the capture of the village and the dominating trench line, the 4th Division men had the task of holding the crumbling trench lines and enduring an artillery barrage which many described as the heaviest encountered by the Australians during the entire war. The day after occupying the front line, witnesses reported that George Butler and another man named Walsh went out into no man’s land where it was suspected there was a German soldier in a shell crater. Some reports suggested the enemy was a sniper while others state he was shooting flares. All reports agreed that George and Private Walsh did not return and that no trace was ever found of them.

George Butler was posted as Missing in Action. The witnesses who provided statements to the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Inquiry Service both noted that in their opinion the missing men had been captured and were prisoners of war. One even stated that he had heard that George’s brother, William, who was serving in the 49th Battalion, had received a letter from George telling him he was a prisoner. A court of inquiry was conducted by the 15th Battalion when it was withdrawn from the fighting in September, but no evidence was available to change the designation and George remained Missing in Action.

Pozieres was the first and most costly episode for the AIF during the entire war. For most, it was their first exposure to the power of massed machine guns, heavy artillery and continuous bombardment and even senior officers could not comprehend that in such circumstances, men could just disappear; either being blown to pieces or buried by shell fire. It was even harder for families back home to understand that their loved ones had just ceased to exist. There were many cases in which family and friends held out hope that their son or brother was in a hospital somewhere and unable to communicate of had lost his memory and misguided statements and rumours spread by witnesses prolonged the inevitable.

Once returns of POWs were received from Germany via the Red Cross, authorities were able to make a determination and men like George who had gone missing at Pozieres were finally declared Killed in Action. In total, over 10,000 Australians would be killed in France but have no known grave.

George’s sister Ethel, as the sole beneficiary of George’s will received the few possessions in his kit bag. She eventually married and emigrated to Adelaide. Brother William who had been promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in the 49th Battalion was wounded in the knee at Messines in June 1917 and returned to Australia medically unfit. When he returned to Queensland, he married a Miss Trim of Villeneuve who he had named as his next of kin upon enlistment. William signed for his brother’s medals; 14/15 Star, Empire Medal and Victory Medal, informing the authorities that he was the only male blood relative surviving as both parents were deceased.

At the conclusion of hostilities in Europe, there was a great desire to commemorate the thousands of men from Britain and its empire who had paid with their lives. The Imperial War Graves Commission (later named the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) was established to take charge of this enormous work. Prominent architects were engaged to design cemeteries. The remains of soldiers buried hastily on the battlefields were reinterred and permanent headstones of Portland Limestone were erected. In the case of those with no known grave, memorials were constructed at Theipval (Somme), Tyne Cot and Menin Gate (Ypres).

In 1938, more than 20 years after George Butler had gone missing, remains were recovered near Pozieres which were identified as those belonging to George. The remains were reinterred at a British Cemetery at Longueval, near Pozieres. The War Graves Commission attempted to contact George’s relatives to determine the correct inscription to place on the headstone but the fact that William and his wife had left Villeneuve some years previously and sister Ethel had remarried and moved made it impossible to trace them. Additionally, the work of the IWGC was seriously curtailed during the war years of 1939 to 1945. It was not until 1955 that the Grave of George Butler was marked with a headstone, which bears only his name, number and unit.

On the site of the Pozieres battlefield there is a commemorative stone which reads:

“The ruin of the Pozieres windmill which lies here was the centre of the struggle on this part of the Somme Battlefield in July and August 1916. It was captured by Australian troops who fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefields of the war.”