Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

John Bernard Coyne   SN 1669

John Coyne was born in working class Footscray, Melbourne in 1885. He was the fourth child of Martin and Brigid Coyne who resided at 8 Regent Street, Yarraville. Martin and Brigid had arrived in Australia from Ireland ten years earlier in 1875 with one child, Mary. They proceeded to have nine more children, six boys and four girls.

John was 32 years of age when he enlisted on February 10, 1916. He listed his occupation as a Crane attendant most likely at the nearby docks on the Yarra river.

The failed Gallipoli campaign was over and surviving Australian personnel were recovering back in the training camps of Egypt. In the month prior to John’s enlistment, the Australian Government had launched a campaign to swell the AIF numbers by 50,000 soldiers. Footscray and Yarraville young men eagerly answered the call. The Independent Newspaper of Footscray reported on February 5, 1916 that: ‘The first outward and visible sign of the local response to the appeal for the new army of 50,000 Australians was the muster at the Town Hall, on Saturday afternoon last, of the first batch of men who had answered with an immediate "Yes" to their war papers. A great crowd gathered to witness the march of the men en route to the Melbourne Town Hall. Of the number 30 passed all tests and were duly sworn in. The quota was drawn from all sections, labourers, tradesmen, artisans and shopkeepers being represented by recruits’.¹

History Professor John Lark of the University of Melbourne describes where John worked at the Yarraville docks, -  ‘vessels unloaded cargoes of raw sugar, hemp and guano for the mighty Colonial Sugar refinery, Miller’s ropeworks, and a trio of superphosphate works. Yarraville workers depended on farmers’ demands for fertiliser, binder twine and farm machinery, and on stevedores’ need for wheat stackers during the summer harvest’.²

Work on the docks was hard, seasonal and intermittent. A drought in 1914 -15 had already plunged the state into a parlous state. The waterside working class suburbs of Footscray and Yarraville also bore the brunt of that pain with joblessness and stalled wages. Despite the excitement depicted in the Footscray newspapers above, these working class suburbs later became the hubs for the anti-war movement that was fermenting and came to the surface in the conscription plebiscites of late 1916 and 1917. 

Even though John was much older than the other recruits, joining the army and receiving six shillings a day no doubt had some appeal. At 32, he would have watched the young men in the district eagerly enlist when war was declared in August 1914, including next-door neighbour, twenty-four year old Lionel Stokes who lived at 6 Regent Street, Yarraville. Lionel had already returned from Egypt deemed medically unfit to continue fighting. John’s neighbour on the other side at Number 10 Regent Street, Albert Carter signed up  a year later at the age of 40. He, however, did not return from the Great War. Such was the impact on three adjacent houses in the ironically named Regent Street, in working class Yarraville, which paid a heavy price for a war that was fought a long way away largely instigated at the behest of warring cousins in the Royal families of Germany, Britain and Russia.  

John was assigned to the 19th Depot Battalion based at the Melbourne Showgrounds in Ascot Vale for the first month. In late March, 1916 he was assigned to the Second Reinforcements for the 60th Battalion that was based at the larger camp at Royal Park. He was there just ten days before the battalion embarked from Port Melbourne on HMAT Euripides on April 4, 1916.

After a month at sea, they landed at Alexandria, Egypt on May 8, 1916.  The AIF was undergoing a major realignment in Egypt following the Gallipoli campaign including the arrival of thousands of fresh recruits from Australia. The 60th Battalion was part of the newly formed 15th Brigade under the leadership of the renowned General, Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliot. Elliot was able to bring a good number of experienced men with him from the 7th battalion he had commanded at Gallipoli. 

John and the reinforcements travelled by train to their tent camp at Tel-el-Kebir some seventy miles from Cairo on the Suez Canal. (photo)

John was not long in Egypt as the Battalion embarked for England on June 13 on board HMT Aragon. On arriving in Southern England, they joined the thousands of other AIF soldiers in Australian camps where they awaited deployment to the front in France.Records indicate in late 1916 that over 90,000 Australian troops were in training in Great Britain, mainly on the Salisbury Plains.  

Whilst awaiting deployment John was hospitalised twice with ‘Pyrexia’, an undiagnosed fever, in August and then again in October when he was admitted to Bethnal Green Hospital with scabies. He spent the winter training in England, not being called to 'Proceed to France' till June 14, 1917.

Finally getting his chance he left England via the Port of Southampton and landed in northern France and was ‘Marched In’ to the AIF Base camp at Havre on June 23, 1917. It was another ten days before he was ‘Taken on Strength’ into the 58th, another Battalion in Elliot’s 15th Brigade.

The 58th veterans had already seen the worst of trench warfare in Belgium and northern France. The battalion had suffered dearly at the battle of Bullecourt in April 1917.  Battalion strengths were at all time lows. Military Historian Lieutenant Colonel Peter Morrissey writes "1917 was the year in which machines and mud crushed remorselessly the highest endeavours and the most noble aspirations (of the Allies)" ; and thus it was at Bullecourt. ³

When John joined his battalion, the whole brigade (4 battalions) were resting some twenty miles behind the frontline at Rubempre in northern France. He would have arrived in time to be parade when the King of Great Britain visited on July 12. Later in July, John’s brigade was transferred north of Hazebrouk  and was now back within shelling range of the enemy. Pompey Elliot’s letters also described the Bosch dropping bombs from areoplanes during the night. The war had been going three years now and news of the Russian upheavals meant the war was soon fought on just one front, the western front.

By September, the brigade was assigned to the part of the British second army which was commanded by General Sir Herbert Plumer. AIF forces were drawn into the prolonged Third Ypres campaign in Belgium in which the British were struggling. 

As part of this offensive the 58th were involved in the battle of Menin Gate, commencing on September 20 in southern Belgium. Pompey Elliot described the efforts of the AIF, ‘our boys have made a glorious advance and captured a whole lot of Bosches and driven them back a long way, about 2000 yards…..that will be another feather in our boy’s caps, for the British troops have been blocked along this line for about a month’.⁴

John saw his first real action when the AIF divisions lined up for the battle of Polygon Wood. The name "Polygon Wood" derived from a young plantation forest that lay along the ANZAC's axis of advance, the western extremity of which had been reached in the earlier Battle of Menin Road. This battle cost 5,770 Australian casualties.

The 58th bore the brunt of the bombardment.  A battle report of the evening of September 26 stated- ‘Never have the 58th endured such shellfire. In fact, British Intelligence concluded that German artillery concentration had never been greater’. ⁵

The British Middlesex battalion that were along side the 58th fled with the onslaught. This exposed a flank of the defending 58th Battalion and it is estimated that half the 58th Battalion were casualties that evening.  The 60th battalion was needed to come to aid of the remaining 58th Battalion.

John Coyne was evacuated to hospital behind the lines. The entry in his medical record stated N.Y.D.N, which usually meant ‘Not Yet Diagnosed’

Later on in December a red pen entry on his report listed him suffering ‘Shell shock’. Five days later he was transferred to the 3rd CCS Casualty Clearing Station where he gradually recovered and rejoined his unit on December 30.  He again served through the winter of 1917/18 and was granted furlough to England in early April 1918.

Whilst on leave John was admitted to hospital again at Bulford in Southern England. Following this he spent nearly 5 months in the AIF camps recuperating before being cleared to return to France on September 6, 1918. He rejoined his unit on September 14 as the AIF forces had reversed the tide of the war by decisive battles in the Somme valley. This time the Germans were retreating to their stronghold of the Hindenburg Line and John and the 58th were in pursuit. 

John was ‘Taken on Strength’ back into the severely depleted battalion just in time to parade for the arrival of the Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes. unfortunately, Hughes arrived late after the battalions were stood down. Pompey Elliot wrote on September 15, Billy Hughes came to see us yesterday but hardly stopped a minute. He shook hands with me and the cook and a few of the boys. Had very little to say. ⁶

John would be involved in one of the final actions of the war.       Historian Ross McMullin describes the scene of these battles - ‘The AIF had driven the Germans out of Peronne earlier in the month of September and now had the momentous task of dislodging them from the mighty defensive system comprising multiple distinct barriers , a canal, a tunnel, numerous concreted emplacements and abundant belts of wire’ ⁷

The Australians, including the 15th Brigade, carried out a challenging open-warfare advance. The battalion was again shelled heavily on the evening of September 27, two days before the main assault on the Canal. This time John was ‘Wounded in Action’, gassed for a second time the medical report showed. He was again taken behind the lines and hospitalised in Rouen.

The 15th Brigade with support of two American Divisions eventually breached the Hindenburg line after three days of intense fighting near Saint Quentin. 

John recovered from the gassing, was discharged on October 18 and rejoined his unit on October 20. By this stage the 15th Brigade had been withdrawn behind the front line to rest after nearly 100 days of fierce continuous fighting that had broken the spirit of the German army.

John was resting with his battalion when the Armistice was declared on November 11, 1918. John and his brigade spent another cold dark winter in the fields of the Somme, however, to their relief this time not being shelled or gassed.

John received word that he had been approved to ‘Return to Australia’ because of his parlous medical state on March 24, 1918. He was ‘Marched Out’ of his battalion on March 28, to the Division Base depot in Havre and from there on April 1 headed to the French port for a vessel to England. The next day he disembarked at Weymouth to billets at the Number 2 company depot camp in southern England.

He waited a further 6 weeks till May 15 when he finally boarded a ship at the port of Devonport, southern England that took him home to Melbourne. That ship was the HMT Orontes and John disembarked at the Port of Melbourne on June 28, 1919. On September 9, 1919 he was discharged from the Army. John would receive the Victory Medal and the British War Medal in the early 1920's. 

John had been away from Australia for over 3 years and 3 months. He had been gassed twice and suffered shell shock in one of the most fierce artillery attacks of the whole war. John never marred, had moved to live in Elwood and was still working as a crane attendant. He was tragically killed, run over by a tram on Glen Huntley Road, Elwood on June 1, 1935 at the age of fifty. The Coroner’s Inquest declared his death as accidental. He was buried in the Footscray Cemetery.⁸

1. Trove – Footscray Independent – February 5, 1916

2. https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/La-Trobe-Journal-96-John-Lack.pdf

3. Lieutenant Colonel Peter Morrissey – RSL Virtual Memorial site https://rslvirtualwarmemorial.org.au/explore/campaigns/6

4. Ross McMullin ‘Pompey Elliot at War’ p.277

5. Ross McMullin ‘Pompey Elliot at War’ p.283.

7. Ross McMullin ‘Pompey Elliot at War’ p.458

8. Trove – The Age Newspaper, June 14, 1935