Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Frederick Alexander Anderson #566 15th Battalion

Fred Anderson was born in Mudgeeraba to James and Elizabeth Anderson. He attended school at Mudgeeraba and then would appear to have worked at various rural occupations such as teamster and timber getter.

The extension of the Brisbane valley Rail line to Linville in 1910 opened up employment opportunities for men like Fred and he probably was working in the area when war was declared in August 1914. Fred presented himself for enlistment at the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds on 16th September 1915. He was 35 years old, single and gave his occupation as teamster.

Fred was allocated as a private into “D”Company of the 15th Battalion. The battalion was made up of three companies of Queenslanders and one company of Tasmanians. The other battalions that would make up the 4th Brigade come from Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria. The Queenslanders spent the next two months in training at Enoggera while uniforms and rifles were issued. Route marches to Sandgate tested the men’s fitness and during this time 50 recruits were dismissed by the Battalion Commander for drunkenness.

On 22nd November, the Queensland contingent of the 15th Battalion boarded trains for Broadmeadows Camp outside Melbourne, where the other companies and battalions were being assembled under the command of Brigadier General John Monash. The time spent at Broadmeadows was vital in developing cooperation and communication protocols.

On 22nd of December, the 15th Battalion boarded the “Ceramic “at Port Melbourne bound for Egypt. The embarkation roll shows Frederick Anderson, Teamster of Mudgeeraba. He had allocated 4/- of his 5/- daily pay to his parents. The battalion landed in Egypt in early February 1915 and went into camp at the Aerodrome Camp at Heliopolis. There was already a full division of Australian Infantry in Egypt so the 4th Brigade was attached to the Australian and New Zealand Division; ANZAC.

The 4th Brigade continued with Battalion, brigade and Divisional training until 11th April when the troops were took trains to Alexandria to board transports that would take them to Mudros Harbour on the island of Lemnos. Mudros was incapable of hosting the entire ANZAC force on shore and so the men had to remain onboard the transports while practising boat drills in preparation for the landing on the 25th April on the Gallipoli peninsula.

Only two companies of the 15th made it ashore at Anzac Cove on the 25th. The entire battalion did not assemble on the beach until dawn on the 26th April whereupon the Battalion Commander Lt Col James Canan marched the men up a gully towards a point opposite a strong Turkish position. The gully became known as Shrapnel or Monash Gully and the position at the head of the gully was named Quinn’s post after a captain of the 15th Battalion. The 15th continued to man the firesteps at Quinn’s for the next few weeks, supported by squadrons of Light Horse men.

Both sides attempted to move their positions forward but were always repulsed by heavy machine gun and rifle fire. While holding the line at Quinn’s Post, Fred Anderson was reported killed on 18th May. His file records a burial in Shrapnel Gully with a Reverend Wray in attendance.

The amount of casualties suffered by the Australians during the first few months of the Gallipoli campaign completely overwhelmed the Australian authorities whose job it was to inform next of kin of a death or wounding. Newspapers published casualty lists but these lists were no always verified before publication. Fred Anderson’s father, James, learnt of his son’s death first by a newspaper list. He was most disturbed by this failure in communication and wrote to the Australian Minister for Defence, Senator George Pearce expressing his concern. He received a belated apology.

At the end of the war, Australian burial teams began to scour the Gallipoli battlefield to exhume remains from scattered graves. From the time that the Australians left Gallipoli in December 1915 until 1919, the battlefield had lain undisturbed. The timber crosses that had marked so many graves weathered and became illegible. Fred Anderson’s grave was never identified. He is commemorated at Gallipoli on the memorial to the missing at the Lone Pine Memorial.

In 1967, Jessie Knack, Fred’s younger sister and last surviving sibling applied for the Gallipoli Medallion which had been commissioned to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landing. The medallion was not a campaign medal but it complemented Fred’s three service medals; the 1914/15 Star, Empire Medal and Victory Medal.