Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

 
#3637 TAPSALL Edward (Eddie) James                                  31st Battalion
 
Eddie Tapsall was born at Lowood on 1st October 1891. By the outbreak of the war, he and his brother, Jack, were farming on a block at Coominya. Eddie was also working as a horse trainer. It is possible that by that time, both of the brothers’ parents were deceased.
 
Eddie travelled to Brisbane to enlist on 24th February 1916. He stated his age as 24 and occupation as horse trainer. Eddie named his brother, Jack Tapsall of Coominya, as his next of kin. Once accepted into the AIF, Eddie made his way to Enoggera Camp where he was placed in a depot battalion before being assigned to the 8th reinforcements of the 31stBattalion. The reinforcements embarked on the “Boorara” in Brisbane on 16th August 1916.
 
The “Boorara” sailed via Fremantle, South Africa and Sierra Leone on the way to England. There was an outbreak of mumps on board the “Boorara” and Eddie had to stay in isolation in the ship’s hospital. When the ship berthed at Devonport on 13th October, the reinforcements reported to the 8th Brigade Training Battalion at Perham Downs. On the 16 January 1916, Eddie boarded a cross-channel ferry for the trip to the Australian Base Depot at Etaples on the French Coast. He was quickly moved on from Etaples and marched in to the 31st Battalion billets on 7th February 1917.
 
The 31st Battalion was part of the 8th Infantry brigade of the 5th Australian Division. The 5th Division had suffered terribly at Fromelles in July 1916, sustaining 5,500 casualties. The 31st Battalion, after only having been in the trenches for three days, incurred 572 casualties; more than half its strength. The entire 5th Division, all 12 battalions, was finished as a fighting force for the immediate future and was taken out of any offensive actions for the next ten months while the division’s numbers were replaced and morale was rebuilt. The men of the 8th reinforcements were to be part of that rebuilding.
 
In the lull in fighting of the winter of 1916/17, the Germans constructed a 150 kilometre long defensive barrier, which the British labelled the Hindenburg Line, some distance to the east of their positions astride the Somme. Once the spring thaw made roads passable, the German forces began a strategic withdrawal to this new position. The British forces, which included the AIF, cautiously followed. By the first week in April, elements of the 5th British Army under General Gough, which included two Australian divisions, came up against the Hindenburg defences. The 31st Battalion was in the line supporting a frontal attack by other battalions at Beaumetz south of Bullecourt where the main battle would be fought. Successive battles at Bullecourt in April and May 1917 failed to break through the Hindenburg defences.
 
The failure of operations against the Hindenburg Line heralded the end of the British campaign on the Somme. The British Commander, Field Marshall Haig, turned his attention to Belgian Flanders and the Ypres salient. The 31stBattalion performed fatigue duties in support of two AIF divisions involved in the Battle of Messines and its aftermath in June 1917. Success at Messines allowed the British to move eastwards along the line of the Menin Road which ran from Ypres across the flat land towards the Broodseinde Ridge and the village of Passchendaele. After the success of the Battle of Menin Road on 20th September, the 5th Division re-entered the fighting at Polygon Wood.
 
The plan called for the 4th and 5th Divisions to advance side by side with British brigades advancing beside them to cover the flanks. The battle began on 26th September with the 8th Brigade of the 5th Division in reserve. When the advance was stalled by machine gun pillboxes, a second attempt was made at dawn the following day. The 31stBattalion along with two other battalions had been added to the attacking force and once the initial resistance was cleared had a fairly straight forward line to the final objective.
 
It was reported that Eddie Tapsall was missing in action on 27th September at Polygon Wood. In spite of a hand written notation in Eddie’s file, there was no official burial report. An enquiry through the Red Cross to see if Eddie was a POW produced no trace and the authorities declared that Private Edward Tapsall had been killed in action. Eddie’s remains were never located. He is one of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave. Their names are inscribed on the Portland Stone Tablets under the arches of the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in the city of Ypres (Iper).
Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign. The ceremony concludes with the laying of wreaths, the recitation of the ode, and the playing of the Last Post by the city’s bugle corps.
Efforts by the authorities at the end of the war to dispose of Eddie’s service medals were in vain. Jack Tapsall had either moved or ignored communication from the authorities and could not be traced. Eddie’s medals remained unclaimed.