Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 2742 (A) LALOR Stephen (Steve) James                                                     9th Battalion
 
Steve Lalor was born at Crows Nest around 1894 to Michael and Hannah Lalor. Steve attended school at Crows Nest and then may have worked for the Postmaster General’s Department as a telephonist and telegraph operator. At his enlistment, Steve was employed as a clerk in the offices of a firm of solicitors; Groom and Lavers, in Crows Nest.
 
Soon after turning 21, Steve travelled to Brisbane to enlist on 23rd June 1915. He advised the recruiting officer he was 21 years and one month old, and was employed as a clerk. After passing the medical exam, Steve reported to Enoggera Camp where he was placed in a depot battalion for initial training before being allocated to the 6th reinforcements of the 25th Infantry Battalion. The 6th reinforcements embarked in Brisbane on 21st October for the voyage to Egypt. Steve’s arrival in Egypt coincided with the withdrawal of the Australian troops from Gallipoli.
 
By January 1916, the Australian camps were full of Gallipoli veterans and fresh reinforcements from Australia which allowed the AIF Command to reorganize and expand the AIF, effectively doubling in size. During this reorganization, Steve was transferred to the 9th Infantry Battalion on 27th February 1916. One month later, the 9th Battalion boarded a troop ship at the Egyptian port of Alexandria and arrived in the French port of Marseilles on 3rd April. The Australians were conveyed by train to the northern sector of the Western Front near the city of Armentieres. The Armentieres sector was referred to as the “nursery sector” as it was the quietest part of the front. This allowed newly arrived troops to become accustomed to the routines of trench warfare; even though in that sector there were no trenches as the ground was too boggy. Instead, heavy earthen breastworks were constructed. The 9th Battalion was composed of 50% Gallipoli veterans and 50% fresh reinforcements with no battle experience. The battalion would spend one or two days occupying the front line before being relieved and rotated back to the rear area where village life continued and estaminets (cafes) were only too happy to rid the troops of their pay by providing egg and chips, beer and wine. Some of the troops were assigned to assist the local farmers at harvest time. This idyllic period came to an end with the launching of the Somme offensive.
 
On 1st July 1916, General Haig, supreme British commander of the Western Front, launched what he hoped would be the grand offensive to end the war. He chose as his battleground the area which separated the British and French armies, the valley of the River Somme. Haig was trusting in the sheer weight of numbers of his army. (The British government had introduced conscription in late 1915 and the increased force was often referred to as Kitchener’s New Army) History records that the British suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day. It was apparent that barbed wire and machine guns were more than a match for straight lines of soldiers marching with bayonets fixed towards heavily defended positions.
In spite of the enormous cost in manpower, Haig had no choice but to push on.
 
With scant progress being made, Haig turned to the 1st Division AIF, which included the 9th Battalion. The division was tasked with capturing the village of Pozieres, which occupied the highest point on the Somme along the Albert – Bapaume Road. On the night of the 24th/25th July the 1st Division attacked and took the village. The 1st Division was relieved by the 2nd Division which in turn was relieved by the 4th Division. Once Pozieres was secured, attention turned to a strongly fortified position, Mouquet Farm, to the north west of the Pozieres windmill. The three AIF divisions again entered the line in the third week in August. The line of attack was so narrow that only two or three companies could advance at a time and constant artillery fire had churned up the ground making it impossible to prevent trenches from collapsing. The 9th Battalion went into the line at Mouquet Farm on 20th August. The following day, Steve Lalor, who has survived the first engagement at Pozieres, received a wound to his left leg from machine gun fire.
 
Steve was stretchered out of the battle to a field ambulance and then via a casualty clearing station to the 26thAustralian General Hospital at Etaples on the French coast. On 26th August, he was carried on to a hospital ship and transferred to Spalding Hall Hospital in London. After a month in hospital, Steve was granted a three week furlough. He then reported to the 3rd Brigade Training Battalion at Durrington. It would appear that the army realized that Steve’s clerical skills could be of use and he was posted to the quarter masters’ section. On 21st December, Steve was promoted to corporal and continued to perform clerical duties for the next six months.
 
On 11th June 1917, Steve went AWOL for 13 days. It was customary to allow defaulters a few days grace if the soldier overstayed a period of leave. It is likely that once Steve failed to return after a few days, he was classed as a deserter and the matter was handed over to the military police. Steve was apprehended by military police and returned to a military prison where he remained in custody for 11 days before being brought before a General Court Martial. He was found guilty and had 25 days pay deducted and loss of some seniority. What is most curious is that he retained his rank of corporal and returned to his job as a clerk in the Quarter Master’s Office in July.
 
On 5th September 1917, Steve crossed the channel once more and reported to the AIF depot at Havre. Six days later, he rejoined the 9th Battalion in Belgium where the 9th was preparing to play its part in the Flanders campaign.
 
The plan for the 3rd Battle of Ypres (often referred to as Passchendaele) was based on a strategy of “Bite and Hold” in which small strategic gains, supported by overwhelming firepower, would provide a series of stepping stones along the line of the Ypres to Menin Road. The first phase involved driving the enemy off the Messines Ridge which was accomplished in June and July 1917. On the 9th September, the men of the 1st Division moved up to positions at Steenvoorde in preparation for an assault on Westhoek Ridge, the high ground that overlooked the main route east from the Menin Gate in Ypres; the Menin Road. A detailed model of the ground had been constructed with planks suspended over the sand so that officers and NCOs could familiarize themselves with the battlefield and the objectives they were expected to take. The 9th Battalion, in conjunction with the other three battalions of the 3rd Brigade were in position at the jumping off tapes by midnight of the 19th and at 5:40 am on the 20th September, a massive artillery barrage crashed down on the German positions. As the barrage crept forward, the infantry kept pace, dealing with isolated pill boxes and gun emplacements whose occupants quickly surrendered. The Battle of Menin Road was, by the terms of the time, a great success. After almost twelve months out of the line, Steve was back in the thick of battle.
 
The battalions of the two AIF divisions that had taken part at Menin Road were relieved and two other divisions took advantage of the result to push the line even further into Polygon Wood and the approaches to the high ground of Broodseinde Ridge and the villages of Zonnebeke and Passchendaele. On 4th October, twelve British Divisions (which included three AIF Divisions and the NZ Division) attacked Broodseinde Ridge along a thirteen kilometre front. As the Australians rose up to follow the creeping barrage up the slope towards Zonnebeke, they encountered German infantry advancing up the reverse slope. Both the British and the Germans had made plans to attack on the same day, and at the same time. The Australians got the better of the encounter. The 9th Battalion advanced to the objective, Zonnebeke railway station, and by 10:00am the position was secure.
 
Up until that first week in October, the results achieved had been encouraging. The Flanders countryside was low lying boggy ground on which local farmers had constructed elaborate drainage systems. These systems were shattered by almost three years of artillery fire which tore up the ground. As the Australians settled in to the newly established front line trenches on Broodseinde Ridge, it began to rain; heavily. Shell craters filled with water, the roads and tracks became a sea of mud and men, animals and vehicles became trapped in a sea of stinking oozing slime. The infantry struggled against the mud until exhaustion forced a halt. Many of the best known images of the First World War are those of the conditions at Passchendaele.
 
On 3rd November, the 9th Battalion was in the front line. Outposts had been established in front of the trench line. Each outpost was defended by one or more machine guns. The enemy launched a counterattack and the outposts had to be evacuated. Reports given to the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Service state that Corporal Steve Lalor and another corporal were salvaging a Vickers heavy machine gun from an outpost when they were targeted by artillery. Both men were killed. It was too difficult to carry the bodies of the dead back through the mud and slush and Sergeant Major Hills, who was a personal friend of Steve’s buried Steve in a shell hole. He was 23 years old.
 
Steves personal effects which included several books, a scarf, letters and cards and two wallets were returned to his family at Crows Nest. At the conclusion of the war, the Imperial War Graves Commission began the task of collecting the remains of those who had been buried in isolated graves and reinterring them in permanent war cemeteries. Steve’s remains were exhumed and reburied in the Passchendaele New British Cemetery not far from where he fell. His family chose the following inscription for his headstone: FATHER, NOT MY WILL BUT THINE BE DONE R.I.P.