Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Frederick Howard AKHURST was born in Sydney in 1877

His parents were Walter Frederick AKHURST & Kate DEUTSCH who married in Victoria in 1874

From François Berthout

Pte 5979 Frederick Howard Akhurst
11th Australian Infantry Battalion, C Company,
3rd Brigade, 1st Australian Division
 
Through the villages and the poppy fields of the Somme, stand silent, row after row in the white and eternal cities, the graves of thousands of men on which are inscribed for eternity, like a message to future generations, the lives and names of a whole generation of young boys who for peace and freedom gave their youth in the trenches of northern France and who, under shells and bullets stood shoulder to shoulder when they went over the top, charging with exceptional bravery through the barbed wire and the shell holes in which they fell while doing their duty for their country and for France, a country they knew little but for which so many of them gave their lives and where they found, among roses and poppies, the peace of their final resting place where their names are remembered with respect.Young they were and young they will be forever and stand proud far from home but will forever have, in the Somme, all our love and gratitude with which I will always watch over them so that they are never forgotten, to keep strong and alive their memory, their stories so that these heroes live forever.

Today, it is with all my heart, with the utmost respect and infinite gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these men, one of my boys of the Somme who gave his today and his life for our tomorrow.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 5979 Frederick Howard Akhurst who fought in the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion, C Company, 3rd Brigade, 1st Australian Division, and who was killed in action 106 years ago, on February 17, 1917 at the age of 40 on the Somme front.

Frederick Howard Akhurst was born in 1877 in Sydney, New South Wales, and was the son of Walter Frederick Akhurst and Kate Akhurst (née Deutsh) who married in Victoria in 1874 and lived first at the General Post office, Perth, Western Australia, then at 31 Bagot Road, Subiaco, Western Australia. Frederick was educated at Newington and Sydney Grammar School and before the outbreak of the war was single, worked as a farmer and lived in Peckaring Hill by Quairading, Western Australia but in 1914, war broke out.

From the city and suburbs clerks laid down their pens, shopkeepers and shop assistants walked out of their shops, solicitors paused with their briefs, workmen downed their picks and shovels and from the countryside bushmen, farmers, graziers, shearers, woodchoppers set out on by horse drawn buggy, by train, by horse and on foot starting their journey to join a new type of army,an all volunteer army,the Australian Imperial Force.

Determined to do his duty, Frederick enlisted on March 27, 1916 in Perth, Western Australia, in the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion, 19th Reinforcement, battalion whose motto was "Vigilans" and which was first under the command of Colonel Ewen Sinclair Maclagan then under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Lyon Johnston. Frederick followed an intense four-month training period at Blackboy Hill Camp, near Perth, and embarked with his unit from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A28 Miltiades on August 7 1916 then sailed for England.
On September 24, 1916, Frederick arrived in England and was disembarked at Plymouth, Devon, and joined the 3rd Training Battalion at Perham Down the next day.

Perham Down was initially used at the outbreak of war by some of the new Kitchener battalions. In 1916 Australia’s No.1 Command Depot was established at Perham Down, accommodating 4,000 men, until it moved to Sutton Veny in October 1917.

After a two-month training period at Perham Down, Frederick embarked from Folkestone, on board "Princess Victoria" on December 4, 1916 then proceeded overseas for France where he arrived the next day and was disembarked at Etaples then joined the 1st Australian Divisional Base Depot and joined the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion on December 26, in the trenches of Flers, Somme, where they occupied several positions known as "Grove Alley", "Tank Dump", Hay Avenue", "Grass Lane" and "Smoke Trench "which were constantly heavily pounded by German artillery.

On the night of December 30 to 31, 1916, still in Flers, Frederick and the men of the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion were sent to the support trenches of the "Bulls Road" sector where they repaired the damage caused by incessant rains and by the German artillery then they repaired many shelters in which were found several men who were killed earlier then at the beginning of January, they began to consolidate and improve the trenches with sandbags, work which was done in very difficult conditions in a deep mud and, exhausted, were relieved on January 9, 1917 and marched to the "Coolgardie Camp" in Meaulte.
After a short night's rest at Coolgardie Camp, Frederick and the 11th Battalion marched to Dernancourt on 11 January where the men were able to take a bath which was greatly appreciated after all they had been through. On January 14 the battalion left Dernancourt for Bresle where they arrived the next day and alternated between periods of work and training until January 24, when they marched to "Fricourt Farm" and to Bazentin-Le-petit Camp on January 28 where they followed specific exercises such as bayonet fighting, poison gas training and physical exercises but were also employed in road repairs and on February 13 the battalion returned to the front line, this time in the "Yarra Reserve" sector,near Bazentin-Le-Petit.

Unfortunately, four days later, on February 17, 1917, Frederick met his fate and while part of a ration party in the front-line trench at Bazentin-Le-Petit, he was hit by a nose cap shell on his chest and was killed instantly, he was 40 years old.

Today, Frederick Howard Hackurst rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at Bazentin-Le-Petit Military Cemetery, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "In gallant company."

Frederick, Sir, you who fought with exceptional bravery alongside your brothers in arms in the trenches and battlefields of the Somme where you rest in peace, today I would like to humbly and very respectfully express my gratitude and admiration for all you did and sacrificed for us in the mud and blood of the poppy fields that grow between the rows of graves of a whole generation of men who, without fear and without hesitation, responded to the call of duty to serve in the name of their country on the sacred soils of northern France and who, through the darkest hours of history, carried on their shoulders, the hopes and the light among the darkness of the great war that took away the lives of thousands of young boys in hurricanes of fire and steel that artillery and machine guns spat at a frightening pace against which they charged valiantly. In the cold and among the rats, tormented by hunger and fear, these men who never knew death before, saw their brothers, their best mates who fell under the bullets, they saw them being crushed and pulverized under shrapnel and the shells which transformed former silent and peaceful fields into fields of death in which waves of men were stopped, hung in the barbed wire.In these fields the songs of the birds were no longer heard and gave way to the howls of friends and enemies who lay together and helpless in the mud on which they shed their blood under the lugubrious symphony of increasingly large shells which never ceased to fall around them.These young boys, in the turmoil of a world at war, became men who knew the value and the price of life and lost their innocence but never lost their humanity nor their sense of solidarity and honor which guided them forward and which kept them united in the face of this endless nightmare, these slaughterhouses that was their war on the battlefields of Flers, Pozieres, Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux where thousands of them fell to save our country and paid the price of blood for each meter forward but they never retreated, their courage carried them always further until the final victory, until peace for which they fought for but saw behind them their comrades who paid the sacrifice supreme and lay lifeless next to their steel helmets and their slouch hats above which stood thousands of wooden crosses, white tombs forever marking the final resting places of an entire generation of heroes over whom I will always watch tirelessly because for me who lives where so many men gave their lives, each day is a day of remembrance through which I want to honor their memory to bring them back to life so that they will never be forgotten, so that their names and their bravery may live on forever.Thank you so much Frederick,for everything. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember him,we will remember them.