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Son of Peter and Jane SANDERSON, 229 Addison Road, Marrickville, NSW

Norman served in Egypt and France and was wounded at Pozieres and invalided 26 July 1916.  He returned to duty and was killed in action on 31st October 1916.

NEVER FORGOTTEN BY HIS LOVING MOTHER SISTERS, BROTHER

From Francois Berhtout

Pte 2840 Norman Sanderson,
4th Australian Infantry Battalion,
1st Brigade, 1st Australian Division, AIF
 
The Somme, so peaceful in these autumn days whose brown leaves cover the poppies with a cloak of silence, was more than a hundred years ago, a hell of fire and blood scarred by kilometers of trenches, martyred and wounded by endless lines of barbed wire over which tons of shells flew which, with chaotic howls, rained down on rows of young men who, side by side, served, fought, suffered and died on these sacred fields of the north of the France where after murderous battles stood countless rows of white graves on which were written the names of an entire lost generation who, day after day, season after season, rise together in the light of remembrance alongside their friends, of their brothers who, for their loved ones, for their country and France, gave their today and their lives in the hell of war but who today, live together for eternity among the peaceful poppies throughout which they walk behind the ghostly sounds of drums and bagpipes which carry through the breeze the murmurs and voices of these young men over whom I will always watch with respect and love so that their memory and their faces can live forever beyond their epitaphs which tell us the stories of their lives which I wish to perpetuate with care so that their names, their courage and their sacrifices are never forgotten.

On this day of remembrance, it is with the utmost respect and with the deepest gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys of the Somme who, for Australia and France, two great nations united by the most sacred bond of friendship, gave his life to make peace and freedom triumph. I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 2840 Norman Sanderson who fought in the 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Australian Division of the Australian Imperial Force, and who was killed in action 108 years ago, on October 31, 1916 at the age of 26 during the Battle of the Somme.

Norman Sanderson was born on May 11, 1894 in Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia, and was the son of Peter and Jane Sanderson, of 229 Addison Street, Marrickville, New South Wales. He was educated at Stanmore Public School and after graduation , worked as a modeler until the outbreak of the war.

Australia’s involvement in the First World War began when Britain and Germany went to war on 4 August 1914, and both Prime Minister Joseph Cook and Opposition Leader Andrew Fisher, who were in the midst of an election campaign, pledged full support for Britain. The outbreak of war was greeted in Australia, as in many other places, with great enthusiasm.

Like many other young men who heard that they would experience the greatest adventure of their lives, Norman, driven by a deep sense of duty and love for his country, joined the Australian Imperial Force and enlisted on July 12, 1915 at Liverpool, New South Wales, as a Private in the 19th Australian Infantry Battalion, 6th Reinforcement. The 19th Battalion was raised in March 1915 at Liverpool, as part of the 5th Brigade in the 2nd Australian Division and was initially under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Watson then, after 43 days at the head of his men, was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel MacKenzie, a Sydney barrister and former Commanding Officer of the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion. After a period of just over three months of training during which Norman learned the handling of the rifle and the rudiments of modern warfare without knowing what horrors awaited him and his comrades, he embarked with his unit from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A14 Euripides on November 2, 1915 and sailed for Egypt then arrived at Tel-El-Kebir on February 14, 1916 then was transferred and taken on strength in the 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, most of whose men were veterans of the Gallipoli campaign then the following month, on 23 March, proceeded overseas for France from Alexandria on board of the ship "Simla".

On March 30, 1916, after a calm journey on the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, Norman finally arrived in France and was disembarked at the port of Marseilles then the next day, with his comrades, embarked by train for Staple where, after having received new equipment including gas masks, they followed a period of training then on April 10, marched through Hazebrouck, Pradelles, Strazeele, and arrived at Outtersteene where they were billeted and followed exercises such as musketry on targets at 30 yards (during these exercises, it is noted that 4000 cartridges were fired by Lee Enfield No 1 Mk 3 as well as Lewis Machine Guns). They also trained in the handling of Mills Bombs (British grenades) then in bayonet fights and on April 19, after having received reinforcements, marched towards Sailly-Sur-La-Lys where they relieved the 23rd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment then took position in the Petillon sector, near Fleurbaix, a sector called "nursery" where Australian soldiers acclimatized to the conditions of trench warfare and had the rare comfort of having field kitchens with them allowing the men to have hot food but were often bombarded by German artillery.

On May 3, 1916, the men of the 4th Battalion relieved the 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion to the left of Petillon, on a position called "Cellar Farm Avenue" where Australian and German snipers caused numerous losses on both sides. During this period, Norman's health showed signs of weakness including a fever which worsened and on May 10 he was admitted to the battalion's Casualty Clearing Station then on May 11 he was transferred to the 1st then the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance at Doullens , in the Somme, suffering from Influenza. A week later, on May 17, he was discharged to duty and the next day returned to his unit which was still fighting in the Petillon sector in relative calm interrupted by gunfire from the Australian and German artillery. In the days that followed, Norman and his comrades were employed to lay (at night) new lines of barbed wire and reinforce the positions held by the 4th Battalion and received new equipment including "500 rounds armor penetrating steel bullets for Lee Enfield rifles" then on May 21, moved back into billets to Sailly-Sur-La-Lys where they remained until June 9.

On June 10, 1916, Norman and the 4th Battalion left Sailly-Sur-La-Lys and marched to Fleurbaix where they relieved the 8th Australian Infantry Battalion then, on the night of June 12 to 13, supported a successful raid on the German lines located on two positions called "Lozange" and "Angle" led with enthusiasm and courage by 4 officers and 52 men of the 6th Australian Infantry Battalion who killed between 12 and 18 Germans, captured 6 prisoners and destroyed a machine gun, two trench mortars at the cost of two injured Australians.

On the night of July 6 to 7, 1916, the men of the 4th Battalion were relieved by the 46th Australian Infantry Battalion and moved back to Sailly-Sur-La-Lys where they alternated between periods of rest and exercises then marched to Outtersteene on July 10, St Ouen on July 11 and from there, received the order to join the Somme to support the British offensive which began on July 1, 1916 at the cost of catastrophic losses (57,470 casualties including 19,240 British soldiers killed in action for the single day of July 1, 1916). On July 12, Norman and his unit arrived in the red fields of the Somme, reached Vignacourt then moved into billets in Allonville (opposite the old castle of Allonville which was destroyed) but whose park is still visible. At this precise moment, the 4th Battalion was made up of 26 officers and 950 other ranks. On July 17, they moved to Warloy-Baillon, La Boisselle on July 20 then, on July 23, under a deluge of fire, shells and bullets, were pushed into the hell of the battle of Pozieres which was not only the most brutal and murderous engagement for the 4th Battalion but which was also the most costly for the entire Australian Imperial Force on the Somme front.

On July 23, 1916 in Pozieres,the men of the 1st Australian Division were the first into the line and went forward after a ferocious preliminary bombardment. They made little headway attacking Pozières’ eastern sector but captured a tall concrete observation post called Gibraltar to the west. Enemy positions fell after close combat, usually following grenade attacks. The enemy counter-attacked in the morning and a fearsome artillery barrage churned the earth and buried men alive. Scores of stretcher-bearers died attempting to rescue the wounded lying in no-man’s land. The carnage continued for four days as Australian troops struggled to consolidate the ground they had won. When the 1st Division was relieved four days later, on 27 July, it had suffered 5,285 casualties. The 2nd Division were now tasked with capturing the heights overlooking the village. A hasty night attack was launched and any ground gained was lost within two days for the cost of 3,500 casualties. Charles Bean’s diary entry for 29 July described it as "the first wholesale failure that Anzac troops have made."

Unfortunately, on 25 July 1916, during a courageous attack towards the German lines through Pozieres, Norman suffered a back injury and was immediately evacuated and admitted to the 1st Australian Field Ambulance then the next day, suffering from shellshock, was transferred to No 22 Ambulance Train then to No 5 Convalescent Depot in Etaples on August 19. Meanwhile in Pozieres,a second night assault was launched on 4 August. This time 2nd Division troops captured all objectives,including the infamous Windmill whose concrete foundations the Germans had transformed into a formidable fortress. The 2nd Division’s casualty toll from both attacks was 6,846. No Australian division, before or since, has suffered more losses in a single frontline tour. The men of the 4th Division relieved the 2nd Division on 6 August 1916. After withstanding a ferocious German counterattack the men turned north. A week passed as the 4th Division inched towards their new objective, Mouquet Farm, under the worst artillery bombardment ever endured by Australian soldiers. The battlefield became a featureless wasteland as landmarks were obliterated. Positions changed hands many times and soldiers struggled to determine where the frontline lay. Losses for the 4th Division climbed to 4,649 before it was withdrawn on 16 August.

By mid-August 1916 all three formations making up the 1st ANZAC Corps,the 1st, 2nd and 4th Divisions,had fought at Pozières. The troops expected to be spared further action. They were sorely disappointed. Each division was rested, reinforced to two-thirds strength, and thrown back into the fray.

The 1st Division commenced its second tour on 16 August. After one week and 2,600 casualties, they were relieved by the 2nd Division who in five days of fighting, from 22 August, managed to capture the farm only to lose it again for losses of 1,300. The 4th Division returned to the battlefront on 27 August and suffered 2,400 casualties before being brought out of the line on 5 September.

The Australians welcomed the transferal of the Pozières battlefield to the Canadian Corps. Shattered weapons and equipment lay across a desolate wasteland of shell craters and ruined buildings. Rotting corpses and body parts littered the field. The acrid smell of explosives blended with the sickly sweet odour of death. In six weeks, in 19 separate actions, the 1st ANZAC Corps had suffered 23,000 casualties, including 6,750 dead,casualties comparable to the entire eight-month Gallipoli campaign. Deafening, bowel-churning artillery barrages at Pozières, coupled with the horrific sight of dismembered bodies, and the constant threat of being buried alive, or torn to pieces by shrapnel, led to the first significant spate of shell-shock cases among troops of the AIF. Charles Bean would famously state that Pozières was "more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth."

On September 4, 1916, silent, deeply marked and bruised internally by the brutality of the Battle of Pozieres, Norman marched for the 1st Australian Divisional Base Depot then rejoined his unit on September 29 in the Ypres Salient, in support trenches near Busseboom in a position called "Cafe Belge" then moved to the front line at Woodcote Farm where the 4th Battalion relieved the 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion on 8 October and fought in this sector until 13 October. The following day, they moved back to rest at Busseboom.On October 15, they marched through Steenvoorde, Noordpeen and arrived on October 17 at Gandspet, in Pas-De-Calais, underwent a period of training and on October 21, received orders to return to the Somme , in a hell of mud and blood that Norman was going to face again.

On October 22, 1916, the men of the 4th Battalion arrived by train in the Somme, at l'Etoile, near Amiens then proceeded to Fricourt Camp on October 24. Two days later, on October 26, by muddy and slippery roads , they marched to Mametz Wood then took up position at Delville Wood,in Longueval, on October 29 where they relieved the 1st Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and saw here, once again, the carnage and death, the dead bodies of British, South African and German soldiers who fought with ferocity in this hellish wood from July 15 to September 3, 1916.

The fighting that took place within Delville Wood was fierce in the extreme. By the time the fighting finished not one tree in Delville Wood was left untouched and the immediate landscape was littered with just the stumps of what had been trees. It was not surprising that soldiers who fought there referred to it as "Devil’s Wood" as opposed to Delville Wood.

The attack on Delville Wood was just one part of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, Haig’s infamous "Great Push" to end the war on the Western Front.

Delville Wood had to be cleared of German forces dug in there as they would have represented a major danger to the rear of Allied forces once they had moved on from the area and towards the German’s "Switch Line". However, this planning assumed that the attack across the Somme battlefront would be a success.

The attack on Delville Wood started on July 15th 1916. Just over 3,000 men from the South African 1st Infantry Brigade were tasked with clearing the wood and was ordered to take the wood "at all costs". As with many other attacks, the wood was heavily shelled by Allied artillery before infantry troops went in.
The southern sector of the wood was quickly cleared of Germans. The officer overseeing the attack, Tanner, reported back to his headquarters in the evening of the 15th that all of the wood had been taken except the northwest near the town of Longueval. In fact, the South Africans were in a very precarious position as they faced over 7,000 Germans. The artillery shelling had pushed over trees and exposed their roots. This made it very difficult to dig trenches. The South Africans were not only up against a larger force but had to survive in "trenches" that had little depth and gave minimal protection especially against German artillery attacks.

The ground all but dictated that most of the combat within the wood was hand-to-hand fighting and casualties were high. The terrain would have made it difficult to move the wounded back to a medical station. However, such was the ferocity of the fighting that for every one South African wounded, four were killed. The South Africans fought within the wood until July 19th when they were relieved. Their casualties were some of the worst seen on the Western Front.
A soldier who fought at Delville Wood and survived described it as follows:
"Every semblance of a trench seemed full of dead-sodden, squelchy, swollen bodies. Fortunately the blackening faces were invisible except when lights lit up the indescribable scene. Not a tree stood whole in that wood. Food and water were very short and we had not the faintest idea when any more would be obtainable. We stood and lay on putrefying bodies and the wonder was that the disease (dysentery) did not finish off what the shells of the enemy had started.

There was hand-to-hand fighting with knives, bombs, and bayonets; cursing and brutality on both sides such as men can be responsible for when it is a question of "your life or mine"; mud and filthy stench; dysentery and unattended wounds; shortage of food and water and ammunition."

The Germans responded to the attack by shelling areas of the wood captured by the Allies. At its peak it is thought that 400 German shells landed in Delville Wood every minute. Combined with frequent raid rain, the wood was not only churned up with regards to trees but it also became a quagmire.

The fighting for the wood continued into August. Skilfully placed German machine gun posts and well-hidden snipers greatly hindered any Allied advance through the wood. Once the South Africans had been relieved, men from the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, the Royal Berkshires and the 1st King’s Royal Rifle Corps tried to take the wood. However, like the South Africans, they faced a heavily fortified enemy that was supported by very accurate artillery fire. They in turn were relieved and replaced by the 17th Northern Division who were relived by the 14th and 20th Light Division.

It is thought that German casualties matched Allied casualties but loss of records makes this hard to verify. The South Africans had 3,155 men at the start of the attack and suffered 2,536 casualties by the time they were relieved. This represented a loss of 80%, killed, wounded and missing. 104 officers out of a total of 123 were killed, wounded or missing,nearly 85%.
Delville Wood was only finally fully cleared of Germans on September 3rd.

Unfortunately, two days after joining this landscape of death, Norman was killed in action on October 31, 1916 by a German shell at Delville Wood and his death was briefly recorded in the 4th Battalion war diary as follows: "Delville Wood,October 31,1916. Today a German shell killed one man (Norman Sanderson), and wounded another."

Today, Norman Sanderson rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at Dantzig Alley British Cemetery, Mametz, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "Never forgotten by his loving mother, sisters, brother."

Norman Sanderson had a brother who also fought courageously in the Great War. He was Private number 1226 William Sanderson who served in the 13th Australian Infantry Battalion. William survived the war and returned to Australia on October 23, 1918.

Norman, determined, courageous and pushed forward by the love of your country, by the love of your loved ones, it is with conviction that you joined the ranks of your comrades to serve alongside them, to do your duty because that it was what your heart dictated, so in the prime of your life, you raised your head under your slouch hat and walked with your shoulders straight following your conscience knowing deeply that it was the right thing to do despite the dangers and the death that awaited so many young men on the battlefields but, in the hands of God you placed your life and after a last embrace in the loving arms of your mother, after a final farewell expressed through tears and words filled with hope, you embarked with the promise of a great adventure then through the last rays of the setting sun enveloping the Australian coasts, ready to fight, these young men gathered on the decks of slow steamboats and smiled with innocence alongside their friends without knowing what awaited them, without knowing where they would be in the coming days and months and wondering if they would one day return home spared from the suffering and wounds of war or if they would stay far away from their homes under rows of wooden crosses because they saw in the newspapers, in 1915, what Gallipoli took from Australia in the hot and bloody hills of Lone Pine, of Suvla where so many young Diggers gave their lives but, with confidence and pride, they looked ahead, towards their destinies and the silent horizon line then, after a long journey, tired but ready to fight for peace and freedom, they arrived in the north of France and walked alongside their brothers in arms but also alongside the horses and mules who, together, in the sounds of footsteps and hooves, behind the bugles and the mechanical ringing of rifles, headed towards the trenches, towards the mud and blood of the battlefields on which they would share the pain, the endless waiting for battles, diseases, hunger and thirst, lice and rats.From France, a country that so many of these young men did not know, the young Australian soldiers discovered the sweetness of orchards, the beauty of flowering valleys and went through fields of silent poppies then in the Somme, were quickly adopted and loved like our sons, were admired by the children of Pozieres, Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux who, generation after generation, transmitted the sweet remembrance, the memory of the Diggers who fought fiercely for us who have the privilege of standing in front of their graves to, in our turn, tell who were these young men who came from the other side of the world and who, under the bullets and the shells, stood admirably united in the sacred bond of fraternity, of camaraderie which gave them the strength to hold on and go over the top to face death in the barbed wire and who, charging bayonets forward while watching over each other like brothers, wrote the most beautiful pages of the great and beautiful Australian nation and who, in courage, in efforts, in gallantry, in their coolness and their sacrifices, wrote the legend of the ANZAC spirit, a spirit of unity and fraternity still alive and palpable on these sacred fields where so many of these heroes gave their lives and who, among the poppies, still standing behind their eternal graves tell us the story of their lives taken too early in the fury of a world at war which sank into madness but which today, in peace, in silence, stretch out their hands to ours, telling us: "Remember us, remember what we sacrificed our lives for, remember our cause because it is the foundation of your heritage, we are the silent guardians of your freedom, the eternal sentinels of your peace. Remember us , not with sadness but with gratitude. Gratitude for the gift of life that we shared. Gratitude for the values that we defended. Perpetuate our memory by defending the values for which we fought. We offered our lives so that future generations can live in a world where peace reigns, where the laughter of children is never drowned out by the roar of cannons.

Long live Australia, long live France, and may our memory remain forever in your hearts."In the Somme, we will never forget Australia, we will never forget the Diggers and during the time of my life, I will always watch over them with love, with gratitude and respect so that their names live forever but also to may the friendship that unites our two nations live forever in remembrance. Thank you so much Norman, for everything you and your comrades did, gave and sacrificed for my country whose love will be yours forever.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,we will remember him, we will remember them.