Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

 
# 5115  HORTON Robert Frank                      15th / 47th Battalion
 
Robert Horton was born at Gunbar NSW near Hay to parents Robert and Matilda Horton. As a boy Robert attended school in Wagga before the family moved to Greenmount on the Southern Darling Downs in Queensland and then to Doctor’s Creek north of Oakey Qld where Robert completed his schooling.
 
When Robert attended the Brisbane recruiting depot in Adelaide Street on 27th November 1915, he reported that he was a 23 year old farmer and grazier from Reedy Creek, Kingaroy. He named his father, Robert snr of Kingaroy as his next of kin.
 
Robert was taken in to the 9th Depot Battalion at Enoggera for initial training before being allocated to the 16th reinforcements of the 15th Battalion. On 31st March 1916, the 16th reinforcements travelled by train to Sydney where they embarked on the “Star of Victoria” for the voyage to Egypt. When the reinforcements arrived in camp at Tel el Kabir on the Suez Canal on 5th May, the AIF had just completed a doubling in size by splitting some of the original Gallipoli Battalions (such as the 15th) to provide an experienced core for two battalions which would then be both brought up to strength with reinforcements.
 
On 20th May, Robert was transferred from the 15th Battalion reinforcements to the 47th Battalion reinforcements. The 47th Battalion was one of the newly created battalions formed when the 15th Battalion was split. The 47th was part of the 12th Brigade of the new 4th Division of the AIF, and was one of the last battalions to leave Egypt for the Western Front on 3rd June. Robert and the rest of the 47th reinforcements remained in Egypt for some time before being shipped to the large Australian Infantry Depot at Etaples on the French coast south of Boulogne. Robert remained in the infantry depot while the Battle of the Somme began in July and the battalions of the 4th Division were called up for their first major action at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm.
 
Robert was finally taken on strength by the 47th after the battalion had come out of the line at Pozieres but before the 47th went back into the fight at Mouquet Farm Robert reported sick to a field ambulance. He was passed on to a casualty clearing station and then to the Australian Hospital at Rouen where he was treated for bronchitis. Robert returned to his battalion in October 1916.
The Australians in France had a tough time in the French winter of 1916/17; the coldest for almost 40 years and as the front was closed down for the winter, the men exposed in the trenches began to suffer from frostbite, trench foot, influenza and bronchial complaints. An urgent call for warm clothing to the AIF authorities resulted in rough sheepskin vests being hastily despatched from Australia.
 
 
In the lull in fighting during the winter, the Germans had constructed a 150 kilometre long defensive barrier, which the British labelled the Hindenburg Line, some distance to the east of their previously held positions astride the Somme. Once the roads were passable again in the spring, the German forces began a strategic withdrawal to this new position. The British forces cautiously followed, taking the towns of Bapaume and Noreuil along the way. 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 at Bullecourt.
 
Gough was under orders to attack the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt with his infantry, following which the cavalry would be put into the breech. Gough planned to use the battalions of the 4th and 12th Infantry Brigades of the AIF as his spearhead. Robert, still with no experience of actual warfare, and the rest of the 47th Battalion moved up to the assembly areas on the 8th April. Gough’s plan followed the standard series of actions beginning with days of artillery bombardment to cut the several bands of barbed wire, followed by an infantry assault supported by a creeping artillery barrage. As the time for the attack drew closer, Gough had a conversation with a junior officer from the British Tank Corps. The junior officer convinced the general that tanks would be able to smash through the wire more effectively than cannon fire. What the officer did not reveal was that the tanks were only training tanks with well-worn machinery prone to breakdown, and the crews were inexperienced.
 
At the last minute, Gough changed his plans, dispensing with the artillery altogether. He ordered the infantry to move up to the jumping off tapes in preparation for the attack on the 10th April. The men of the two AIF Brigades lay on the snow covered ground awaiting the arrival of the tanks, all of which failed to make the start line on time either because of breakdowns or getting lost. Having revealed his plan to German defenders, Gough postponed the attack for 24 hours. On the 11th April, the 46th and 48th Battalions from the 12th brigade, with the 47th Battalion in support, rose up from the snow covered ground and trudged towards the formidable defences before them following the same plan from the previous day. There was no artillery support and the tanks mainly failed for the second time. The few tanks that did proceed past the start line either became stuck in shell craters and tank traps or were put out of action with accurate artillery fire.
 
Many of the attacking infantry were hung up on the bands of wire which remained intact where they were cut down with enfilading machine gun fire. Remarkably, sufficient numbers of men from the 46th and the 48th got through to take two lines of the German trenches which they managed to hold for some hours but the narrowness of the front exposed the men to enfilading fire from three sides. Messages were received from the two beleaguered battalions calling for additional supplies of bombs, water and ammunition. The 47thBattalion, as the brigade support, sent carrying parties up to the frontline trenches while the battle raged.
 
It was reported by Corporal Craig that Robert Horton was at the rear of a carrying party near the Brigade Bomb Dump with a box of Mill’s Bombs (early form of hand grenade) when he was hit by a shell explosion killing him instantly. Craig and another man, Private Sutcliffe, buried Robert beside the Noreuil Road. A grave marker was made out of a bomb box. Regrettably, the location of Robert’s grave remained in enemy territory for the next 18 months and by the time that grave registration units began scouring the battlefields for isolated graves at the end of the war, all trace of Robert Horton was lost.
 
Robert’s mother, who was living in Nambour in 1917, wrote to the authorities making enquiries about a bible and a wristwatch which she stated had been handed to the 47th Battalion Major for safe keeping. No further information as to the whereabouts of these items is available but it is hoped they eventually found their way to Matilda Horton.
 
In 1938, some 20 years after the end of the First World War, the Australian Government constructed the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. The memorial was dedicated by the newly crowned King George VI. The memorial records the names of over 10,000 Australian soldiers who lost their lives in France and who have no known grave; Robert Horton among them.