Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

 
# 6410  PETERSON August Rosenius             26th Battalion
Gus Peterson was born in Laidley in the Lockyer Valley to parents Sven and Hannah Peterson around 1888. The family probably moved to Hornley just outside Kingaroy when the railway line from Gympie to Kingaroy was completed. The family worked the land and Gus was a member of the Kingaroy Rifle Club and the Australian Light Horse Squadron at Kingaroy, a part time military unit.
Gus travelled to Maryborough on 11th October 1916 to enlist. This date is significant as it coincides with the campaign leading up to the first of two referenda that the Australian Government held regarding compulsory military service. If conscription were to be introduced, Gus, as a 28 year old single man would have been a likely candidate for call up. Like many men, he perhaps considered that it would be best to enlist of his own free will rather than wait for the callup and be ostracised by his fellow volunteers. In the end, the proposal was narrowly defeated.
Gus told the recruiters in Maryborough that he was a 28 year old farmer from Hornley near Kingaroy. He named his father as his next of kin. Gus was given a travel warrant and took the train to Brisbane and then on to Enoggera where after a short time in a depot battalion he was allocated to the 18th reinforcements of the 26th Battalion. The reinforcements travelled by train to Sydney where they boarded the “Demosthenes” on 28th December 1916. The ship sailed via South Africa and Sierra Leone to arrive in Plymouth on 3rdMarch 1917. The reinforcements made their way to the 7th Brigade Training Camp at Rollestone on Salisbury Plain to complete training.
The 26th Battalion was one of four battalions that made up the 7th brigade of the 2nd Division AIF. The battalion had a number of veterans in its ranks who had seen service at Gallipoli in 1915 and then been involved in the horror of Pozieres in July and August 1916. The brigade continued to serve as a front line unit at Flers, Bapaume and Bullecourt until withdrawn for a well earned rest in July 1917.
Gus and the other reinforcements were taken on strength by the 26th when it was in a rest camp at Bapaume. In August, the battalion moved to comfortable billets at Saint Omer where they continued training as well as preparation in ceremonial drills for an inspection by the British Commander, Sir Douglas Haig. In September, Gus was sent off to the 2nd Division sniping school; perhaps his experience with the Kingaroy Rifle Club had been noticed.
After the less than outstanding results achieved by the British forces on the Somme in 1916, attention shifted to Belgian Flanders and the prospect of forcing the enemy into relinquishing a number of Belgian ports. Haig planned for a series of engagements in what was known as the Ypres salient; the first of which was an assault on the Messines Ridge in June 1917 which dominated the high ground over which Haig planned to advance in the coming summer. Two Australian divisions had been involved at Messines and a further two, the 1st and 2nd would be put into the line at the battle of Menin Road.
Preparations for Menin Road were well planned. A scale model of the ground to be taken was constructed and the men who would take part were walked through to familiarise themselves with their objectives. The 26th Battalion, in conjunction with other battalions of the 7th Brigade rehearsed their tasks over several days with staff officers observing and altering plans when necessary. Message forms were printed with maps on the reverse for ease of communication and objectives for each battalion were limited to advances of 250 yards or less. At 5:40am on 20th September, the 26th Battalion set off from the jump off tapes under a concentrated artillery barrage. This was Gus’ first major action.
All the objectives for Menin Road were reached with little loss of life and the advance moved on to Polygon Wood and then Broodseinde Ridge where the 26th was again in the line. With success almost within Haig’s grasp, the weather turned in the first week of October. Unseasonal rains flooded the low-lying battlefield turning it into a sea of mud which swallowed men, animals and equipment. With a decision which came to haunt Haig for the rest of his career, he ordered his exhausted troops to push on to take the village of Passchendaele and the high ground beyond but his British and Australian divisions had given it all and could go no further. The largest Commonwealth War Cemetery in the world, Tyne Cot less than a kilometre from Passchendaele, bears testimony to the futility of the enterprise.
The Belgian Front was closed down for the winter and the Australian battalions took turn in rotating in and out of the line for short spells. The rest of the time was spent in the relative warmth of Nissen huts in the rear areas around Poperinghe. The Germans had begun to use gas in large quantities at Broodseinde and Passchendaele. Many men, including Gus Peterson, were suffering from the cumulative effects of exposure to phosgene and mustard gas and once the front was closed down for the winter, they could be repatriated to rest camps or hospitals.
Gus was sent to a hospital in Boulogne and then transferred by hospital ship to a military hospital at Edmonton, North London on 17th November 1917. On 22nd January, he was discharged to the Australian Convalescent Hospital at Hurdcott. Gus was assessed as fit for active service on 18th March and returned to his unit, just in time for hostilities on the western front to resume.
 
The latter part of 1917 produced a change in the strategic situation as far as the German command was concerned. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia brought about the end to fighting on the Eastern Front. A peace treaty between Germany and Russia released up to thirty five German divisions which, once re-equipped and re-trained, could be used to press home a distinct advantage on the Western Front. The window for exploiting this advantage was however rather small as the entry of the United States into the war and an expected surge in troop numbers from July 1918 onwards would swing the advantage back to the Entente. The German commander, Ludendorff had only a short time to press home his advantage.
 
The British Commander, General Haig, was fully expecting a German assault in the spring of 1918 but he guessed incorrectly that the main thrust would be aimed at the Ypres salient in Belgium. When Operation Michael began on 21st March, the main assault was aimed along the line of the Somme River, the scene of so much fighting and hard won victories in 1916.
The British 5th Army, which was holding the line astride the Somme was unable to hold the German onslaught which in some places amounted to a five-time numerical advantage. As the British retreated, often in disarray, the German Stormtroopers retook all of the gains made by the British in the Somme campaign and were within a few days of capturing the vital communication city of Amiens. If Amiens fell, Haig might well have lost the war; the situation was deadly serious.
 
Haig ordered his most successful and battle hardened troops, four of the five divisions of the AIF in Belgium to move south to establish a defensive line in front of Amiens. The 26th Battalion and the rest of the 7thbrigade began their move on the 2nd April and after five days of buses, trains and several route marches of ten miles or more, the 7th Brigade relieved the 13th Brigade of the 4th Division which had been holding the line at Dernacourt. By the end of April, the threat to Amiens had been averted and the Australians settled into a period of what their Commander, Maj General John Monash, called “peaceful penetration”; which really meant constant harassment of the enemy by sending out patrols into no man’s land.
During May, the 26th continued with its “peaceful penetration” near Franvillers. On 21st May, Gus Peterson was wounded in the abdomen and left hip. He was initially transported to one of the Australian hospitals at Rouen but on 10th June was transferred by hospital ship to the King George Hospital, located in a former warehouse close to Waterloo Station in London. At first Gus responded well to treatment and his father was informed by telegram that he was “improving”. By September the news was not so promising and Gus was diagnosed with an abdominal obstruction. He died at the King George Hospital on 27th September 1918. Gus was buried at the Brookwood Military Cemetery outside London on 1st October 1918 with full military honours. He was 31 years old.
Sven and Hannah Peterson chose the following inscription for their son’s headstone:
BE THOU FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH AND I WILL GIVE THEE A CROWN OF LIFE.