Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

#4821 HUMPHREYS Edward  15th Infantry Battalion
 
Edward Humphreys was born on 8th September 1897 in Maryborough, Qld, to Alfred and Sophia Humphreys. It is likely that as soon as the young Edward was old enough to travel, his parents boarded the Gayndah train and returned to their property “Bluff View” at Emu Creek, Degilbo. Young Edward attended school at Emu Creek and then in all likelihood worked on the family farm.
 
Two weeks after his eighteenth birthday, Edward presented himself for enlistment in Brisbane. Even though he was 5’9” tall and weighed in at 11 stone, he was underage and would have required a parent’s consent. The usual form for such consent is not present in his file and it can only be assumed that one of his parents accompanied him to Brisbane to enlist or the recruiting officer was prepared to ignore the requirement. In any event, Edward was accepted into the AIF. He stated his occupation as farmer and named his father Alfred of “Bluff View” Emu Creek, Degilbo as his next of kin. Edward was initially placed in a depot battalion at Enoggera before being allocated as part of the 15th reinforcements for the 15th Infantry Battalion. While undergoing basic training, Edward was granted several days home leave prior to embarkation.
 
Edward and about 100 other reinforcements boarded the “Commonwealth” in Brisbane on 28th March 1916. The embarkation roll indicates that Edward had allocated 4/- of his daily pay of 5/- to his mother. The reinforcements landed in Alexandria in Egypt on 5th May 1916 and Edward was immediately admitted to the base hospital with a case of mumps, a very common and contagious disease amongst WW1 soldiers.
 
The 15th Battalion, which Edward would ultimately join had seen action at Gallipoli from the first day. When the Gallipoli front was closed down the 15th was withdrawn to Egypt along with the rest of the AIF force. With a large number of troops in Egypt, both Gallipoli veterans and new reinforcements, the size of the AIF was doubled by splitting original battalions to create the nucleus of two new battalions. The 15th was divided and a number of officers and NCOs then formed a second battalion; the 47th. Edward would have been allocated to the existing 15th Battalion but his illness kept him in hospital. By the time he was discharged, the 15thBattalion had already sailed to Marseilles in Southern France; and then by train to the Armentieres sector of the Western Front.
 
From Egypt, Edward was sent a Training Battalion at Rollestone in England before being shipped via Southampton to the British training and transit facility at Etaples on the French coast. When Edward was taken on strength by the 15th on 7th September 1916, the battalion had just come out of the line after a torrid time at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm. The battalion was badly in need of a rest and reinforcements to make good the losses of the previous August. An indication of the losses sustained is reflected in the fact that only nine days after joining his battalion for the first time, Edward was promoted to Lance Corporal. He had just turned 19.
 
The 15th battalion as part of the 4th Brigade of the 4th Australian Division spent the remainder of 1916 in camp engaging in drills and performing trench work. As winter approached, which would prove to be the coldest winter in almost 50 years, the Australians suffered terribly from exposure. There was very little fighting as both sides were using all their energy in staying alive. The Australian uniform was inadequate in dealing with snow, frost and frozen mud in the frontline trenches. As an emergency provision, sheepskin vests and mittens were hurriedly shipped from Australia to the front. Various comfort funds knitted socks, scarves and balaclavas for distribution to the troops.
 
In February of 1917, Edward reported to a Field Ambulance with a case of trench feet, caused by immersion in water and mud while in the front areas. He remained in the field ambulance for almost a month but with no improvement, Edward was transported by hospital ship on 12th March to the Military Hospital at Dulwich in South London for further treatment. Upon discharge from hospital, Edward was granted a two week furlough before reporting to the Australian training depot at Perham Downs where he remained until 26th July before being posted back to his battalion.
 
When Edward rejoined his battalion, the 15th was engaged in serious training in preparation for being put back into the line in Flanders. The battalion war diary describes a situation in which many men had become gun shy and were incapable of loading and firing the .303 rifle. A range was constructed and many hours were spent with live ammunition in an effort to get a firing rate of 10 shots a minute.
 
In September of 1917, a new field of operations was opened by the British in Belgian Flanders. The campaign was designated the 3rd Battle of Ypres but most people referred to it as Passchendaele. The strategy was to proceed eastwards from the town of Ypres towards the Gheluvelt Plateau upon which sat the villages of Zonnebeke and Passchendaele using a technique known as “bite and hold.” The first step or bite was the battle of Menin Road in the middle of September which was to be closely followed a second bite against Polygon Wood.
 
The 1st and 2nd Australian Divisions had successfully prosecuted the advance at Menin Road and progressed the line up to the edge of wooded area which because of its shape on maps was referred to as Polygon Wood. The 4th and 5th Divisions of the AIF were charged with capturing Polygon Wood with the 5thDivision better rested and so given the task of the Wood itself. The 4th Division had the slightly easier task of taking Tokio Spur to the left of the wood.
 
Polygon Wood was Edward’s first major engagement and he must have acquitted himself well as he was soon promoted to full corporal. With the coming of early Autumn rains in Flanders, the battlefield turned into a sea of mud which swallowed men, animals and vehicles. The British General Haig threw brigade after brigade into the quagmire in a desperate hope of taking the Gheluvelt Plateau and the village of Passchendaele but the weather defeated all attempts. Exhausted, the five Australian divisions were withdrawn from the front and went into comfortable billets and Nissen Huts around Poperinghe. On the last day of 1917, Edward was again promoted; this time to Lance Sergeant.
 
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in late 1917 and the subsequent armistice on the Eastern Front presented the German High Command with an additional 50 odd divisions that could then be switched to the Western Front in 1918. The advantage would only last up until the vast resources of the United States (which had entered the war in 1917) could be recruited, trained and shipped to the Western Front. The most likely time for a German offensive was the spring of 1918. To meet the threat, the British Commander placed his best and most experienced troops, the AIF, to meet an expected German attack in Belgium.
 
When operation Michael commenced on 21st March 1918, the main thrust was not in Belgium but along the valley of the Somme in France. The Somme had been a major battleground during 1916 where the British and Dominion forces had pushed the Germans back to the Hindenburg Line, but at great cost. The German stormtroopers who were the spearhead of Operation Michael retook all of that lost ground and continued to threaten important cities such as Albert and Amiens. In a desperate attempt to stem the German tide, General Douglas Haig ordered units of the AIF to move quickly south into defensive positions in front of Amiens, astride the Somme and Ancre Rivers.
 
On 25th March, the 15th Battalion along with the other three battalions of the 4th Brigade packed up their camp and boarded buses to be positioned in a defensive screen at Hebeuterne, north of Albert. The other two brigades of the 4th Division were rushed further south to meet German threats on the south bank of the Somme. The 4th Brigade continued to hold the line at Hebeuterne through the first weeks of April as more and more Australian brigades were rushed south to defend Amiens. It was during these weeks that Douglas Haig issued his famous “backs to the wall” speech.
 
On 25th April, the German assault was finally halted at the village of Villers Bretonneux by two AIF brigades. Operation Michael had been stopped and the line held. For the next two months, the Australians consolidated their positions and engaged in what Lt Gen Monash described as “peaceful penetration,” which consisted of harassment of the enemy by trench raids and the capture of enemy soldiers to gain intelligence. The war diary of the 15th Battalion describes this period as almost routine with the capture of men, weapons and important intelligence.
 
By the end of June, many of Monash’s troops were still located around Villers Bretonneux. Just to the north of Villers Bretonneux was the village of Hamel and the Germans still occupied the high ground above Hamel which gave a commanding view of the Australian forces below. In an attempt to dislodge the German defenders from the high ground, Monash proposed a relatively small action to capture two lines of trenches. Hamel would prove to be that point in Monash’s career in which his incredible ability to plan and coordinate an intricate battle plan made him the most successful field commander of the war.
 
Hamel would include mainly Australian brigades but Monash was also persuaded to include men from the 33rd Illinois National Guard which was training in the area. In a salute to the American allies, Monash chose American Independence Day, 4th July, for the day of the battle. For a week before the big day, Monash had his artillery bombard the German trenches with a mixture of high explosive and gas. On the actual day of the attack, the gas was dispensed with and replaced with smoke but the defenders, having been preconditioned for the previous week donned their gas masks which severely hampered their ability to see what was happening around them.
 
The 15th battalion, with a company of 200 Americans attached, set off from the jumping off tapes at 3:10 am, just as it began to grow light. The troops were protected by a creeping artillery barrage and were supported by a number of Mark VI tanks, some of which provided supplies of water, ammunition and tools to the advancing troops. Aircraft from Number 6 Squadron AFC provided ammunition drops by parachute as well as real time artillery spotting. The first objective, Pear Trench, was soon reached and overrun. Private Henry Dalziel of the 15th Battalion was awarded a Victoria Cross for his action at Pear Trench that day.
 
Ninety three minutes after the assault began (Monash planned for ninety minutes) all objectives, including the highest part of the ridge, the Wolfsberg, had been taken and the troops were digging in. Hamel was a spectacular success but as was always the case, any successful advance was answered by an artillery assault on the newly won positions by the German gunners.
 
Witness reports from the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Inquiry Service state that Edward Humphreys and three men from his section; Oates, Wilson and Ryan, were sheltering in a captured trench when a stick of artillery shells came over and exploded in the trench about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, killing all four. Corporal Maloney buried all four men together in a shell hole grave and marked the spot with a marker.
 
The letters in Edward’s file from his mother reveal the extent of the heart break she felt at the death of her son and the efforts she went to learn of the manner of his death and the location of his grave. She wrote a number of times that Edward was only 18 when he enlisted. She also wrote enquiring about his personal effects convinced that somewhere in his belongings Edward had left her a message. In due course, Sofia Humphreys received a wallet, photos and a notebook.
 
At the conclusion of hostilities, isolated graves that could be identified were combined into large permanent cemeteries. The remains of Corporal Humphreys and Privates Oates, Wilson and Ryan were exhumed and all four of the mates were reinterred beside each other in the Villers Bretonneux Military Cemetery on a hill which overlooks the village of Hamel.
Alfred and Sofia Humphreys chose the following inscription for their son’s headstone:
DEAR SON OF MR & MRS A HUMPHREYS OF DEGILBO
DEEPLY REGRETTED
The final communication in Edward’s file is a letter from Alfred dated 1925 informing the authorities that he and his wife planned to travel to England and then on to France to visit Edward’s grave. It is to be hoped they succeeded in their pilgrimage.