Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 3219 POSTLE Edgar Morton                                    52nd / 49th Battalions
Edgar Postle was born in the farming community of Springside outside of Pittsworth on Queensland’s Darling Downs. Edgar and his brother Percy attended Springside State School before leaving school to work with parents Arthur and Frances on the family farm. The family moved north into the South Burnett and took up a block, “Kia Ora”, at Memerambi just outside Kingaroy. Edgar was a well built young man standing 6 feet tall and was a member of the Kingaroy Rifle Club. Like many young men from the South Burnett towns, Edgar took the train to Maryborough to enlist at the recruiting depot on 16th October 1916.
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, Edgar as a 23 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 servicemen who were volunteers. In the end, the conscription proposal was narrowly defeated.
Edgar travelled by train to Brisbane and then on to Enoggera where he handed over his paperwork and was allocated to a depot battalion for initial training. On 3rd December, Edgar was granted 4 days leave to return to Memerambi to see his family and friends before departing for overseas. Edgar was part of the 8threinforcements of the 52nd Battalion. The 52nd was a composite battalion made up of enlistments from the smaller states and was part of the 13th Brigade of the 4th Division AIF. The Queensland reinforcements boarded the “Demosthenes” in Sydney on 23rd December 1916, for the voyage to England.
Upon arrival in Plymouth on 3rd March 1917, the reinforcements proceeded to the 13th Training Battalion at Codford on Salisbury Plain for further training. Edgar was posted to France on 25th June and was taken on strength by the 52nd Battalion on 16th July. The 52nd had been in action on the first day of the Messines battle the month before and when Edgar joined their numbers, the battalion was in the rear areas preparing for the next battle in the Ypres campaign; the Battle of Menin Road.
Once Messines Ridge had been cleared of the enemy, a series of limited attacks using a bite and hold technique was planned beginning at the ramparts of Ypres and progressing eastwards towards the Broodseinde Ridge and the village of Passchendaele. The objective for Menin Road was to secure the left flank of the proposed advance by capturing the high ground of the Gheluvelt Plateau. The advance began on 25th September 1917 and all objectives were taken with only light (compared to other actions in the Ypres campaign) casualties. Unfortunately, during the engagement, Edgar Postle received a burst of machine gun fire and was wounded in the left leg and arm.
Edgar was quite swiftly evacuated to London and four days after being wounded was in the 1st Southern General Hospital in London where he remained until being transferred to the Australian Hospital at Harefield Park in West London. Edgar was granted a two week furlough, a common practice for recuperating wounded, and returned to the training establishment at Codford on 7th November. During December, Edgar spent 21 days in the VD wards at Bulford Hospital before returning to Codford. He was posted overseas on 1st February 1918 and within a week was back with the 52nd Battalion which was wintering around Poperinghe in Belgium.
With the coming of spring in 1918, the German commander Ludendorff took advantage of a temporary numerical superiority of troops to launch a surprise offensive against the British on the Somme. So successful was this offensive that in a few days the Germans had retaken all of the ground surrendered earlier in the war during 1916 and 1917; and were even threatening the vital communication hub of Amiens.
 
In response, Haig ordered the 3rd and 4th Australian Divisions to be rushed south. The first units to be mobilized were battalions of the 12th and 13th Brigades; which included the 52nd Battalion. The battalion boarded buses and trucks for the journey south on 25th March but only got about half way to their destination before orders were changed and they spent 24 hours awaiting new orders.
 
The 12th and 13th brigades were ordered to make their way to Dernacourt, a small village on the railway line between Amiens and Albert. This deployment required a forced march of almost 30 kilometres through the night with the entire German army somewhere out on the left. There were reports that German armoured cars were on the roads but the cars proved to be French farm machinery.
 
 Upon arrival at the assigned position, the two brigades were ordered to take up positions on a ridge facing the gathering Germans on the other side of the railway line. There were no trenches and the men had to dig shallow pits while under enemy artillery fire. Over the next four days, the men of the 12th and 13th Brigades established a forward defensive line on the railway embankment. The enemy were only a few hundred metres away, massing in large numbers for an attack. Almost opposite the village of Dernacourt was a railway underpass which had been chosen as the boundary between the two brigades with the 12th on the left of the underpass and the 13th on the right. Edgar was probably in one of the three companies of the 52ndwhich were holding the railway embankment
 
A massive attack by up to three German divisions began at dawn on 5th April. The situation appeared desperate as German storm troopers poured through the railway underpass and split the two brigades holding the line. The three companies of the 52nd had to withdraw under heavy enemy fire.
The situation was saved by a last minute counter attack mounted by two 12th Brigade battalions. Dernacourt was a close run thing but two brigades of Australians had held back almost three divisions of enemy stormtroopers. By any measure, it was an impressive feat. The situation on the Somme remained desperate during April, which caused Haig to issue his famous “backs to the wall” communique. It was not until 25thApril that the German advance was halted at Villers Bretonneux. Amiens was saved but the German army remained in threatening positions.
For reasons that are unclear, in May 1918, Edgar was transferred from the 52nd Battalion to the 49thBattalion; the Queensland Battalion that had taken part in the counterattack at Dernacourt in April. During May and June, the Australian forces on the Somme began to engage in what was known as “peaceful penetration”, which was just another name for night time forays into no man’s land to unsettle the enemy.
It was recorded that on the 11th June 1918 near Sailly le Sec, Edgar Postle was killed instantly while on fatigue duties with the 49th Battalion during an artillery bombardment. He was buried in a temporary cemetery at Vaux with a clergyman in attendance. When the Australian Cemetery at Villers Bretonneux was established by the Imperial War Graves Commission in 1920, the remains of many Australian soldiers, including Edgar Postle, were exhumed from smaller cemeteries in the Somme region and reinterred at Villers Bretonneux. The inscription on his headstone reads: IN LOVING MEMORY OF OUR DEAR SON AND BROTHER PEACE PERFECT PEACE.