Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

David Buzza was born in the coal mining town of Howard to George and Catherine Buzza. George Buzza was a carpenter by trade who had apprenticed both David and his elder brother John. When David reported to the Adelaide Street recruiting depot on 16th March 1916, he reported he had been apprenticed to his father for seven years and gave his occupation as builder. David was 27 years old. He is recorded as having enlisted on the same day as Arthur Bramley of Degilbo. It is possible that Arthur and David had travelled to Brisbane together to enlist.
 
David and Arthur were originally allocated to a depot battalion at Enoggera before being drafted into the newly raised 41st Infantry Battalion. Arthur and David, in company with the 1000 or so members of the battalion journeyed by train from Brisbane to Sydney where they boarded the “Demosthenes” on 18th May 1916. They arrived in Plymouth on 20th July after two months at sea travelling via the Cape of Good Hope. From Plymouth, the battalion marched out to the 3rd Division Training Camp at Larkhill.
 
The 3rd Division was under the command of a newly appointed divisional commander, Major General John Monash. Monash, unlike the other divisional commanders in the AIF at that time was not a career soldier. He had built a reputation as an engineer, lawyer and part time soldier in Victoria; and had been a brigade commander on Gallipoli. The 3rd Division was to be entirely Monash’s creation as he set to work on a detailed syllabus of training. The King, George V, was keen to meet this famous soldier and his volunteer army. His Majesty travelled down to Larkhill by train to inspect the division. Monash put on quite a show and it took almost two hours for the division to parade past, during which time the King and Monash both mounted on their horses chatted amicably. They would meet again almost two years later when the King would invest Monash with his knighthood in the field.
 
The 3rd Division continued to train in England while the other 4 divisions of the AIF fought battles at Fromelles, Pozieres and Mouquet Farm, Flers, Bapaume and Bullecourt. Monash was determined to ensure that his division was the best trained in the AIF. The 3rd Division crossed the English Channel on 24thNovember 1916 and went into billets around the French Belgian border.
 
As the fighting on the Western Front wound down during the winter months and both sides were more preoccupied with fighting the weather than each other, the British Commander, Douglas Haig, was planning on a new offensive for the summer of 1917. He proposed a methodical advance in the Ypres salient in Belgian Flanders. The 3rd Division of the AIF would form an integral part of the overall plan.
 
The ultimate aim of the 3rd Battle of Ypres was to capture the Belgian ports then in enemy hands and thereby deprive the Germans of access to the English Channel; but first a low ridge to the east of Ypres on which the village of Passchendaele was situated had to be secured; and before the Passchendaele Ridge could be taken, the Germans had to be removed from the Messines Ridge which overlooked the fields of Flanders.
 
The 3rd battle of Ypres; often incorrectly referred to as Passchendaele; began on 7th June 1917 with the blowing of 19 underground mines that had been tunnelled under the Messines Ridge, followed by an infantry advance to throw the Germans off the ridge. Monash’s 3rd Division had a key role in this. For David, Messines was his first major action. Although the 41st Battalion had only a supporting role on the opening day, David was sent out to a Field Ambulance with a mild case of gas poisoning. He rejoined the battalion in time to be subjected to a severe test when the 41st was tasked with manning and holding a captured trench. The Germans retaliated with an almost constant artillery barrage of high explosive and gas. The 41stendured the onslaught for 18 days in the line, by which time the battalion strength was down to a third as a result of fatalities, wounding and the effects of gas.
 
After Messines, the 41st Battalion spent several months building up numbers. In October 1917, the battalion went back to the front at Polygon Wood and Broodseinde. Official records indicate that on 5th October at Broodseinde Ridge, David Buzza was killed in action.
 
Enquiries were made through the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Inquiry Service into the circumstances surrounding David’s death and any subsequent burial. One witness stated that he had been “blown to pieces”, and there was no credible report of a burial.
 
Catherine Buzza was granted a pension of one pound a fortnight as result of the loss of her son. David Buzza is commemorated on the tablets of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres. He shares the space with the names of 54,000 dominion soldiers who died in Flanders and have no known grave. Since the dedication of the Menin Gate in 1927, the citizens of Ypres have conducted a memorial service each evening under the vaulted roof of the memorial, except the four years of occupation in the 1940’s, which includes the recitation of the ode and the playing of the last post.
 
The Australian war artist, Will Longstaff, attended the dedication of the Menin Gate Memorial in 1927. He was so moved by the experience that he created the most famous of all art works held by the Australian War Memorial. “The Menin Gate at Midnight” toured every state capital in the 1920’s and hundreds of thousands of people went to see it.