Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

"LATE PTE. L. G. MORRISON.

Mr. P. Morrison, of Broken Hill, has been notified that his son, Pte. L. G. Morrison, had been killed in action, in France, on August 16. The deceased was born in Broken Hill, and was 22 years of age. He received his education at Prince Alfred College and Roseworthy Agricultural College. He enlisted from Oakbank, and left Australia in January last. His sterling character and unassuming disposition won him many friends." - from the Adelaide Register 25 Sep 1916 (nla.gov.au)

From Francois Somme

Pte 4229 Leslie Gow Morrison
50th Australian Infantry Battalion,
13th Brigade, 4th Australian Division, AIF
 
More than a hundred years ago, the peaceful villages of northern France and the surrounding fields, in the turmoil of a war of terrible brutality, under tons of shells, under rains of steel, were transformed into piles of smoking red brick ruins from which emanated the smell of despair and death and, in this darkness which spread across the Somme, the golden wheat, the red poppies, under machine-gun fire, under barbed wire, became killing fields, nothing less than open-air slaughterhouses which, in battles which were among the deadliest of the Great War, were real meat grinders in which fought and fell thousands of men who, then in the prime of their lives, answered the call and served far from home with bravery in the name of peace and freedom, who marched side by side in the trenches and charged together like brothers, united in fraternity in terrible assaults led with bayonets forward amidst the lifeless bodies of their friends in a hell of mud and blood never before seen and who, under shrapnel, under grenades, under hail of lead, collapsed side by side in sacred grounds on which stand today the graves of those brave souls taken too soon in the hell of war and who today, silently, forever young, walk through the poppies that bear the memory of those men over whom I will always watch with the deepest respect to perpetuate their memory so that their sacrifices are never forgotten, so that their stories and their names can forever be remembered.

On this day, it is with the utmost respect and with the deepest gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, one of my boys of the Somme who, for two brother nations united in remembrance, for Australia and France, gave his life.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Private number 4229 Leslie Gow Morrison who fought bravely in the 50th Australian Infantry Battalion, 13th Brigade, 4th Australian Division of the Australian Imperial Force, and who was killed in action 108 years ago, on 16th August 1916 at the age of 23 during the Battle of the Somme.

Leslie Gow Morrison was born on 5 July 1893 in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, and was the son of Peter and Elizabeth Ann Morrison, of Portrash Road, Toorak, Adelaide, South Australia. He was educated at Prince Alfred College, and Roseworthy Agricultural College, South Australia, and after graduation worked as a farmer until the outbreak of war.

In Australia, the outbreak of the first world war was greeted with considerable enthusiasm. Even before Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, the nation pledged its support alongside other states of the British Empire and almost immediately began preparations to send forces overseas to engage in the conflict. The first campaign that Australians were involved in was in German New Guinea after a hastily raised force known as the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force was dispatched in September 1914 from Australia and seized and held German possessions in the Pacific. At the same time another expeditionary force, initially consisting of 20,000 men and known as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), was raised for service overseas.

in turn, seeing his friends join the overseas battlefields and pushed by the hope of a great adventure, Leslie answered the call and enlisted on 23 August 1915 in Adelaide, South Australia, as a Private in the 10th Australian Infantry Battalion, B Company, 13th Reinforcement and after a training period of just over four months at Morphettville Racecourse, near Adelaide where he learned the first rudiments of modern warfare and the use of a rifle, he embarked with his unit from Adelaide, on board HMAT A30 Borda on 11 January 1916 and sailed for Egypt, arriving at Zeitoun on 29 February and was transferred the same day to the 50th Australian Infantry Battalion at Tel-El-Kebir.

The 50th Battalion was raised in Egypt on February 26, 1916 as part of the process that was known as "doubling the AIF" to create the 4th and 5th Divisions and was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Hurcombe, the original Second in Command of the 10th Battalion on its formation in August 1914. On return from the Gallipoli campaign to Egypt, the Australian Brigades (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) of the ANZAC Corps formed the basis of the creation of the 4th Division and 5th Divisions. To create the new Divisions, sixteen original battalions were "split" to create the new so-called "pup" battalions.

By seeding the new Battalions with a core of experienced Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers and soldiers from the parent Battalions and reinforcing them with newly arrived recruits from Australia, the "doubling of the AIF" was achieved, although not without some angst when the original battalions were split and former comrades went their separate ways.

After Leslie was transferred to the 50th Battalion, his unit played an important role in the defence of the Suez Canal and then, after an intense and particularly difficult period in the desert, without effective water supplies, during long marches in the dunes during which several men had to be treated for sunstroke and advanced dehydration, the 50th reached Alexandria from where they proceeded to France on June 5, 1916, on the troop transport "Arcadian".

On 12th June 1916, after a week of an uneventful travel, Leslie and his unit finally arrived in sight of the French coast and were disembarked at Marseilles in the south of the country. From there they were entrained for the north of France and arrived at Rouge-Croix near Laventie where they underwent a month's training period and then on 13th July marched to the railway station at Bailleul and proceeded to the Somme and reached the village of Pernois on 15th July where they awaited further instructions and took advantage of this respite to improve the battalion's efficiency and professionalism through numerous tactical and physical exercises such as bayonet fighting, musketry exercises, routes marches, and practice attacks in open ground. On 29th July the battalion finally received new orders and marched to Herissart, a few kilometers from the front line and the trenches of the hell of the Somme.

On 2nd August 1916, Leslie and the troops of the 50th Battalion left Herissart and marched, under the thunder of artillery, into billets at Vadencourt and bivouacked in a wood near the village to avoid detection by possible enemy aeroplanes. Here they resumed their training and then a few days later, on 6th August, moved to "Brickfield", in the immediate vicinity of the town of Albert.

Albert was situated right in the middle of the Allied advance to the Somme and sustained heavy damage from constant German shelling. Albert had, in the Village centre, an impressive Romanesque Basilica with a high tower that was crowned by a gilded statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding aloft the infant Jesus. As its tower commanded a wide view of the countryside, it became an observation post for both German and British forces. However, by 1916, and because of the damage from the shelling, the statue of Mary and the child Jesus was dislodged which caused it to lean precariously without toppling.

British and Anzac soldiers named it the "Leaning Virgin of Albert" and a folk legend was created in that when the statue fell, or was knocked down, the war would end. It was a legend that was firmly believed by the soldiers, however, in 1918 the whole tower was destroyed, but the legend lived on.

On 12th August 1916, after a final prayer to the leaning Virgin Mary, Leslie and the 50th Battalion finally marched to the front line at Pozieres, through a hell on earth of destroyed trenches with hands and legs sticking out, and with great difficulty, reached their position in the line of fire, the "Wire Trench" and upon arrival were immediately heavily pounded by German artillery with exacerbated brutality and devastating precision which already caused heavy casualties in the ranks of the 50th. Later the same day, they witnessed an air combat which ended with the fall of a German plane which crashed in a ball of fire directly in front of the lines held by the battalion who, under this hellish fire, held their positions with exceptional courage but in difficult conditions due to the lack of rationing of food and water. On 14th August, the battalion's war diary notes that they suffered a "terrific bombardment all day" which further destroyed the already damaged trenches held by Leslie and his comrades but which also pulverized many dugouts and machine gun posts, resulting in very heavy losses once again. In this hell, many wounded lay on the ground and the stretcher bearers, despite admirable courage, had great difficulty evacuating their comrades to treatment stations. This day, for the 50th, was one of the worst of the entire war and suffered the loss of 110 men killed and 400 wounded, a large proportion of whom were seriously affected by shell shock.

Sadly it was at Pozieres on 16th August that Leslie met his fate and as he and his battalion were being relieved by men of the 4th Australian Infantry Battalion, German artillery opened fire and a shell landed near Leslie who was killed instantly. He was 23 years old.

Today, Leslie Gow Morrison rests in peace alongside his friends, comrades and brothers in arms at Courcelette British Cemetery, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "The dearly loved son of MR. and Mrs. P. Morrison of Toorak, Adelaide."

After Leslie's death, his obituary was written and published on September 25, 1916 in the "Adelaide Register" as follows:
"late Private Leslie Gow Morrison,
Mr. P. Morrison, of Broken Hill, has been notified that his son, Pte. L. G. Morrison, had been killed in action, in France, on August 16. The deceased was born in Broken Hill, and was 23 years of age. He received his education at Prince Alfred College and Roseworthy Agricultural College. He enlisted from Oakbank, and left Australia in January last. His sterling character and unassuming disposition won him many friends."

Leslie, over a hundred years ago, in the fields of the Somme, you gave your life. It was so long ago but today, more than ever your memory remains strong and alive and with respect, with love, we remember you, we remember with gratitude the man that you were and who, for his country, without fear and without hesitation but with determination, answered the call to do his duty, to do his bit alongside your comrades, your friends who, united in the ANZAC spirit, advanced towards the battlefields of northern France and pushed forward by proud hearts, by a high fighting spirit, under the thunder of artillery, through the neighing of horses, alongside the mechanical clicking of the first tanks, reached the muddy, sticky, dark and stinking trenches of the Somme whose once green and peaceful fields were nothing more than fields of death, slaughterhouses in which a whole generation of men fought and killed each other during battles that were among the deadliest and bloodiest of a terrible war that was triggered by a few shots in 1914 in Sarajevo during an attack that, in a few weeks, set the whole world ablaze and pushed an entire youth towards the grave, towards suffering and death under a hail of bullets. This war could have been avoided but for certain men of power, the conquest of more power pushed them to sacrifice their sons who, in blood, in tears, collapsed in the barbed wire, silent graves of so many fathers and brothers who, for their country, for their loved ones, for their children, sacrificed their youth and agreed to pay the supreme sacrifice far from home in shell holes filled with guts and decomposing bodies.

So young, they had their whole lives ahead of them, a family waiting for them or waiting to be built in the love of men who, for the greatest causes, in the name of peace and freedom, with ardor, like lions with hearts filled with bravery, hopes and dreams, fought side by side in the most beautiful spirit of camaraderie and brotherhood that gave them the strength to hold the front line while they were bombarded day and night by increasingly large shells, which, falling all around them at an absolutely infernal pace, dragged them a little more each day towards madness and despair but, in friendship, in solidarity, they held on and on, never complaining about what they endured nor without ever asking why because above all, if they volunteered, it was to be with their comrades who, in this nightmare of steel, fire and blood became brothers, it was to to stand alongside men they respected and loved and it was in this deep mateship that they went over the top, climbing the wooden ladders to the sound of whistles and charging bayonets forward under the shrapnel, under the bullets, with a determined and courageous step under the murderous and implacable fire of the machine guns, howling like courageous devils in this apocalypse which was their only youth, their only world but, in the explosions, under the bursts, in the flames, in the tears and the complaints of agony which were heard in the fields of the Somme, these heroes fell, giving their lives for what was dear to them and, after so much suffering and chaos, joined, so many of them, the innumerable rows of their white graves which today, stand in the silence and peace of our small villages which remember with emotion, with admiration and pride of the Australians who, far from home, for us, gave their lives so what can I do that would not make me more proud on this day to honour their memory and watch over them. For me, there is no greater honour or privilege to stand respectfully before them to tell who they were, to bring them back to life so that the names of these young men, beyond the poppies of the sacred grounds of the Somme, may live on forever.

Thank you so much Leslie, for all you gave and did for my country that will always watch over you with the deepest love that will forever belong to you.At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember him,we will remember them.