Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

John Peter Wade, was the first born son of Edward Robert Wade and Johannah (nee Speck) of Solomontown, South Australia. He was born on 1 January 1881 in Merriton, South Australia, near Crystal Brook. John was listed as a labourer when he signed up for service in WWI.

1916

At age thirty-five, John Peter Wade signed his A.I.F. Attestation Papers in Adelaide on Friday 2 June 1916, was given the regimental number 2455, and was assigned to the 5th Pioneer Battalion – 4th Reinforcement. This battalion embarked on the troopship ‘HMAT Itria’, from Port Adelaide on Monday 14 August 1916, arriving at Plymouth, England on Monday 30 October.

John spent two months at the AASC (Australian Army Service Corps) Training Depot at Parkhouse, on the Salisbury Plains, learning basic road, rail and trench construction.

1917

The 5th Pioneer Battalion – 4th Reinforcement group went aboard the ‘SS Princess Victoria’, at Folkestone, and crossing the English channel to Etaples, entering the 5th ADBD (Australian Divisional Base Depot) on 1 January 1917.

John was one of the one hundred and forty-nine reinforcements that joined the 5th Pioneer Battalion, at Vignacourt on the Somme, on 7 March 1917.

April 1917, on the Somme, started with a violent snowstorm that was a major hindrance for the 5th Pioneer Battalion’s construction work. John Peter Wade was kept busy dodging the German artillery as he, along with the rest of the 5th Pioneer Battalion, repaired the Bueudecourt road south of Bapaume. At the end of the month the battalion were camped at Fricourt Farm for a one week rest and sporting activities. A stadium was erected and a boxing tournament was held, as well as a football match.

The 5th Pioneers were on the move again on the morning of 9 May 1917, after a four mile march to Bazentin they loaded all their equipment, materials and themselves onto the light rail for the nine mile trip to Bapaume, where they relieved the 2nd Pioneer Battalion. That night their camp was shelled and one tent, full of men, received a direct hit. Twelve men were killed and twenty-three wounded. They were back in the firing line of the German artillery.

Their work in this area was the construction of a two mile long light rail system from Vaulx-Vraucourt north-east to Noreuil. On Friday 18 May a group of five soldiers, including John were detailed to cart mining timbers up to the Hindenburg line for the tunnelling company. On the return journey the soldiers were bombed, with German gas shells exploding overhead, they returned to camp but by the next morning they all felt the affect of the gas.

John Peter Wade, along with the other soldiers bombed, was initially treated at the No.47 Casualty Clearing station at Albert. After a week’s observation the worst affected men, which included John, were loaded onto the ambulance train for the sixty mile trip to Etaples where they arrived on 2 June. John was admitted to the No.2 General Hospital for three days and transferred to the No.6 Convalescent Depot, Etaples where he stayed until 10 June.

During John’s absence the rest of the 5th Pioneer Battalion relocated to Thilloy and commenced digging the defences around Bancourt, which involved the construction of a three foot deep by three foot wide trench, with a camouflaged parapet wall, six hundred yards long. The trench system also included machine gun posts and barbed wire defences.

John Peter Wade rejoined the 5th Pioneers, from hospital, on Wednesday 20 June just as the training had commenced. The training was interrupted for a few days when the battalion was detailed to clean out two miles of the River Ancre, from Aveluy north to Authuille and construct a field firing range at Henencourt, three miles north.

In July and August 1917, the 5th Pioneer Battalion was kept busy creating pontoons, bridges and tracks across the marshes around Corbie and Lealvillers, after which they were trucked 60 miles north to Blaringhen. Mid August they were trucked the 25 miles to Ouderdom, Belgium where they constructed a number of gun positions, after which they marched to Dickebusch 2 miles north. From Dickebusch, during September, they were involved in the construction of the forward roads, partially metalled and planked, to Zillebeke. During the construction of the roads the battalion were under constant shelling and sniping by the enemy. On 18 September 1917 a ferocious enemy attack left three men dead and seventeen wounded.

The 5th Pioneer Battalion were successful in repairing the shell holes on the Glencorse Wood road by 25 September, permitting motor traffic for two miles and horse traffic thereafter. The Australian 5th Division attacked the German positions on the Menin Road on Wednesday 26 September 1917.

1918

When the rumours of a major German offensive were intercepted in early 1918, John Peter Wade and the rest of the 5th Pioneer Battalion were ordered back to the Somme, where they set up camp at Arqueves, ten miles north-west of Albert.

In March 1918, the Germans commenced their ‘Spring Offensive’ in an all out effort to bring about an end to the war. With the arrival of the soldiers from the eastern front they realised that their troop numbers, on the western front, were greater than the Allies. The timing of the offensive was also related to the United States entering the war and starting to mobilise troops to assist the Allies.

In the early morning of 21 March 1918 a five hour artillery barrage was commenced by the Germans, utilising normal explosive bombs, shrapnel bombs and poison gas shells. At the conclusion of the artillery barrage the German soldiers, wearing gas masks, moved forward through the poison gas clouds and a heavy fog with their aim to surge across the River Somme. Reports were that the visibility was near zero, and soldiers on both sides had problems identifying friend from foe.

The Germans captured the bridges across the River Somme, before the French could destroy them, and the German Army crossed the Somme on Monday 24 March, 1918. The next day they broke through the Allied front-line and kept moving across the Somme. The 44th Battalion A.I.F. engaged the Germans near Sailly-Laurette, a village twelve miles east of Amiens and six miles south-west of Albert, on 28 March. The Germans launched a full frontal attack, out of Sailly–Laurette village, and came towards the Australians, across open ground with no artillery support, and the Australian Lewis guns, machine guns and rifle fire shot them to oblivion. After ten minutes the advance became retreat.

The Germans tried to cross the open fields three times that day, and engage the Australian line, but each time they were met with a hail of fire and at dusk they retired. The German advance was held on this front by the Australians, with supporting British units, until 4 July.

Meanwhile, twenty miles to the north, John Peter Wade and the rest of the 5th Pioneer Battalion were still encamped at Arqueves. Eighteen miles south of Arqueves, at Villers-Bretonneux, the Germans were pushing north, capturing Hamel on 4 April with fifteen divisions, and attempted to capture Villers-Bretonneux. The British, and the 4th Division A.I.F. at Dernancourt, held the Germans back until 24 April when the Germans captured Villers-Bretonneux.

On the night of 24 April, British and Australian Brigades recaptured the town of Villers-Bretonneux, driving the Germans from the town and the adjacent woods. The German ‘Spring Offensive’ was starting to falter. The Allies began to prepare the launch of their own counter-offensive.

On 8 August 1918, the Allies launched their counter-attack, which they named ‘The Hundred Days Offensive’. On the morning of 8 August John Peter Wade and the rest of the 5th Pioneer Battalion worked in front of the advancing infantry, repairing the road from Villers-Brettoneux north to Warfusee-Abancourt, near Amiens. The road works were necessary to ensure that the Allied armoured cars, motor transport and horse wagons had a smooth path as they advanced inside the Germans boundaries.

The war, on the Western Front, was gradually becoming more difficult for the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, after their withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in September 1918. The Allied armies, advancing from the south, liberated Serbia and put pressure on Austria-Hungary. Bulgaria, the first of the Central Powers to surrender, signed an armistice on 29 September. At this time Germany and Austria-Hungary had no intention of surrendering, even though Germany’s government was undergoing a revolution, and Austria-Hungary’s army was collapsing amid mass mutiny.

Following the Battle of Beaurevoir, all battalions of the A.I.F. were removed from the front-line on 5 October, after a request from the Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes. The Australian Forces had become severely depleted and manpower shortages, resulting from the decrease in the volunteer numbers from Australia, were taking their toll. A decision had also been made to grant home leave to men who had served for more than four years.

1919

In April 1919 John Peter Wade and what remained of the 5th Pioneer Battalion were still in Belgium, stationed at Silenrieux. On 7 April the 5th Pioneer Battalion, with the majority of its soldiers repatriated, was amalgamated with the 5th Machine-Gun Battalion. John was part of Repatriation Quota 31, which consisted of two officers, nine sergeants and one hundred and ninety-eight other ranks, who were paid on 8 April and departed the camp the next day, by train, bound for Le Havre, France and the AGBD (Australian General Base Depot).

They remained at Le Havre until Wednesday 16 April when they went aboard a cross-channel troopship for the trip across the channel, where they arrived the next morning, at Weymouth, England. The group were marched into the No.5 Group Camp at Weymouth. There was still a backlog of soldiers awaiting repatriation and the 5th Pioneer/Machine-Gun soldiers were informed that they would remain in camp until mid June. Finally John Peter Wade and the other 5th Pioneer/Machine-Gun soldiers went aboard the ‘HT Beltana’, at the Devonport Naval Dockyard, Plymouth on 2 June, bound for Australia.

In South Australia the troopship ‘HT Beltana’ arrived at the Semaphore anchorage on Tuesday 15 July at 4:00 am. Mid-morning the Chief Quarantine Officer performed the inspection, the ship was given a ‘clean’ classification, and was moved to the Outer Harbour Wharf, where she berthed shortly before noon. Of the 1,600 returning soldiers on board, there were 214 South Australians, one of which was John Peter Wade. The South Australians came ashore around 12.00 pm, and went straight to No.1 Shed for a welcome home assembly put on by the Y.M.C.A., and the Military commanders. After the formalities the soldiers were dismissed and were able to meet their relatives on the wharf.

John had returned home in time for the Peace day celebrations that were held throughout Australia on Saturday 19 July. It was a perfect winter’s day in Port Pirie with a blue sky, but fairly cool. A march past, of returned soldiers, was staged in the morning, John, and his younger brother Edward O'Brien Wade, were participants. The Town Hall and the major business houses were decorated with flags and bunting to celebrate the peace.

After time with his family, in Port Pirie, John returned to Adelaide, and at Keswick Barracks, on Friday 29 August 1919, John Peter Wade, age thirty-eight, was discharged, medically unfit, from the A.I.F. after duty in WWI where he spent three years and eighty-nine days in the 5th Pioneer Battalion in France and Belgium, wounded once and gassed.

LATER YEARS

Currently there is no information available in regard to John Peter Wade's life after the war.

In the Obituary of his mother it was reported that he was living at the 'East-West Line' indicating he may have been working on the maintenance of the railway line from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie.

John Peter Wade died, at Blanchetown, South Australia on 17 March 1958, age 77 years.

Sources

Australian War Memorial - www.awm.gov.au (www.awm.gov.au)

The Immigrants, Paul M. Hoskins, Xlibris, 2013