Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

#6129 HEADING Alfred Vaughan  25th Battalion
 
Alfred heading was born at Nhill in Victoria to parents William and Rhoda Heading. His parents were farmers who had emigrated to Australia from England in the 1800s and settled at first in South Australia. Alfred attended school in Netherby in the Western District of Victoria and also reported that he served for 18 months in the Senior Cadets at Dimboola. All three localities are close to each other and there were a number of family members living in the district.
 
Alfred’s parents moved to the Murgon district perhaps around 1910 and at some point, young Alfred joined his parents and elder brother James on the family farm. Alf reported to the Brisbane recruiting depot on 12thSeptember 1916. He stated his age as 18 years and 9 months, which would have required his parent’s permission to join the AIF. There is no written document of that type in his file. At his medical inspection it was noted that Alf required some dental work and he probably arranged to have his teeth attended to before reporting to Enoggera on 12th October. Six days later, Alf was placed in the 17th reinforcements for the 25thBattalion; and then on 27th October, Alf boarded the “Marathon” in Brisbane. The voyage to England was via Durban and Sierra Leone to avoid possible submarine activity and the reinforcements did not arrive in Plymouth until 9th January 1917.
 
The reinforcements travelled by train to 7th Training Battalion at Rollestone to gain further training in trench warfare. Alf spent a few weeks in hospital at Parkhouse with Mumps before being deployed to France via Folkstone. He joined his battalion in billets near Bapaume on 9th April, not far from Pozieres where the 25thhad suffered enormous casualties the previous August. The 25th moved up to Noreuil at the end of April to support a large-scale attack against the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt. Bullecourt signalled the end of operations for the AIF in France for the next year. In May, the 25th, along with the other Australian forces were sent to the Flanders region of Belgium for an extended period of rest and training.
 
The major offensive planned for 1917 in the Ypres salient began in June 1917 with the battle of Messines. The 25th battalion, and the rest of the 2nd Division, were not required for that part of the campaign and continued to rest and train. In early September, about 100 men a day from the 25th were sent to assist the local farmers getting in the harvest. There was also time for sports, visits to the divisional baths and local leave.
 
On 11th September, Alf reported sick to a Field Ambulance. His file contains no record of illness which is somewhat unusual as even if there was no definitive diagnosis, the file would usually record P.U.O. (Pyrexia of unknown origin). It appears his mother learnt that Alf was sick and wrote to the authorities in Melbourne asking for news. In response, Rhoda received a carefully worded letter in which the writer rather peevishly stated that there was no record of his illness and that it could be assumed that he was suffering a “mild indisposition.” In any event, Alf would spend the next three months in hospital, convalescent depots and rest camps. When he returned to his battalion in the beginning of December, the 25th was exhausted after enduring the challenging conditions which became synonymous with the Battle of Passchendaele. The 25threturned to billets at Neuve-Eglise where they were mainly employed in salvage work collecting items such as brass shell cases, signal wire and trenching equipment. On 18th February, Alf was granted two weeks leave in England. When he returned to the 25th lines on 6th March, the pace of the war was about to increase. 
 
The military situation at the beginning of 1918 was very different from that which had existed in the previous years of the war on the Western Front. The Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent peace treaty on the Eastern Front had released almost 50 divisions of German Troops from the east; and presented the German commanders with a temporary numerical advantage which could be exploited on the Western Front. The advantage would only be short lived though as the expected troop surge of almost one million men provided by the United States Army would begin to have an impact in the latter half of 1918. The British and French Commanders were expecting a large German offensive in the first half of 1918, but their intelligence was unable to pinpoint where the offensive would strike. The British Commander on the Western Front, General Douglas Haig, expected the offensive in his sector to come in Belgian Flanders and as a consequence he kept his most reliable troops, the five Australian Divisions, in the area between Ypres and Armentieres to meet the threat.
The much-awaited German spring offensive codenamed Operation Michael began on 21st March with a well-executed drive by the German army from their defences on the Hindenburg Line down the line of the Somme Valley towards the vital communication hub of Amiens.
 
Haig had gambled that the advance would be in Belgium, and he had lost. The British 5th Army which held the line astride the Somme River near Peronne was completely overrun, with men falling back in disarray. Realising that if Amiens was taken the war would be lost, Haig began to order units of the AIF south to take up holding positions. The 25th Battalion was ordered to pack up and move by bus, train and forced march to the Somme.
 
The 25th Battalion, as part of the 7th Brigade of the 2nd Division AIF arrived at their designated defensive position on 9th April 1918 and occupied a line of support trenches near the village of Baizieux, overlooking the Amiens to Albert Road. At this time, the situation was dire with the British and Australians well out numbered on both sides of the river. In an attempt to bolster his troops, Haig delivered his famous “backs to the wall” speech and the text was read out to all of the troops.
 
On 15th July 1918, Alf was occupying a Lewis Gun outpost near Buire as a screen for a wiring party when he was hit by a burst from a German machine gun, killing him instantly according to witnesses. Alf was just 20 years old. His body was carried out by stretcher bearers and buried in what would eventually become the Dernacourt Communal Cemetery Extension.
 
A small package of Alf’s personal belongings was prepared for despatch to his mother in Murgon. In a cruel twist of fate, the “Barunga”, the ship carrying many parcels of personal effects, as well as a number of wounded men being returned to Australia was torpedoed by a German submarine just off the Scilly Isles. All passengers and crew were rescued but the cargo went to the bottom of the Atlantic.
 
When permanent headstones were being erected by the Imperial War Graves Commission, Alf’s parents chose the following inscription:
 
IN MEMORY
OF THE DEARLY LOVED SON
OF MR&MRS HEADING
QUEENSLAND
 
In 1922, William Heading died and his wife went to live with one of her daughters in Dimboola, near where Alf was born. Alf’s elder brother James, who had also enlisted returned to Murgon where he married and established himself as a successful grazier and businessman, eventually being elected to the Queensland Parliament where he served as a cabinet minister.