Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

 
# 478 PORTER Sidney (Sydney) Nathaniel                 15th Battalion
 
Sid Porter was born at Camperdown in NSW. He attended school in inner city Newtown and was a member of the senior cadets. Sid presented himself for enlistment in the AIF at Kingaroy on 26th September 1914. He stated his age as 30 years and also advised that he was a groom from Nanango. Sid was probably typical of a lot of single men from that time who moved around the countryside, sometimes over long distances, to where there was a prospect of work. An enlistment in the AIF with its generous pay of six shillings a day was a guaranteed income that proved a strong motivator to men such as Sid.
 
Sid made his way to Brisbane where he was taken into “C” Company of the 15th Battalion which was being raised at the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds. The battalion was made up of recruits from Queensland and Northern NSW under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Cannan. Cannan, who acquired the nickname of “Bull”, had been an officer in various Queensland Militia Battalions since 1903 and although only a “weekend” soldier, was well versed in the task of creating and training a brand-new battalion. Once the battalion reached full strength, the men moved out to the Enoggera Camp where they were issued with a pair of dungarees, a pair of boots and a floppy white hat. There very few trained instructors for the men and experts from a number of suburban rifle clubs provided instruction in musketry. Lt Col Cannan was a strict disciplinarian and within the first few weeks had discharged 50 men as unsuitable, mainly for drunkenness. The battalion embarked on a route march to the seaside suburb of Sandgate for an overnight bivouac in November. Satisfied with his men’s fitness and discipline, the Battalion Commander informed his Brigadier that he was ready to join the other three battalion that would make up the 4th brigade.
 
On 26th November, the 15th Battalion arrived at Broadmeadows Camp outside Melbourne, having travelled by train from Alderley station via Wallangarra, Albury and Melbourne. The 4th Brigade of the AIF, under the command of another citizen soldier, Colonel John Monash, was made up of battalions from NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. The three eastern state battalions assembled at Broadmeadows before embarking on transports for the sea voyage to Egypt on 22nd December 1914. The West Australians joined the convoy when it docked at Freemantle. The embarkation roll for the 15th Battalion shows Private Sidney Porter, a groom from Nanango had allocated half of his daily pay of five shillings to either his mother or a bank account in his name in Australia.
 
The 15th Battalion arrived at the ancient Egyptian port of Alexandria on 31st January and from there made their way to the aerodrome camp at Heliopolis on the outskirts of Cairo. The other three brigades that made up the AIF in Egypt were camped at nearby Mena. The 4th Brigade was attached to the two New Zealand Brigades.
 
Men from the three original AIF brigades departed Egypt in early March for the island of Lemnos where they would begin training for the amphibious landing at Gallipoli. The 4th Brigade and New Zealanders remained in Egypt for another month. The 15th Battalion embarked at Alexandria on the “Australind” and “Seang Bee” on 11th April and arrived at Mudros Harbour, Lemnos four days later. The 15th Battalion men remained on board ship practicing climbing down rope ladders to waiting horse boats or destroyers.
 
The 15th Battalion went ashore at Gallipoli late in the afternoon of the 25th April and immediately moved from the beach up a gully (Monash Gully) to a precarious position on the heights which eventually bore the name of an officer from “C” Company of the 15th; Captain Quinn. The 15th remained on Gallipoli holding the line at Quinn’s Post for the next month. The situation at Anzac during the first month was rather frantic with both the Australians and the Turks mounting bayonet charges resulting in huge casualties. In May, there was a negotiated truce to allow both Turks and Australians to go out into no man’s land to retrieve the bodies of those who had fallen and were beginning to pose a serious health hazard.
Birdwood, the British Commander at Anzac, was under some pressure to secure a breakthrough to the heights above the beach-head. The ultimate goal was the commanding hill named Chunuk Bair and in early August, a series of coordinated attacks was planned to drive the Turks from the high ground.  The first of these offensives (diversions really) were the attack on Lone Pine and the futile charge by the West Australian Light Horse at the Nek followed by a second landing of British troops at Suvla. The main offensive was planned for the northern sector of the Anzac beachhead which entailed an advance at night along the beach before turning inland to scale a series of ridges towards the heights of Hill 971 also known as Sari Bair. The 4th Brigade would be part of this action on the night of the 8th August.
 
As was often the case at Anzac, the planning did not live up to expectations and the 4th Brigade soon found themselves hopelessly lost in the dark in a bewildering tangle of gullies; primarily due to a reliance on Greek guides rather than the maps which had been issued. It was soon apparent that no advance could be made and Monash, faced with mounting casualties, ordered a withdrawal. The 15th battalion war diary records that during the 8th August, a number of officers and ordinary ranks were missing. Among the missing was Major Douglas Cannan, James Cannan’s elder brother and Private Sidney Porter.
 
The authorities, rather prematurely, listed Sid Porter as Wounded and Missing. It was standard practice to advise relatives in Australia who made enquiries about a wounded loved one that in the absence of anything to the contrary, it was assumed that the soldier was not seriously wounded and that “satisfactory progress is being maintained.”  Of course, it was far from the truth and this misdirection gave false hope to Sid’s mother who wrote requesting further advice a number of times. A court of inquiry, conducted in Egypt by the 15thBattalion in April 1916 determined that, in the absence of any reports from the Turkish side regarding prisoners, Private Sidney Porter had been killed in action on 9th August 1915.
 
Sid’s Mother, Louisa, received a parcel of his personal effects; a bugle cord, an Australian flag, photos, handkerchiefs and a lock and key. Sid’s estate was handled by a firm of Nanango lawyers. It included deferred pay, a funeral benefit from the MUIOOF Lodge in Nanango and a payment from The Mutual Life and Assurance Society in Sydney. By the time that medals were being sent to families of those who had died during the war, Louisa Porter was deceased. Sid’s eldest brother, Joseph, of the Kyogle Butter Factory signed for the 14/15 Star, Empire Medal and Victory Medal.
 
Sidney Porter is commemorated along with 4,900 other Australians who died at Gallipoli and have no known grave. The memorial tablets are located in the Lone Pine Cemetery at Anzac.