George Henry PAINTER

PAINTER, George Henry

Service Number: 5061
Enlisted: Not yet discovered
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 25th Infantry Battalion
Born: Warwick, Queensland, Australia, date not yet discovered
Home Town: Not yet discovered
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Labourer
Died: 25 July 1965, cause of death not yet discovered, place of death not yet discovered, age not yet discovered
Cemetery: Mount Gravatt Cemetery & Crematorium, Brisbane
Memorials: Annerley Stephens Shire Council Residents Honour Board 2, Holland Park Mount Gravatt Roll of Honour, Warwick War Memorial Gates
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World War 1 Service

4 May 1916: Involvement Private, 5061, 25th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '15' embarkation_place: Brisbane embarkation_ship: HMAT Seang Choon embarkation_ship_number: A49 public_note: ''
4 May 1916: Embarked Private, 5061, 25th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Seang Choon, Brisbane

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Biography contributed by Ian Lang

 
#5061 PAINTER George Henry   25th Battalion
 
George Painter was born in Warwick. He presented himself for enlistment in Brisbane on 22nd January 1916. At the time he was almost 19 years old. He stated his occupation as labourer and named his mother, Emily Nicholls of Leichhardt, Sydney as his next of kin.
 
George was accepted into a depot battalion at Enoggera before being allocated to the 13th reinforcements for the 25th Battalion. He embarked on the “Seang Choon” in Brisbane on 4th May and disembarked at Alexandria in Egypt where the reinforcements spent some time in a staging camp before re-embarking at Alexandria for a voyage to England. Upon arrival in Southampton, the reinforcements were marched out to the 7th Brigade Training Battalion at Perham Downs.
 
George eventually joined the 25th on 2nd October. The battalion had had a very rough time throughout August and September at Pozieres on the Somme and was enjoying a period of rest and recuperation in Belgium when George joined the ranks.
 
Progress in the Somme offensive had been slow and the front had moved barely two kilometres when the 25th Battalion, along with the other three battalions in the 7th Brigade, were called back to the Somme in front of the village of Flers, just short of the strategic town of Bapaume.
 
As winter approached, the British command wanted to progress the front as far as Bapaume, where troops would be able to get out of the mud and slush that hampered their movements in front of the wire at Flers. For the 25th, Flers turned into a minor fiasco, with troops failing to reach the start lines due to mud, failure of rations to be brought up and confusion about the position of troops once the battle was underway. In an attempt to capture Gird Trench on 16th November 1916, George received a bullet wound to his left hip.
 
George was transferred to a hospital at Rouen for treatment but before he could be discharged, was diagnosed with tonsilitis on 18th December. He did not re-join his battalion until the end of February. The 25thhad spent the winter months training and preparing for spring when the weather would be more conducive to re-engaging in hostilities.
 
In February 1917, the German forces opposing the Australians and British on the Somme began a planned withdrawal to a pre-prepared defensive line which the British called the Hindenburg Line. The 25th Battalion followed the retreat cautiously until it came upon the Hindenburg defences at Bullecourt. The British had made several attempts to break through the Hindenburg Line but in each case either bungling by commanding officers or overwhelming force created the usual outcome as far as the Somme offensive was concerned; almost unsustainable casualties with no ground gained. Bullecourt was the last action on the Somme and the Australians were withdrawn to Belgium.
 
Between May and September 1917, the men of the 2nd Division were relieved of any front line duties; spending the time in rest and training for the next offensive. George spent a short interval in Bethnal Green Hospital, London with trench fever during this time but was returned to his unit in time for the 25th to go into the line at Passchendaele.
 
For the Australians, the Belgian Campaign had begun with successes at Messines, Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde Ridge. However, by the middle of October, the weather had turned. Flooding rain fell almost incessantly. The ground between Ypres and the Passchendaele Ridge had been churned up by artillery fire for almost two years and any of the drainage measures which had been constructed on the low lying ground had been destroyed.
 
When George returned to his battalion he was confronted with a desolate wasteland in which shell craters filled with water, tracks to and from the front were knee deep in stinking mud and men, animals and equipment became hopelessly bogged, or in some cases drowned. To add to the misery, the positions occupied by the Australians at the foot of the Passchendaele Ridge were under almost constant attack by artillery firing high explosive and mustard gas. On 9th November, George was taken out of the line “sick with gas.”
 
Mustard gas was one of a range of poison gases employed during WW1, and was also the most common. The name “mustard gas” refers to the slight garlic or onion odour which sometimes accompanied the otherwise colourless gas. It produced few fatalities, but was extremely effective in producing casualties which required large amount of resources to deal with; reducing front line companies to the point of ineffectiveness.
 
George was evacuated via casualty clearing stations and field ambulance to a hospital in Rouen before being loaded onto a hospital ship for the crossing of the English Channel to England. In total George would spent three and a half months at the Edmonton Military Hospital and the convalescent depot at Harefield before being sent back to France on 4th March; however he did not re-join his battalion until 22nd June.
 
While George had been in England, the bulk of the AIF had moved back to the Somme to meet a German spring offensive which threatened to split the French and British armies. George took part in the battle of Hamel on 4th July (Monash’s famous set piece that took 93 minutes to achieve the objective) and the Battle of Amiens on 8th August. These two actions spelt the beginning of the end for the German Army. Haig urged Monash to keep up the pressure as the Germans withdrew back to the Hindenburg Line.
 
While pushing the withdrawing enemy hard, the 2nd Division of the AIF, which included the 25th, were confronted with the task of taking the hill above the fortress town of Peronne named Mont St Quentin. During an infantry assault on Mt St Quentin, George received a shrapnel wound from a shell fragment to his left arm. He followed the, by then, familiar journey via CCS and hospital at Rouen to the Exeter War Hospital. By the end of October, the 25th Battalion was down to about a third of its nominal strength and the decision was made to disband the unit with the survivors being taken on by the 26th Battalion. There was no immediate need for George to be rushed back to the front.
 
George was granted a furlough from Exeter on 7th November and while enjoying his leave, the war came to an end. As a result of his wound, George was repatriated back to Australia on 22nd December 1918 and was discharged from the Army in Brisbane in March 1919. George Painter applied for Repatriation benefits in 1930 and lived for another 35 years. He was buried at the Mount Gravatt Cemetery on 25th July 1965

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