Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

# 3451 PEARSON Frederick Morland                         9th / 49th Battalion
 
Fred Pearson was born in Shildon near Bishop Auckland in County Durham, England. He probably attended school at Bishop Auckland, outside the county seat, Newcastle on Tyne. The Roll of Honour Circular in Fred’s War Memorial file indicates that he was a promising footballer in his youth, having been awarded a gold medal from a European Championship.
 
Fred emigrated to Australia in 1913 at the age of 22. He made his way to Queensland and began working as a carter, driving a horse and dray, at D’Aguilar. Fred Pearson took the train to Caboolture and on to Brisbane on 14th July 1915. He made his way to the Recruiting Depot near Central Station where he enlisted. Fred gave his age 24 years, occupation drayman and named his father, George Pearson of Bishop Auckland, as his next of kin. When Fred reported to Enoggera camp, he was placed into the 15th reinforcements for the 9th Battalion. The reinforcements embarked on the “Seang Bee” in Brisbane on 21st October 1915. The embarkation roll shows that Fred had allocated 3/- of his daily pay of 5/- to a bank account in Queensland.
 
The reinforcements no doubt thought that they were destined for service with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on the Gallipoli Peninsula. By the time they arrived in Egypt at the end of November, the decision to close down the campaign at the Dardanelles had been made by Lord Kitchener and the British and Australian troops were being evacuated.
 
As the Gallipoli veterans arrived back into the camps along the Suez Canal in January 1916, plans were underway to expand the size of the AIF, effectively doubling the force from two divisions to four. This was to be achieved by splitting original Gallipoli battalions to form the core of two reconstituted battalions with numbers made up from the large number of reinforcements in Egypt. On 29th February 1916, Fred was transferred from the 9th Battalion reinforcements to a new battalion, the 49th Battalion.
 
For the next three months, the 49th Battalion trained in Egypt. On 5th June 1916, the battalion, now part of the 13th Brigade of the 4th Division AIF, embarked at the Egyptian port of Alexandria for a six day voyage across the Mediterranean to the French port of Marseilles. The battalions of the 13th brigade travelled by train across France to take up billets around Armentieres where further training and trench raiding, interspersed with labouring kept the men fit.
 
In July 1916, General Douglas Haig (Supreme British Commander on the Western Front) launched the Somme offensive. Casualties were enormous but Haig was determined to keep up the pressure. Three of the four Australian divisions in France were deployed to the Somme. The Australians went into their first major action on the Western Front at Pozieres.
 
The 1st and 2nd Divisions were thrust into the struggle for Pozieres first during late July and early August, and had secured the village and the important blockhouse on the site of a windmill above the village. After the 1st and 2nd Divisions were relieved the 4th Division was put into the front line, not to attack but to simply hold the line while being mercilessly pounded by German artillery.  Once the Pozieres heights were secured, the British Forces turned their attention towards a ruined farm, two kilometres from Pozieres, which the Germans had heavily fortified by extending the cellars and creating a line of three defensive trenches. The farm was depicted on the maps as “La Ferme du Mouquet” but the Australians referred to it as “Moo Cow Farm” or “Mucky Farm.”
 
The assault of the farm had to be conducted on an ever-decreasing front so narrow that only a couple of companies at a time could attack. The approach was enfiladed by German artillery and machine guns. The ground was so churned up that advancing troops could not recognise a trench line when they reached it. Attempts to dig new trenches were unsuccessful due to the loose ground caving in. The 49th Battalion was ordered to move up to a jumping off trench (which had not been completed by the 47th Battalion in time) during the early hours of 2nd September. During the relief of the 47th, Fred Pearson sustained a gunshot wound (probably a machine gun round) and was evacuated to a field ambulance and then transferred on to the 5th Australian General Hospital at Rouen on the French coast.
 
Fred was transferred to a hospital in England on 6th September. There is no record in Fred’s file for the period 6th September to 11th November but it can be assumed that after treatment at either Hurdcott or Harefield Hospitals, he was granted a furlough. This was standard practice and the soldier was expected to report to a convalescent depot when his furlough was over. A notation in Fred’s file undated states that he was married to Elizabeth Brownbridge at Bishop Auckland by a Church of England clergyman on 25thOctober 1916. It is a fair assumption to presume that Fred used his furlough to travel to his home town where he was married. His furlough was due to expire on 30th October but Fred did not report to Perham Downs for another three days. He was fined four day’s pay which he probably thought was a fair bargain for an extended honeymoon.
 
Fred remained at the convalescent depot until late December when he was posted back to his battalion on 23rd December 1916. The winter of 196/17 was particularly harsh and very little fighting was possible until the snow abated and the roads became passable once more in the spring. The 49th Battalion was engaged in the general British advance to the Hindenburg Line as the German forces withdrew to that strongly defended position in Match and April of 1917. After sustained but unsuccessful attacks against the Hindenburg Line at Noreuil and Bullecourt, the AIF was withdrawn for a sustained period of rest, reorganisation and training for the coming summer.
 
The British planned a campaign in the Ypres salient in Belgian Flanders aimed at spearing through the German defenders to the Belgian ports on the English Channel. The plan called for a series of battles in the summer and autumn of 1917, each of which created a stepping stone to the next objective. The first of these stepping stones was a ridge line which was occupied by the enemy and overlooked the ground that was to be used for the build up of British forces. The ridge ran almost due south from a position just outside Ypres towards the village of Messines and on to Warneton on the French border.
 
The preparations for the Battle of Messines were carefully planned. Large scale models of the terrain to be covered were constructed and all troops who were to take part, which included Fred and the rest of the 49thBattalion, were walked through the models to familiarize themselves with their objectives. The general in charge at Messines had three and a half million artillery shells at his disposal which would be fired in the days leading up to the attack. In addition, British and Australian tunnellers had been undermining the Messines Ridge for almost 18 months and had placed underground charges in tunnels directly underneath the German defences.
 
On the night of 6th June 1917, the men of the 49th Battalion moved up to the start tapes which had been laid by the intelligence officers in preparation for the signal to commence the advance. At 3:10 am on the 7thJune, 19 of the underground mines beneath the Messines Ridge were fired simultaneously. It was the largest man made explosion in history and the noise could be heard in London.
 
Two Australian Divisions were included in the order of battle for the attack at Messines. The 3rd Division AIF had responsibility for the northern sector of the front while the 4th Division was tasked with attacking the second line of German trenches, the Oosstaverne Line, behind the village of Messines itself. The 4thDivision, and particularly the 13th Brigade, encountered difficulties due to the broken ground caused from the mine explosions. The British 33rd Brigade which was supposed to be supporting the 4th Division’s advance on its right flank failed to keep up and the men had to spread out too thinly in an effort to cover the gap in the line. There was confusion as to where some men actually were as they had failed to respond to a signal from a low flying aircraft to fire flares and as a consequence, a number of Australian infantry were shelled by friendly fire.
 
During a battle, communication was always a problem. Phone lines between divisional and brigade headquarters were mostly reliable but closer to the fighting, phone lines were vulnerable to damage from high explosive artillery. The solution was to employ a team of runners who would carry written and sometimes verbal messages between company and battalion HQ. At Messines, the 13th Brigade had designated 36 runners to be employed, which is a fair indication of the expected casualty rate. A runner would divest himself of heavy items such as rifle, ammunition, haversack, blankets and great coat but retained field dressings, water bottle and message pouch. Some runners were able to obtian a revolver from friendly headquarters staff even though the heavy Webley revolvers were for officer use. The paths between the frontline trenches and battalion HQ were often exposed to enemy fire. Runners were also used as guides to show the path for ration parties or relieving troops. Fred Pearson was a battalion runner at Messines and his work was recognised by the awarding of a Military Medal for “acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire” in ensuring that communication lines remained open. It is unclear when he actually received the medal but he would have been entitled to wear the blue, white and red medal ribbon on his tunic from late June1917.
 
The 49th Battalion continued to rotate in and out of the line in the Messines area for most of June and into July. The entire 4th Division was relieved in August and went into camps to regroup, take on reinforcements and commence training for their next role of the Flanders campaign, known as 3rd Ypres or simply Passchendaele. On 26th September, the 49th Battalion along with the three other battalions of the 13thBrigade moved up to the jumping off tapes for an assault on Polygon Wood. The 49th’s part in the action was relatively straight forward and British troops who were covering the Australian flank were surprised to see some of the diggers wandering around the battlefield looking for souvenirs. Fred Pearson again did his duty as a runner at Polygon Wood for which he received a commendation from the Brigade Commander Major General Sinclair-McLagan. The promising advances achieved by the British Forces between June and October came to a halt with the arrival of unseasonal rain which turned the low-lying fields of Flanders into a stinking muddy quagmire. The village of Passchendaele which had seemed tantalisingly close remained out of reach. Exhausted by the six month campaign in Belgium, the entire Australian force of five divisions was relieved and went into comfortable winter quarters around Poperinghe. In February 1918, Fred was granted three week’s leave in England which he no doubt used to journey to Bishop Auckland to see his parents and his wife, Elizabeth, who he had not seen in more than a year. It is possible that Elizabeth had delivered a child while Fred was away at the war.
 
The British Commander, General Haig, was fully expecting a German assault in the Spring of 1918 but he guessed incorrectly that the main thrust would be aimed at the Ypres salient in Belgium. When Germany’s Operation Michael began on 21st March 1918, the main assault was aimed along the line of the Somme River in Northern France, the scene of so much fighting and hard won victories by the British forces, including the 49th Battalion, in 1916.
The British 5th Army, which was holding the line astride the Somme at the time was unable to hold the German onslaught which in some places amounted to a five time numerical advantage. As the British withdrew, often in disarray, the German Stormtroopers retook all of the gains made by the British in the Somme campaign and were within a few days of capturing the vital communication city of Amiens. If Amiens fell, Haig might well have lost the war; the situation was deadly serious.
 
Haig ordered some of his most successful and battle hardened troops, divisions of the AIF in Belgium, to race south to establish a defensive line in front of Amiens. On 26th March, the 49th began a journey south. At first, they travelled by train and then motor buses but for the final part of the trek, the men marched through the night with the encroaching enemy somewhere out on their left. Two brigades of the 4th Division, the 12thand 13th, marched through the night a distance of 35 kilometres on 31st March to reach a position overlooking the railway line between Amiens and Albert, and the village of Dernacourt  just across the railway embankment.
 
Battalions of the 12th Brigade took up a defensive line on an exposed forward slope and the railway embankment, enduring heavy artillery barrages from across the rail line. The 49th Battalion was in reserve on the reverse slope of the ridge unable to see the enemy activity but nevertheless exposed to constant shelling. After four days, the Germans had assembled almost two whole divisions at Dernacourt and were ready to attack. The Australians were holding the position with just two brigades of infantry and very little artillery.
 
On the 5th April, two companies of the 47th Battalion, part of the 12th brigade, were dug in on the railway embankment. The Australians were over run and the German attackers poured through a railway underpass. Casualties were heavy. At 5pm, the 4th Division Commander ordered the 49th supported by the 50thBattalion to counter attack. The two battalions moved up and over the ridge and began to engage the Germans who were occupying the ground between the ridge and the railway line. In savage fighting, the Germans were driven back. During that counterattack, Fred Pearson was killed.
 
Fred was buried in a temporary grave by his mates. Elizabeth Pearson was by that time Fred’s nominated next of kin and she would have received a parcel of his personal effects. She should also have been granted a widow’s pension but the file contains no indication that that was the case.
 
Almost ten years after he was killed at Dernacourt, Fred’s remains were exhumed from the temporary location and reinterred in the Serre Road Communal Cemetery near Beaumont Hamel. Elizabeth chose as the inscription for Fred’s headstone: EVER DEARLY REMEMBERED BY WIFE AND CHILDREN. It is likely that in addition to a child born in 1917, Fred and Elizabeth had a second child, who was born after Fred’s death. Fred Pearson is commemorated on the Honour Boards of St Matthias’ Church and the Methodist Church in Woodford. A memorial tree planted in the Avenue of Honour has not survived