Beaten Down By Blood Page 15

  It was in the fighting along Kurilo Alley that Second Lieutenant Oscar James Lawson, ‘Ozzie’ or ‘the Swank’, won his MC. A plumber born in Bathurst, New South Wales, but living and enlisting in Brisbane, Lawson was a Gallipoli veteran, had suffered diarrhoea, mumps and trench fever and had been wounded twice, suffering a gunshot wound to his arm and hand at Pozières in August 1916 and a gunshot wound to his left arm near Bullecourt in April 1917. On 2 September 1918 he was in charge of 12 men who came under fire from a German machine-gun. A man of adventurous spirit and possibly growing impatient with the Germans, he jumped out of the trench into the open, rushed the post single-handedly with a Mills bomb, killed three of the crew and caused the others to flee, capturing the gun. A few minutes later he ‘successfully repeated the performance’ on another machine-gun post, but was severely wounded. His gallantry and enthusiastic fighting spirit had a tangible effect on his men and contributed largely to the success of the operation.38

  Lawson’s head wound was horrific. He was expected to die and could not be evacuated until the front line moved forward; thus he was left for dead on the battlefield, a common occurrence with head wounds as men so rarely survived. On 11 September, one man, presumably a mate, even wrote a letter of condolence to Oscar’s brother Frank, who was also serving with the 26th: ‘He was very badly hit I understand … I only trust he is yet alive, but I fear not.’ Oscar Lawson kept this letter, probably amused to read of his ‘death’.39

  The man’s pessimism was not unwarranted. The bullet had struck Lawson’s left forehead, fractured his skull and opened his frontal sinus. Brain matter protruded and the bone was bare and fragmented. The wound turned septic .His condition seems to have fluctuated: he was ‘dangerously ill’ at a hospital in Rouen in September, ‘out of danger’ with his ‘condition improving’ in October and November, but ‘seriously ill’ again in February 1919 and, on his transfer to the 3rd London General Hospital at Wandsworth in England in March, his wound was ‘severe’. Here he was cared for by a British nurse, Edith Alderman, with whom he kept in touch after the war. By April he was ‘progressing favourably’ but would not be well enough to have cosmetic surgery for some time.40

  Oscar Lawson with British nurse Edith Alderman at the 3rd London General Hospital at Wandsworth, c. April 1919.

  Lawson finally returned to Australia on the hospital ship Karoola in June 1919 and was admitted to Rosemount Repatriation Hospital in Brisbane. Twelve months of medical treatment followed, including surgery to remove shattered bone and fix the discharging sinus, and to try to relieve the violent headaches, defective and impaired vision and defective memory from which he suffered. The doctors expected only a 25% improvement.

  Oscar Lawson’s parents and two younger sisters were traumatised by the medical condition of their boys when they returned home. Frank had been gassed and fell severely ill with scarlet fever early in 1919. However, Oscar, with characteristic spirit, made a substantial recovery even though his quality of life was diminished by his wound. He was not able to work for at least a year following his return to Australia and never again took up his trade, but worked as a council employee in the 1920s, collecting tickets on the Kangaroo Point ferry, and then as a cleaner at the Commonwealth Bank in Queen Street, Brisbane, where he was unable to work as a messenger because he would be required to carry a gun. Oscar Lawson was a ‘very good shot’ — he had been trained as a sniper — but was regarded as too unpredictable. Instead, he worked ‘split shifts’ which he found very tiring.

  Oscar Lawson just before his death in 1965. The ‘hole’ in his head is still visible.

  Lawson lived with his parents until 1930, when he married Margaret Amelia Miers. They had six children, five of whom were still living at the time of writing. He died suddenly from a heart attack in 1965 at the age of 68 and is buried with his wife in Mt Gravatt cemetery in Brisbane. Oscar wore glasses, suffered from severe headaches, could be volatile and had the ‘hole’ in his head for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, his family describe him as a generous and caring person, a good money manager who provided well for his family.41 In 1918, when he led his men so bravely at Mont St Quentin, the battle that would change his life, Oscar Lawson was just 21 years old.

  Those who can get on, and those who can’t get round

  In the centre of the 7th Brigade’s attack, the 25th Battalion jumped off from the Mont St Quentin–Feuillaucourt road in the area between the two villages and advanced from the north of Mont St Quentin Wood to Hill 115, the true summit of the position. It met fierce machine-gun fire and quickly lost the barrage which moved too fast for the infantry to keep up. The Australians then employed a tactic that proved very effective and which relied on the initiative of the section leaders and the ‘dash’ of individuals. Men in small groups rushed the weaker machine-gun posts and captured or killed the garrisons. They then used their new positions and any cover such as grass tufts or shell holes to blaze into the stronger posts, attacking from the flanks while using their Lewis guns and rifles to fire from the front at the same time. Once the enemy began to retire, the posts were rushed frontally and the garrisons captured or killed. This tactic, the wisdom of Evan Wisdom, ‘a tried and brilliant tactician’, that ‘those who can get on, and those who can’t get round’, rattled the Germans.42

  One company saw 100 Germans around 500 yards away moving towards a trench and used the cover of their barrage, their Lewis guns and heavy machine-guns against them until they fled in disorder and the trench was captured. Some men used an outflanking movement to surround a mine crater bristling with machine-guns and too strong to take in the usual way. The Germans fled, leaving behind 17 machine-guns and two trench mortars. The line could now advance and by 7.20 am the battalion had achieved its objective past Rupprecht Trench towards Aizecourt-le-Haut and was consolidating its position. One 25th Battalion man, left behind to be picked up later by the 28th Battalion, had one leg blown off below the knee, the other at the hip. With true Australian spirit, he was reluctant to trouble the doctor.43

  On the left, the 27th Battalion missed the heavy German barrage which pounded the battalion’s rear as it jumped off. The 27th advanced past Tortille Trench, coming under withering machine-gun fire from Allaines, Haut-Allaines, Brunn Trench and the spur over which the 25th was advancing. The defenders had an unbroken field of fire and the 27th was devoid of cover. All company officers except two became casualties, but the left company, much weakened, pushed through Allaines and Haut-Allaines, led by NCOs. With the help of a second, also weak company of the 27th and two platoons of the 28th Battalion coming through in support, it took the villages quite easily, with the men of the 28th proceeding to mop up, taking some 40 prisoners.

  In Brunn Trench, Captain Wilfred Hosking, a 29-year-old commercial traveller from Adelaide, captured the trench, killed 35 Germans and took 60 prisoners. He collected the remnants of the companies and advanced, supposedly with only 28 men, against 600 retreating Germans, chasing them across the plain and firing on them with Lewis guns.44 His men captured a hostile battery and prevented the enemy reorganising for a counter-attack, inflicting further casualties. They secured additional ground of tactical value and a good line of defence was organised and held, with a machine-gun post tactically placed to persuade the Germans that there were more Australians than there were. This group had actually reached the Hera trench system less than 400 yards from its objective, Aizecourt-le-Haut, but was then fired on by a battery of 77-mm guns and forced to dig in, too depleted to push further. Hosking had already won the MC at Bullecourt in 1917; he was now awarded the DSO for his actions on the Mont St Quentin ridge.

  The men of the 27th formed the apex of a salient created when the flank units had failed to keep up with them, placing them in a precarious position. There was a large gap between the left of the 27th and the Canal du Nord and Wisdom ordered a company of the 28th Battalion to fill it, bringing up additional machine-guns to strengthen the defence. At around 9.00 am two companies of the Sus
sex Regiment of the 74th Division wandered, seemingly aimlessly, into the Australian lines and Wisdom used them to form the flank, withdrawing the company of the 28th to Brunn Trench. When two more companies of the Sussex arrived at 10.15 am, they were able to consolidate this trench and the sunken road nearby. By dusk a platoon of the 43rd Battalion from the 11th Brigade had established a post on the north bank of the Canal du Nord just north of Haut-Allaines, linking with a post established opposite them by the 27th. The line established by the 7th Brigade held for 36 hours, with 5000 yards held by fewer than 800 bayonets.

  Wisdom believed that the actions of the 7th Brigade effectively freed up the sugar factory and St Denis for the 14th Brigade much sooner than would otherwise have been the case. Certainly the capture of the Mont St Quentin ridge and the territory towards Aizecourt-le-Haut, incorporating some of the highest ground in the area, was essential if the 14th and 15th Brigades were not only to make progress but also undertake their flanking movement to the east of Péronne and capture the Buire ridge and the villages of Doingt and Le Mesnil beyond. The 58th Battalion in Péronne likewise could not push beyond the town until its left flank was brought up. Thus, the work of the 7th Brigade was crucial for the outcome of the battle. In addition, the pressure placed on Darmstadt Trench forced the Germans to withdraw to Silesie Trench and beyond on 3 September. All the ground held by the enemy north-east of Péronne was thus threatened by the 7th’s position on the ridge.

  What the 7th Brigade accomplished was a natural corollary to the actions of the 5th and 6th brigades on 31 August and 1 September, and success was achieved by small groups of men working independently but never losing sight of the overall plan. The accounts of this brigade’s operations illustrate how the Australians won this battle — the 7th was a well-oiled machine with units that worked in almost perfect synchronisation under superb leadership. The work of the 7th Brigade on 2, 3 and 4 September made Mont St Quentin safe. It cleared the slopes of the Germans and made the Mont ‘undisputed Australian territory’.45

  Australians, probably from the 2nd Division, bathing in the Somme Canal near Cappy, where they were resting after the attack on Mont St Quentin. Photo taken 5 September 1918. (AWM EO3225)

  During the battle, around 245 Germans were killed, 200 prisoners taken and 93 machine-guns captured. The 96th Infantry Regiment lost both its battalion commanders who were operating on the Mont, while the third was killed near Allaines. The unit still believed that it fought ‘heroically’.46 For the 94th Infantry Regiment, 2 September was an ‘inconsolable day’ as the ridge was irretrievably lost.47 Aizecourt-le-Haut itself was only held because of the arrival of the Alpine Corps, withdrawn from the river front south of Péronne, to defend it.

  On 2 September the strength of the 7th Brigade was 49 officers and 1065 other ranks. In the actions which followed, seven officers and 74 men were killed, 25 officers and 343 other ranks wounded. The 7th remained in the line until the night of 4/5 September when it was relieved by the British 74th Division and the 8th Brigade of the 5th Division and moved back to Cappy to join the other two brigades of the 2nd Division for reorganisation, rest, sports carnivals, equestrian events and training. The men of the 7th went fishing and boating on the river. On 9 September they held their swimming and diving carnival, ‘Henley on the Somme’. These activities were only conducted once they had prepared crosses which were ‘conveyed forward and erected over the graves of the dead’.48

  Overall, the 2nd Division had been in the line for nine days, seven of those spent in continuous fighting. It had captured 14 villages and 15,141 acres of territory, 30 German officers and 1591 other ranks, two 77-mm guns, 265 machine-guns and 18 trench mortars. The Germans regarded it as a first class assault formation.49

  You may hear of us again

  By the evening of 2 September the Bouchavesnes ridge had been taken simultaneously with the Mont St Quentin ridge and Péronne had fallen. On this day the last Australian VC for this battle was won on the Bouchavesnes ridge by Lance Corporal Lawrence Weathers of the 43rd Battalion, who twice attacked a strongly held trench with bombs, on the second occasion jumping up onto the parapet and throwing bombs among the Germans, who surrendered. A total of 180 prisoners and three machine-guns were captured as a result of Weathers’ action, and the battalion was able to advance to its final objective to the north of Allaines, linking up with the 7th Brigade on the right. Patrols of the 44th Battalion were in support and a troop of the 13th Light Horse Regiment undertook important reconnaissance work, obtaining valuable ‘definite information of flanks and front’.50 At 6.00 pm on 2 September, the 44th relieved the 43rd Battalion near Scutari Trench, holding the position and posts on the Canal du Nord north of Haut Allaines until squeezed out of the line by III Corps and the 2nd Division on the evening of 3 September. The 3rd Division’s part in the battle of Mont St Quentin-Péronne was over.

  Direction of successful attacks, 31 August–5 September 1918.

  The British 74th Yeomanry Division now took over its sector. Fresh from Palestine, where it had been used as infantry, the 74th came into the line to relieve the British 58th Division on the night of 1/2 September, on the left of the 11th Brigade. Its debut on the Western Front was not a success and Rawlinson expressed his belief that it had been rushed in too early with inadequate artillery support, inexperienced leaders and without the support of the British 47th Division, which had not moved up, on its left.51

  On 2 September the 74th was the main attacking unit on the Bouchavesnes ridge. After a difficult relief which meant that it started late, it lost the barrage and had to negotiate wire and the old trench systems. It did not help that its men went into battle with their full packs, unheard of for an attack that had to advance so fast and so far or indeed for almost any attack in 1918.52 In addition, the 74th faced the Alpine Corps, also newly arrived on this front and regarded as one of the German army’s best formations at this stage of the war. James Edmonds, the British official historian, commented that ‘experience gained in outside theatres was insufficient training for the Western Front. … never … had the division encountered such artillery fire.’53 Its task was to drive the Germans across the Canal du Nord and storm the high ground around Nurlu, its final and highly ambitious objective. It did not even come close and was driven back by machine-gun fire, counter-attacks and a battery of 77-mm guns firing point blank into its lines, with devastating results.

  However, Rawlinson had expected the 74th to take the Nurlu position and he considered its failure a serious setback. Now the Germans could fall back on the Nurlu–Tincourt line, which had been reinforced, and perhaps make a temporary stand there using the position to cover the retreat — begun on 2 September — of their troops in front of the British First and Third armies to the north.

  Consequently, Rawlinson developed an idea which he had first put before Monash, Godley and Lambert on 2 September, to force a passage at St Christ. With the failure of the 74th, it became army policy on 3 September to force the Somme south of Péronne in a surprise attack which would take St Christ, establish a bridgehead and push troops across to advance east and north-east to open a passage at Brie. The British 32nd Division would force these crossings. In conjunction with the St Christ crossing, an attack would be made by the Australians south-east from Péronne and the advance would continue east if the attacks were successful and the high ground east and south of Péronne had been cleared. Rawlinson instructed Godley to prepare an attack on the Nurlu–Tincourt position almost as a diversion from the main thrust and with no attempt at secrecy whatsoever.54

  By the night of 2 September, Flamicourt was still held by the Germans. The original objectives of the Australian operation had not been realised and the flank had not turned to encircle Péronne and capture the high ground to the east. It had been premature to regard the battle for Péronne as over on 2 September and Rawlinson warned both Monash and Godley to expect counter-attacks on 3 September, although these did not materialise. Indeed, the line on the 15th Br
igade’s front was only halfway between St Denis and Darmstadt Trench on the night of 3 September when the enemy abandoned Darmstadt and withdrew to Silesie Trench. The Germans had already begun their retreat in front of the First and Third armies. However, in front of the Fourth Army there was no retreat until the evening of 4 September when they gave up the idea of trying to hold the strong and well-wired Nurlu– Tincourt position, which finally fell to the British on 5 September, with the 12th Division capturing the village of Nurlu early on the morning of the 6th. As they withdrew, the Germans burnt fields and villages in their wake, much as they had in the withdrawal of 1917.

  In the early morning of 5 September, the 15th Brigade occupied Flamicourt without a fight. William Hawkins told a strange story of the Australians meeting a disturbing sight: the main street strewn with the bodies of young German soldiers, all fully dressed and in marching order. Every man was armed with a revolver complete with lanyard. Hawkins wrote that ‘there was no evidence of any life remaining, which gave the village the atmosphere of a “dead city”. It was uncanny to say the least.’ However, the Australians were not going to leave the revolvers there, and a mate of Hawkins’ carried them back ‘like two large bunches of bananas’, to be mobbed on his return by men wanting to buy these lucrative ‘souvenirs’.55 Norman Nicolson also found that ‘the place was littered with dead men, dead horses and smashed transport.’56 He and Hawkins both thought the German soldiers had been caught by artillery fire.