Belgium 1914

Battle of the Yser

France 1915

Notre Dame de Lorette

France 1916

Battle of Fromelles

The Battle of the Somme

France 1917

Battle of Vimy Ridge

Advance to the Hindenburg Line

First and Second Bullecourt

Belgium 1917

Battle of Messines

Third Battle of Ypres

Battle of the Menin Road

Battle of Polygon Wood

Battles of Broodseinde, Poelcappelle and Passchendaele

France 1918

Defence of Amiens

Battle of Hamel

Battle of Amiens

Battle of Mont St Quentin

Hindenburg Line

Armistice

Treaty of Versailles

Dernancourt

Here lies a brave English warrior

On 5 April 1918 the fields all around the Dernancourt cemetery were a battleground. Thwarted in their efforts to beak through the British lines in this area on 28 March, the Germans returned to the struggle with a vengeance. The German force was greatly superior in numbers to the Australian battalions holding the line along the railway embankment and in support trenches ranged up the slopes. A heavy attack began from Dernancourt village itself against the 47th Battalion positions strung out on either side of the railway underpass. The enemy advanced after a significant artillery bombardment of the Australian positions and, although held up by initial resistance shortly after 10 am, German soldiers began pouring over the embankment and through the underpass. One who did his best to stop them, but died in the attempt, was Lieutenant William Cooksley, aged 26, of Brisbane, Queensland. Three days later Cooksley’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Imlay, wrote to the young man’s father offering his sympathy. Imlay’s letter was undoubtedly similar to thousands written home by responsible officers and NCOs to bereaved families seeking some understanding of what precisely had happened to their son, husband or relative:

One wonders if the Cooksleys ever read Charles Bean’s account of the Dernancourt battle which appeared in his official history in 1937. He describes a number of German attacks on the 47th’s posts at the railway which were initially beaten back and then were finally successful, a number of Queenslanders being taken prisoner. Bean said that Lieutenant Cooksley was shot through the head while reaching for a rifle after lining his men up along the railway. At that point the 47th Battalion’s defences were swept away and soon afterwards the enemy infantry began moving up the slopes towards the cemetery. Sadly, contrary to Colonel Imlay’s letter to the Cooksley family, the position was far from secure. The 47th were being driven back and the battalions to its right and left were in danger of being outflanked and cut off.

The bodies of very few of the 41 men of the 47th Battalion who died in the German advance at Dernancourt on 5 April 1918 were recovered, or if recovered they were not identified Their names are commemorated on the Australian National Memorial at Villers–Bretonneux. Seven of the men, however, lie close to where they fell – in the Dernancourt Cemetery Extension. In Plot V, Row I, Grave 2 is Private Charles Badham Martin, aged 46, who had enlisted in Hughenden, Queensland, giving his occupation as ‘boundary rider’. Martin was badly wounded in both legs by a shell and according to one witness was ‘left’ as it was ‘impossible to get him out’ when the battalion was in retreat. Martin seems to have been in a post on the other side of the railway underpass in a trench which was badly hit by the enemy shelling. Private William Cottell, who was also wounded, later reported:

But Charles Badham Martin was no ordinary outback worker. His Roll of Honour circular, now at the Australian War Memorial, was filled out by his sister, Mrs Nora Manning, wife of prominent Sydney barrister and politician Henry (later Sir Henry) Manning, who lived in the fashionable Sydney suburb of Point Piper. She wrote that Martin’s occupation was that of ‘Barrister at Law’ and that he had attended the exclusive Kings School, Parramatta. In reality Charles Martin was the fourteenth son of Sir James Martin, erstwhile Chief Justice and Premier of New South Wales, after whom Martin Place, Sydney is named. Sir James died in 1886, and was eventually buried in Waverly Cemetery, Sydney, beside his wife, Isabella, in a vault described by his biographer as:

But in Waverly, far from France, Sir James’ youngest son has not been forgotten – to his parent’s vault a plaque has been affixed stating that Charles Badham Martin died at Dernancourt in April 1918.

By early afternoon on 5 April the Germans had swept past the cemetery and further up the hill behind and had captured an important Australian machine gun position at a location known simply as the ‘Quarry’. The survivors of the three Australian battalions which had been strung out along the railway line in the morning moved back to a trench called the ‘Pioneer’ trench well beyond the ‘Quarry’ as news reached headquarters of the crisis at the front. A counter–attack was quickly organised, to be led by the 49th Battalion (Queensland). At 5.15 pm Australian artillery bombarded the new German positions at the ‘Quarry’ and the Queenslanders swept towards them in an attack described by Charles Bean as ‘one of the finest ever carried out by Australian troops’. A hail of small arms fire met the 49th as they came down the hill but the impetus of the charge was sufficient to push the Germans back closer to the ‘Quarry’ where fighting ceased. No breakthrough had occurred and no further effort was made by the enemy to advance in this area in the following days.

Records show that 45 men of the 49th Battalion died on 5 April 1918 in the charge at Dernancourt and of these 14 are buried in Dernancourt Communal Cemetery and Extension. Lieutenant Thomas Naylor, in Plot 10, Row H, Grave 20, was regarded by one of his men, Lance Corporal Charles Allard, as ‘one of the finest chaps one could possibly have as an officer’. Naylor was shot through the throat as he ran down the front of the advance to see what was holding up some men on the left flank. The inscription on his grave reads:

Also in memory of Arthur William H Naylor, E Kent Regt ‘The Buffs’, Missing May 28th 1915.

These words commemorate Thomas’s elder brother and were requested by his mother who, in 1920, wrote to the authorities requesting that her sons’ war medals be sent to her rather than his father:

Another unit which distinguished itself at Dernancourt was, once again, the 48th Battalion. Well to the north–east of the cemetery it held off the German advance across the railway but had then been in great danger of being surrounded. However, the battalion managed to extricate itself successfully from the situation despite the loss of 22 men in battle that day. Six of these men were eventually buried in Dernancourt cemetery. But more than half of those killed were never found or identified and it is possible that some of them lie under the headstones of the 48 unidentified Australians at Dernancourt. It is possible that two of them had once lain out on the battlefield under wooden crosses which were taken to Australia after the war. The crosses had been erected by the Germans. On one of these crosses was written:

Hier liegt ein tapferer Englischer Krieger
(Here lies a brave English warrior)

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© 2008 Department of Veterans' Affairs and Board of Studies NSW :: Last update - November 2008

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