Mont St Quentin, Second Australian Division Memorial

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Mont St Quentin, Second Australian Division Memorial

Mont St Quentin, Second Australian Division Memorial

A man every inch of him

Attack on Peronne, A Henry Fullwood, [oil on canvas, AWM ART02503]

On 30 August 1925, after unveiling the 2nd Division memorial at Mont St Quentin, Marshal Foch and his entourage proceeded a short distance down the road to the Péronne Communal Cemetery Extension. Here lie the remains of 512 Australian soldiers, many of whom died in the capture of Péronne by the 5th Australian Division between 1 and 3 September 1918. Foch placed a wreath on one of the wooden crosses where an Australian soldier lay buried for the cemetery had not yet received its permanent headstones. Among the crosses, in Plot IV, Row C, Grave 18, was one for 27–year–old Lance Sergeant George Potter, 53rd Battalion, a road contractor from Canberra, Federal Capital Territory.

The ramparts of Péronne. [DVA]

Entry to the museum L’Historial de la Grande Guerre, in the ramparts of Péronne. [DVA]

George Potter Lance Sergeant George Potter, 53rd Battalion (New South Wales), of Ainslie, ACT, who was killed on 1 September 1918, and was buried in the Péronne Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme, France. [Richard Reid]

On the morning of 1 September 1918, the 53rd Battalion, with the 54th Battalion on its right, formed up just east of the village of Halles on the flats between the village and Mont St Quentin. The task was to proceed to clear the Germans out of the area between the Somme and the old ramparts of the town of Péronne. In front of Anvil Wood, close to where the cemetery now stands, were enemy positions fronted by unbroken belts of barbed wire. A party of the 53rd made for a gap in the wire while, to cover them, the Lewis gunners, Lance Sergeant George Potter among them, stood up and sprayed bullets over the wire. The wire was penetrated and the Germans cleared from the trench line where the Australians found the water in the cooling covers of the enemy machine guns still boiling. However, George Potter’s exposed position had made him an easier target and he was killed.

The view towards from a German machine gun position on the ramparts of Péronne towards Anvil Wood, from where Australian soldiers attacked Peronne on 1 September 1918. [AWM E03781]

Wounded and dead in the gap in the tangled barbed wire through which the 53rd Battalion (New South Wales) advanced in the attack on Péronne, 1 September 1918. [AWM E03149]

The Honour Roll Circular completed by George Potter’s mother, Mrs Charlotte Harris, recalls his commanding officer’s remarks, that ‘George was a man, every inch of him’. Sergeant George Potter, Honour Roll Circular, AWM, http://www.awm.gov.au/cms_images/
awm131/040/040305.pdf

George’s mates never forgot him. Whenever they gathered in future years to remember their wartime service and swap yarns they drank a ‘silent toast’ to George:

Perhaps in civilian days he would not have known greatness, but now when we gather on Anzac Days we feel like pooling the decorations issued to us and casting them aside for this truly great man received but a wooden cross for the part he played in laying down his life for his country and the saving of his friends.

AWB, ‘Galant Lewis Gunner’, Stand–To, July–August 1954, p.26

On his Honour Roll Circular, now in the Australian War Memorial, George’s mother wrote:

What more can I say than the words of his Lieutenant, George was a man, every inch of him.

Péronne Communal Cemetery Extension. [DVA]

The grave of Private Albert Victor Leslie, 27th Battalion (South Australia), of Jamestown, South Australia, killed in action on 2 September 1918, in Peronne Communal Cemetery, France, February 1919. [AWM J00063]

Marshall Ferdinand Foch places a wreath on the grave of an Australian soldier, Péronne Communal Cemetery Extension, Péronne, France, 30 August 1925. [National Archives of Australia M3632.8.photo.15]

The 53rd Battalion entered Péronne at this point early on the morning of 2 September 1918. [AWM E03196]

After two days of heavy fighting, some of it in the streets of the town, Péronne fell to the Australians. The Germans, having lost their stronghold on the Somme, now withdrew eastwards towards the Hindenburg Line.

An Australian Lewis gun position in Péronne, France, 2 September 1918. [AWM E03183]

The ruined church, Péronne, France, 5 September 1918. [AWM E03187]

The ‘Roo de Kanga’, Péronne, so named by Australians after their capture of the town from the Germans on 2 September 1918. [AWM E03512]

Street sign ‘Roo de Kanga’, Péronne. [DVA]

Ruins in Peronne, Hôtel de Ville, Arthur Streeton [watercolour with pencil, AWM ART03518]

The church in Péronne. [DVA]

The Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall) Péronne. The ‘Roo de Kanga’ runs to the right of the Hôtel de Ville. [DVA]

German dead in a trench captured by the Australians in their advance on Péronne on 1 September 1918. [AWM E03150]

The capture of Mont St Quentin and Péronne by the AIF came after long hard weeks of battle. The more open actions and advances of the last months of the war were not like the terrible battles of 1916 and 1917 but the fire from enemy machine guns and artillery was every bit as devastating. In 1918, the Australian Corps suffered 60,355 battle casualties of which 12,187 were killed in action or died of wounds. Moreover, voluntary enlistment in Australia was not providing the recruits necessary to keep the 60 Battalions of the AIF and other support units up to strength. As one observer, quoted by Charles Bean, dramatically wrote:

Battalions are going into some of these fights 150 strong; 300 or 350 seems to be a big number in the fighting line these days. They are not as done as they were after Pozières, but they certainly are feeling that they have done more than their fair share of fighting … there is a feeling that ‘there wont be any Dominion Army left soon’, ‘There’ll be no AIF before long’.

Charles Bean, The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1918, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Volume VI, p.875

Rear view of ‘Digger’ statue showing his kit – rifle, entrenching tool, water bottle and pack, Mont St Quentin. [DVA]

The ‘Digger’, Second Australian Division Memorial, Mont St Quentin. [DVA]

Mont St Quentin, Second Australian Division Memorial

A man every inch of him

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