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

Albert

Devotion to duty - Australians in Albert Communal Cemetery Extension

In France and Belgium there are many cemeteries which each have a small number of Australians who died in World War I. On a visit to the Western Front it is good to go to cemeteries such as the Albert Community Cemetery Extension to commemorate the sacrifices of the men there who, although few in number, should not be forgotten.

The Australians in this cemetery died in the Pozières battles or in early 1917 in battles east of Bapaume. Private William Ross Devlin, 47th Battalion, age 34, died of wounds at the 13th Australian Field Ambulance, stationed close to Albert at Warloy–Ballion, on 1 September 1916. Devlin, who lies in Plot 1, Row N, Grave 48, was an immigrant from Dublin, Ireland, and working as a wharf labourer in Queensland when he joined up. He had seen military service previously in the British Army’s Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. Devlin’s mortal wound was probably received in the fighting in which his unit was involved around Mouquet Farm near Pozières in late August – early September 1916. Right next to Devlin is Private Edward Joseph Sullivan, 46th Battalion, who died of a stomach wound one day later, on 2 September 1916, also in the 13th Australian Field Ambulance. Both men were Catholics; rosaries and prayer books were returned to their families as part of their kit.

In Row M, Grave 5, is Private Bernard Scolyer, 26th Battalion, age 22, of Deloraine, Tasmania. The date of his death – 5 August 1916 – would suggest that he received a wound at Pozières, and that like Devlin and Sullivan, he died after being evacuated to a field ambulance or other medical aid station. However, his dossier in the National Archives of Australia states firmly that he was ‘killed in action’. So why was he buried so far from the front line?

There is a clue in the commendation of Scolyer for the award of a ‘Mentioned in Despatches’. Scolyer was a stretcher–bearer and his commendation reads:

The reference to Tara Hill is the clue. It is not a local place name but one given by certain battalions of the Northumberland Fusiliers, known as the ‘Tyneside Irish’, to the hill which rises just east of Albert. (Tara is the famous hill in County Meath where the High Kings of Ireland reigned in ancient times. It features in much Irish mythology, poetry and folklore. On 1 July 1916, the Tyneside Irish had advanced towards the Germans down the opposite side of the hill from Albert from positions they had christened the ‘Tara–Usna Line’.) The proximity of Tara Hill to Albert and the fact that he was a stretcher–bearer explain how Private Bernard Scolyer could be killed in action and buried in the Albert cemetery.

The men of the Australian Army Medical Corps played a prominent role in Australian battles fought on the Somme in 1916. AIF Field Ambulance and regimental stretcher–bearers established an evacuation line from Pozieres between July and September 1916. It went from the western end of the village along a ‘sunken road’ to the famous ‘Chalk Pit’, down an adjacent road to Contalmaison and, when safe, along the main Albert–Bapaume road. From different locations horse–drawn or motorised ambulances would ferry the wounded further back to Advanced Dressing Stations in Bécourt or Albert. During the last stages of the Pozières–Mouquet Farm operations the Australian Advanced Dressing Station in Albert was in the local school. Captain Percy Davenport of the 5th Australian Field Ambulance described the work of the Advanced Dressing Station in Bécourt Château, about four kilometres from Pozieres, at the height of the battle:

Private Robert Logan, 7th Field Ambulance, Australian Army Medical Corps, who lies in Plot I, Row M, Grave 44 probably worked forward of Bécourt Chateau near Albert. He was wounded on 4 August 1916 at a time when the bearer parties of the 7th Field Ambulance were working in the so–called ‘collecting zone’ at Pozières where the wounded were carried by stretcher–bearers from the ‘regimental aid posts’ close to the front line, back about a kilometre to ‘collecting stations’. From there the field ambulances moved them at a faster pace to the dressing stations. In this area the stretcher–bearers and ambulance drivers were always in danger from German shells. There is little official evidence about the context of Private Logan’s death but he was severely wounded in the head, probably by a shell fragment, on 4 August and died the same day in the care of the 2nd Australian Field Ambulance at Vadencourt Château, about 14 kilometres west of Albert.

During World War I in Australia there was much prejudice directed against people of German origin. South Australians demonstrated their patriotism in the ‘Nomenclature Act’ of 1917 which re–titled 69 places in the state which had German names. Support for the Empire’s war effort was shown by using the names of battles or British generals. So Blumberg became Birdwood, the name of the commander of the AIF, and Rhine River North became the Somme River (now Somme Creek). But many South Australians of German origin demonstrated their loyalty to Australia’s cause in the war. One was Captain Fritz Hermann Hübbe, 1st Pioneer Battalion, who lies in Plot I, Row K, Grave 28. He was killed in action on 23 July 1916. The Hübbes were an early German settler family in the state and Captain Hübbe’s father, Captain Samuel Grau Hübbe, had been killed in action in 1900 at the head of the Third South Australian Bushman’s Contingent at Ottoshoop in the South African War. Fritz Hübbe’s mother was the well–known South Australian educationalist Edith Hübbe, nee Cook, who in 1877 became the first woman to pass the matriculation exam for Adelaide University. She never took a degree but in 1881 was appointed headmistress of the prestigious Advanced School for Girls in Adelaide.

On the night of 22–23 July 1916, the 1st Pioneers were making their way towards Pozières along the road at the end of Sausage Valley, past the ominously named ‘Casualty Corner’, and on to the village of Contalmaison. The Germans became aware that the Australians were forming up for an attack and began bombarding these rear approaches to Pozières:

Somewhere in this area Captain Fritz Hübbe was hit and killed, one of the first Australian casualties of the Battle of Pozières.

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

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