Battle of the Yser
The Road to Pozières
An incident not easily forgotten – Sunken Road Cemetery, Contalmaison
Fields, Contalmaison. [DVA]
Commonwealth War Graves Commission sign for Sunken Road and 2nd Canadian cemeteries on the D147 Contalmaison to Pozières road. [DVA]
Beyond ‘Casualty Corner’ and just before Contalmaison there is a left–hand fork off the D20 on to the D147, the road to Pozières. Along this road there are Commonwealth War Graves Commission signs pointing right along a dirt road to two cemeteries in the fields: Sunken Road and 2nd Canadian. As the name implies, the 2nd Canadian Cemetery is an all–Canadian affair containing graves of men of the 2nd Battalion (Eastern Ontario) and on the gate is a gold maple leaf. It was the Canadians who took up the struggle around Pozières and Mouquet Farm after the AIF was relieved in early September 1916.
2nd Canadian Cemetery on the farm road between the D147 and the D73. [DVA]
Canadian emblem, 2nd Canadian Cemetery. [DVA]
An Australian horse ambulance, August 1916. [AWM EZ0103]
Australian gunners use an 18–pound gun to bombard German trenches, Pozières, July 1916. [AWM EZ0141]
Across the road and along a grass track is Sunken Road Cemetery. Although there are many Canadians buried here there are also 61 Australians, all fatalities of the Pozières–Mouquet Farm fighting between July and September 1916. Among the Australian graves lie 14 soldiers of the 48th Battalion AIF (South Australia and Western Australia). The battalion lost heavily in the fighting at Pozières, particularly under enemy shell fire on 6–7 August 1916 near the Windmill. Charles Bean estimated they suffered 598 casualties and the Australian War Memorial’s Roll of Honour records 115 deaths in the unit for the period 5–8 August. Some of the 48th Battalion graves here recall an incident when men being relieved were standing around a battalion cooker in the cold morning air waiting for a cup of tea. A shell fell in their midst killing 26 and wounding 16. Chaplain William Devine wrote:
The memory of the disaster remained long with the men of the 48th. The great destruction of human life caused by one shell and the hard ill–fortune overwhelming the victims who had already survived so much, were the outstanding features that made it an incident not easily forgotten in the Battalion.
William Devine, The Story of a Battalion, Melbourne, 1919, p.42
Sunken Road Cemetery. [DVA]
Australian artillerymen ramming home a shell in a 9.2 inch howitzer, Pozières, July 1916. [AWM EZ0145]
Headstone of Private Frank Gorman, 48th Battalion (South Australia and Western Australia), Sunken Road Cemetery. [DVA]
One of those victims may have been Private Frank Gorman in Plot 1, Row B, Grave 4. A witness to his death, Private James Mannix, 48th Battalion, wrote that Gorman had been with the others ‘round the cookery’ when the shell exploded.
Sunken Road Cemetery. [DVA]
Australian gunners about to load a shell into a 9.2 inch howitzer, Pozières, July 1916. [AWM EZ0147]
Australian officers at breakfast, Pozières, August 1916. [AWM EZ0075]
From the Australian graves at Sunken Road Cemetery one can look across the swaying crops up the hill to the rooftops of modern Pozières. Across these fields at 12.30 am on 23 July 1916 soldiers of the 1st Battalion (NSW) and 11th Battalion (Western Australia) rushed at the German line known as Pozières Trench where they surrounded sixty Germans who quickly surrendered. The Battle of Pozières had begun.
Looking from Sunken Road Cemetery across the fields to Pozières. The obelisk of the First Australian Division Memorial is visible at the top of the ridge. It was across these fields that the infantry of the First Division attacked Pozières on the night of 23 July 1916. [DVA]
Pozières village. [DVA]
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© 2008 Department of Veterans' Affairs and Board of Studies NSW :: Last update - November 2008