Biographical study of the War experience of Corporal Reginald Clarence EDWARDS, 1st A.I.F.
Around 60,000 Australian soldiers were killed in the First World War. This number of deaths can mask the fact that each of these soldiers was an individual with experiences and stories to tell. In being referred to in terms of a statistic, the human side of that many deaths can be obscured, and the individuality of each of those soldiers hidden. This paper will attempt to rectify that, for one soldier in the First Australian Imperial Force at least, by documenting the experiences of Reginal Clarence Edwards, who, in 1916, went from dairy farmer near Dorrigo in New South Wales, to an Australian ‘Digger’ in the First World War, serving in the front line on the Western Front in France and Belgium.
The First World War had already been underway for almost two years before Reginald Clarence Edwards enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force on 23 February, 1916.[1] Upon enlistment Edwards was assigned to ‘A’ Company of the 33rd Battalion – a new Battalion that had been formed in December 1915 at Armidale, New South Wales, when it became apparent that the First World War was not going to be ending quickly, and there would be a need for further soldiers to be sent overseas from Australia to fight.[2] As a dairy farmer from Bostobrick, a small town north-west of Dorrigo, the gravity of enlisting for the War may have had an impact on Edwards, as prior to travelling with the 33rd Battalion to Rutherford for Brigade training in March 1916, Edwards planted a gum tree on the property ‘Riverview’ where he was living in the event that he did not return from the War.[3] That depth of thinking, and the action by him in planting that gum tree, suggests that Edwards was questioning his own mortality in relation to taking part in the war effort, and considering the very real possibility that he may be killed in battle.
Brigade training at Rutherford ended with members of the 33rd Battalion travelling to Sydney by train on 3 May, 1916.[4] The following day Private R.C. Edwards, with the rest of the 33rd Battalion, embarked on the H.M.A.T A47 Marathon to England.[5] Aside from the crew of the Marathon, there were 1,028 members of the 33rd Battalion on board.[6]
The original destination for the Marathon had been Egypt, although that destination changed to England mid-voyage after a radio call was received by the crew of the ship.[7] The Marathon arrived at Devonport on 9 July, 1916, and soldiers of the 33rd Battalion disembarked, making their way to the Salisbury Plain training camp for further training.[8] Reginald Clarence Edwards underwent four months of further training with the 33rd Battalion at Salisbury Plain training camp before being moved with the Battalion, and other Units of the 9th Brigade, to La Havre, France, via Southampton, on 21 November, 1916.[9] It is from this date also, that the Official Unit War Diary for the 33rd Battalion was commenced.[10]
After arriving in France, the 33rd Battalion moved to Chaprelle d’Armentieres, where, by 27 November, 1916, the Battalion had its first encounter with trench warfare.[11] Known as the ‘quiet sector’, Armentieres was seen as a good introduction for the recruits of the 3rd Division, of which the 33rd Battalion was a part, to become accustomed for what lay ahead of them when they would eventually be moved to front line duty.[12] From November, 1916, until May, 1917, soldiers of the 33rd Battalion had both front line and subsidiary line duty in the sectors of Armentieres and Houplines, rotating four to seven days on the frontline, then the same period out of the frontline.[13]
On 12 January, 1917, while out of frontline duty, Edwards undertook Lewis Gun Training at Le Touquet.[14] The Lewis Gun was a portable machine gun, which, Carlyon argues, had begun to change the tactics of the war – this partly coming about by the nature of the weapon itself, and also by the fact that in 1915 there were only four Lewis guns assigned to each battalion, whereas by 1916, there were eight or more per battalion.[15] The Lewis Gun was one-third the weight of the belt-fed Vickers machine gun, and rather than being fed by a belt, the ammunition feed came from a drum magazine, where the drum held 47 shells.[16]
After being in the Armentieres and Houplines sector for around six months, the 33rd Battalion was issued orders on 20 May, 1917, to move from their current location to Ploegsteert Wood.[17] This movement was part of a much larger movement of troops, artillery, and other equipment, in preparation for the detonation of 19 mines under the German front line on 7 June, 1917, as part of an Operation codenamed ‘Magnum Opus’.[18] At the time of being given orders to move to Ploegsteert Wood, soldiers of the 33rd Battalion were not officially advised of the reason for that move, nor the date of the Operation, although rumours started to circulate towards the end of May there was going to be a ‘big stunt’, where New Zealanders and the 3rd Division would fight together, being supported by a large number of machine guns, all being preceded by the detonation of mines.[19]
The soldiers of the 33rd Battalion, after arriving at Ploegsteert Wood, carried out duties in shelters, prepared trenches and engaged in general trench routine, and continued with their training.[20] On 30 May, 1917, Private Reginald Clarence Edwards was promoted to the rank of temporary Lance Corporal.[21]
In the lead up to the attack codenamed ‘Magnum Opus’, Orders were issued to advise of the nature of the Operation and the aim of the Operation itself, with the 33rd Battalion receiving their orders on 5 June, 1917.[22] The Orders indicated that the date of the Operation had yet to be set, but that the aim of the Operation was the capture of the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge.[23] As a Lewis Gun operator, Lance Corporal Edwards, having been assigned to ‘A’ Company and under the command of Captain Douglas, was in a company that had three Lewis Guns, and which was tasked to provide support to Companies ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ in their objective to capture and consolidate the mine crater, which would be detonated in their vicinity, and to capture the enemy front line and support lines.[24] The enemy that had been identified as opposite the 33rd Battalion, and which was to be captured, was the 5th Bavarian Reserve I.P., 4th Bavarian Division, Sixth Army.[25]
Preparations for the capture of the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge had been a long time in the planning and execution, with some mines having been in place for over a year.[26] The battle for Messines Ridge was significant for the 33rd Battalion, and the 3rd Division as a whole, because it marked the first time that this Australian division saw service on the Western Front.[27] It also marked the first time that Australian soldiers fought side-by-side with soldiers from New Zealand, since Gallipoli.[28]
Shortly after 11.00pm on 6 June, 1917, the eight Battalions of the Australian 3rd Division, which included the 33rd Battalion, left their camps and moved to Ploegsteert Wood.[29] At 3.10am on 7 June, 1917, 19 mines were detonated under the front line of German troops, which was followed by machine gun fire from the Australian 3rd Division.[30] Lance Corporal Edwards with ‘A’ Company, including and under the command of Captain Douglas, made their way across No-Man’s Land, where they provided, and encountered, gun-fire.[31] It was during this exchange of gunfire that Lance Corporal Edwards sustained a gunshot wound to his neck.[32] This wound rendered Edwards incapacitated and he was administered first aid by the 9th Field Ambulance before being transferred to the 12th Field Ambulance for further treatment and evacuation.[33] Due to the serious nature of the injury sustained by Edwards, he was transported to an Ambulance train on 8 June, 1917, for transportation to the 13th General Hospital at Boulogne.[34]
The Battle of Messines saw 19 mines detonated, followed by over 2200 guns firing three and a half million shells as part of the bombardment, and while generally considered a success, there were over 26,000 casualties, for relatively limited gain.[35] The 33rd Battalion sustained 368 casualties as a result of the assault (79 killed in action, 252 wounded, 34 gassed and with shell shock, and 3 missing).[36] On 16 June, 1917, in recognition of the seriousness of the injuries to Lance Corporal Edwards, and the ongoing treatment and recovery that would be needed, Edwards was officially removed from the strength of the 33rd Battalion, and as such, reverted back to his substantive rank of Private.[37]
On 24 June, 1917, Private Edwards was deemed well enough to be transferred from the 13th General Hospital to the 1st Convalescent Depot, also at Boulogne, where he would continue to recover from his wounds.[38] Edwards recovered from his wounds to the point where medical staff deemed that he was fit enough to return to frontline duties, and on 17 September, 1917, having been transferred from the 1st Convalescent Depot to the 3rd Australian Divisional Base Depot on 28 June, 1917, he transferred from there back to the 33rd Battalion, where he re-joined Battalion strength on 20 September, 1917.[39]
August and September, 1917, had been comparatively quiet months for the 33rd Battalion while Edwards had been recovering from his injuries, with the Battalion engaging mostly in field exercises and training during that time in Campagne les Bournais, but on 25 September, 1917, the 33rd Battalion, under orders, packed up, and marched out, and by 5 October, 1917 they were in Zonnebeke.[40] At that time the Battle of Flanders was underway as well as a number of battles east of Ypes, including Menin Road and Polygon Wood.[41] During these battles, the 33rd Battalion was mainly held back, being involved in routine work, such as road-making.[42]
Private Edwards, who now had been back with the 33rd Battalion for nearly three weeks and had been involved with the tasks assigned to the Battalion, was, on 7 October, 1917, given a field promotion to the rank of Corporal on account of the wounding and evacuation of Corporal Callcott from the Battalion.[43] This field promotion occurred two days before the commencement of the Battle of Passchendaele, which was an offensive to take the high ground along Passchendaele Ridge. The involvement of the Australian 3rd Division in the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres), which included involvement of the 33rd Battalion, commenced on 12 October, 1917.[44]
Rain and wind in the area had been persistent from around 5 October, 1917, to the point that shell holes and trenches at the battle site were flooded, and soldiers were forced to walk through mud, which at some points was waist deep.[45] In the first 24 hours of the Battle of Passchendaele the Australian 3rd Division, with the New Zealand Division, suffered 3,199 casualties.[46]
On 18 October, 1917, the 33rd Battalion was carrying out duty on the frontline, where enemy artillery had been described as ‘lively’ during the day.[47] Besides the enemy artillery, gas shells were also being sent over the position of the 33rd Battalion, and it was during this ‘lively’ enemy artillery that Corporal Reginald Clarence Edwards was killed in action.[48] His death was recorded in the 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary as part of Routine Order No. 389, and those details of his death were forwarded, along with details of four other soldiers of the 33rd Battalion that were also killed that day, to Defence Administration Headquarters, Melbourne, as well as London, for the updating of records.[49]
The exact nature of the injury sustained by Edwards is not known and is not noted as part of the 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, or as part of Routine Order No. 389 that recorded his death for dissemination to Administration Headquarters. Edwards was identified and removed from the battlefield, ultimately coming to be interred in the New British Cemetery at Passchendaele.
By contrast, the 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary for the following day, 19 October, 1917, reports a fine day, and that the Battalion is resting in Camp after leaving front line duties the previous night.[50]
The parents of Corporal Edwards, George Crisp and Mary Ann Edwards, were advised of his death in a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Morshead, the Commanding Officer of the 33rd Battalion, and on the one-year anniversary of his death, George and Mary Edwards posted a tribute to their son in the Don Dorrigo and Guy Fawkes Advocate Newspaper, which, in part, read,
“’Twas in the Battle of Passchendaele
Amid the crash of shot and shell,
While fighting for his country
Our darling Clarence fell.”[51]
On 24 March, 1923, George and Mary Edwards received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal that had been posthumously awarded to Corporal Edwards.[52] The British War Medal was awarded to all Imperial Force personnel that served as part of the British campaign during 1914-18, and the Victory Medal was awarded to all British and Allied troops that had entered a theatre of war as part of the British campaign during 1914-1918.[53]
Reginald Clarence Edwards was interred at the New British Cemetery, Passchendaele, and while his parents, George and Mary Edwards, were never able to see his grave in person, the Department of Defence supplied to them three copies of a photograph of his grave.[54]
What motivated Reginald Clarence Edwards
to enlist to fight in the First World War? Could it have been a sense of duty
to King and Country? Or, was it a desire for a change of scenery, and some
adventure? Answers to those questions would be pure speculation as those
reasons were not recorded and any first-hand knowledge of them has since gone.
What can be known is that Reginald Clarence Edwards had a sense of the
dangerousness of the war, and at twenty-seven years of age, with the First
World War having been underway for almost two years, he chose to go anyway.
Born and bred on a rural property in the small village of Bostobrick,
north-west of Dorrigo in New South Wales, Edwards left behind dairy farming for
the brutality of war, which he experienced on multiple occasions. After being
shot in the neck by enemy gunfire during the Battle of Messines, he was patched
up and allowed to recover only to the point where he was deemed fit to return
to the front line. This return saw him, like the rest of his Battalion, having
to engage the enemy while negotiating rain, wind and a flooded, muddy
battlefield. Less than one month after being discharged from hospital after
having been shot in the neck, Reginald Clarence Edwards was killed in action in
the Battle of Passchendaele, which all-told was less than two years after he
enlisted. The gum tree that Edwards planted on the ‘Riverview’ property where
he lived, in the village of Bostobrick before going to War, is now fully grown,
and it continues to grow over 100 years after it was planted.[55]
Endnotes:
[1] Reginald Clarence Edwards, Attestation Papers, 23 February, 1916, National Archives of Australia [hereafter NAA], B2455 EDWARDS R C.
[2] John Edwards, Never a Backwards Step: A History of the First 33rd Battalion, AIF, South Grafton, 1996, p. 5.
[3] Georgie Frogley (Don Dorrigo and Guy Fawkes Historical Society) to Brooke Smith, email, 10 August, 2015, original held in author’s possession.
[4] Edwards, Never a Backwards Step, p. 8.
[5] Reginald Clarence Edwards, Unit Embarkation Nominal Rolls, 4 May, 1916, Australian War Memorial [hereafter AWM], AWM8 23/50/1 – 33 Infantry Battalion (May 1916).
[6] Edwards, Never a Backwards Step, p. 9.
[7] Ibid. p. 10.
[8] Reginald Clarence Edwards, Casualty Form-Active Service, 21 November, 1917, NAA B2455 EDWARDS R C.
[9] Ibid.
[10] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, diary entry, 21 November, 1916, AWM, AWM4 Subclass 23/50 – 33rd Infantry Battalion.
[11] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, diary entry, 27 November, 1916.
[12] Edwards, Never a Backwards Step, p. 25.
[13] Ibid. pp. 26-37.
[14] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, Appendix 1, January, 1917.
[15] Les Carlyon, The Great War, Australia, 2006, p. 219.
[16] Les Carlyon, The Great War, p. 220.
[17] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, diary entry, 20 May, 1917.
[18] Martin Brown and Richard Osgood, Digging Up Plugstreet: The Archaeology of a Great War Battlefield, Somerset, 2009, p. 11-12.
[19] Edwards, Never a Backwards Step, p. 39.
[20] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, diary entry, 21 May, 1917 – 31 May, 1917.
[21] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, Routine Order No. 299, 30 May, 1917.
[22] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, Appendix No. 6, Order No. 40, 5 June, 1917.
[23] Ibid.
[24] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, Appendix No. 6, Order No. 40, 5 June, 1917.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Edwards, Never a Backwards Step, p. 39.
[27] Dr. Andrew Richardson, The Battle of Messines 1917, updated 22 March 2018, http://www.army.gov.au/battle-of-messines-1917, accessed 26 July 2018.
[28] Ibid.
[29] C.E.W. Bean, ‘Chapter XV: The Battle of Messines-June 7th’, in Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, (11th edn), C.E.W. Bean (ed), Sydney, 1941, Vol. IV, p. 589.
[30] Ibid. p. 593.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Reginald Clarence Edwards, Casualty Form-Active Service, 21 November, 1917, NAA B2455 EDWARDS R C.
[33] Reginald Clarence Edwards, Casualty Form-Active Service, 21 November, 1917, NAA B2455 EDWARDS R C.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Jeffrey Grey, A Military History of Australia, 3rd edn, Melbourne, 2008, p. 105.
[36] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, Appendix 6, June 1917.
[37] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, Routine Order No. 309, 16 June, 2017.
[38] Reginald Clarence Edwards, Casualty Form-Active Service, 21 November, 1917, NAA B2455 EDWARDS R C.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Edwards, Never a Backwards Step, p. 51.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Ibid.
[43] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, Routine Order No. 382, 7 October, 1917.
[44] Edwards, Never a Backwards Step, p. 52.
[45] Lyn MacDonald, Passchendaele: The Story of the Third Battle of Ypres 1917, London, 1978, pp. 202-218.
[46] Edwards, Never a Backwards Step, p. 52.
[47] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, diary entry, 18 October, 1917.
[48] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, Routine Order No. 389, 18 October, 1917.
[49] Ibid.
[50] 33rd Battalion Unit War Diary, diary entry, 19 October, 1917.
[51] George and Mary Edwards, ‘In Memoriam’, The Don Dorrigo and Guy Fawkes Advocate, 16 October, 1918, p. 3.
[52] Reginald Clarence Edwards, Receipt for Victory Medal, 24 March, 1923, NAA B2455 EDWARDS R C.
[53] Peter Duckers, British Campaign Medals of the First World War, Great Britain, 2011, pp. 13-17.
[54] Reginald Clarence Edwards, Receipt Slip, 19 March, 1921, NAA B2455 EDWARDS R C
[55] Georgie Frogley (Don Dorrigo and Guy Fawkes Historical Society) to Brooke Smith, email, 10 August, 2015, original held in author’s possession.
