Reginald Harrington's Journey of Remembrance: Blog Post 5

 Onto the battlefields...

The last three days the group have been immersed in the narrative of the Somme battles and commemorations of our relatives and those of our broader local networks, have been the centre of our journey. The battles at Villers Bretonneux, Hamel, and across the valley to Albert, Thiepval, Mouquet Farm, Pozieres and Dernacourt were explained in detail by our battlefields expert, Rod Bedford. We visited many key sites including the chateau at Bertangles where Monash was knighted in the field. The evidence of the war still leaves its traces with the landscape revealing many of the old trench lines, craters and occasional shell casing or other bits of the 'iron harvest'. One of the most extraordinary sites were the ancient caves at Nours where thousands of examples of graffiti scratched into the rock by the WW1 soldiers, can be viewed underground.  (a separate post will follow about this site).

Over a century ago this landscape was a very different place, one that Reginald Harrington describes in some detail in his letters to his wife Edith as he recalls his first experiences on the Somme :

'4th June 1917:

We travelled by train in what we call at home 'box trucks'. We lived in them for 3 days and used to get off and light fires alongside the track and boil our dixies. The line was crowded with trains so far as I could see...there were trains...trains...miles of them. Gradually we reached Albert  our base and an air fight was going on. The air just seemed alive with shells bursting around some planes, the Huns had only an hour or so before the station and there was mess everywhere.

We marched out to our billets at Dernancourt and ...then we moved up further to the rear in motor buses. I have never seen so many and at night you could see the lights twinkling for miles. 

The roads were fearful , just a deep slush up and over your ankles. All this part of the country was just riddled with shell holes and only old trenches and broken wire, some where the lines have been.

Then comes Bullecourt, that graveyard of Australian soldiers...Bullecourt will be a painful name in thousands of Australian homes . It was by far the worst bit of hill they have come to yet.'

Albert - the famous golden Madonna the troops nicknamed Fanny Durak after the Australian Olympic diver.

Shell casings  are commonplace on the Somme - known as  the 'Iron Harvest'

Rod Bedford explaining the nature of trench warfare at Beaumont Hamel, a Canadian site.

The Digger memorial at Bullecourt

Commemorating Ngarrindjeri soldier Arthur Walker at Mouquet Farm. 

(All photos taken by Julie Reece, September 2022)