The 14th Brigade of the 5th Division of the AIF took part in the Battle of Fromelles. Sixty three members of the Brigade are numbered amongst the ‘missing’ of Fromelles. This includes 14 from the 53rd Battalion, 30 from 54th Battalion, 15 from 55th Battalion, one from 56th Battalion and 3 from the Machine Gun Company.
Today we proudly introduce you to Private F.A. Finch of the 56th Battalion. Private Finch was killed in action on 20th July 1916, the day following the Battle of Fromelles, as a result of being hit in the head by shrapnel. Just prior to his death Private Finch had been responsible for bringing a wounded Digger safely back into the Australian lines after the Battle of Fromelles.
Photo: Private Frederick Arthur Finch
In the following extract from an article in the latest DIGGER you can read about how dangerous it was for a soldier to be in a reserve battalion not directly involved in the action.
Private 3086A Frederick Arthur Finch, 56th Battalion
Compiled by Graeme Hosken, using material supplied by Frank Finch, Kyogle, and Russell Curley, Blakehurst. Frank is the nephew of Frederick Finch.
Frederick Finch was aged 21 years and 5 months when he enlisted in the AIF on 1st September 1915 at Holdsworthy, NSW. Frederick was working as a ship’s fireman and gave his mother, Mrs Susan Finch, of ‘Aloha’, Tennyson Road, Tennyson, Ryde [Sydney], as his next-of-kin………
Frederick was allocated to the 7th Reinforcements of the 20th Battalion (5th Brigade, NSW) on 14th October 1915. He embarked on HMAT Suevic on 23rd December 1915 for training in Egypt and was transferred to the 56th Battalion (14th Brigade, NSW) on 16th February 1916, when the 5th Division was formed…………
The 56th Battalion began its move to France on 9th May 1916…….. His transfer to the 5th Division and to France led Frederick to a rendezvous with death within two months.
Frederick Finch was killed at Fromelles on 20th July 1916 when the 14th Brigade, flanked by the 8th and 15th Brigades, attacked the German line. The 56th Battalion was the reserve battalion and so did not take direct part in the attack (carried out by the 53rd and 54th Battalions), nor were they allotted the support role of carrying supplies through to the captured ground (the job of the 55th Battalion). The 56th was tasked with occupying the portion of the Australian front line occupied by the 14th Brigade once their sister battalions had ‘hopped the bags’. B Company (to which Frederick belonged) of the 56th was later sent forward to hurry the work on the digging of a communications trench across no-man’s-land to the captured position.
The Germans continued to bombard the Australian line and death by shell fragment, shrapnel or machine gun bullet was a possibility wherever you were on the battlefield. Private Falconer, when interviewed by the Red Cross, stated that Frederick was killed on 19th July “by shrapnel, in trenches, hit right in the head. He was just going into the first line, was in Machine Gun Section and was buried in Fleurbaix Cemetery.” Lance Corporal C F Lynch stated that Finch “had brought in a wounded man and was in the bay of the trench when he was instantly killed by shell. The burial took place in the support trenches to the right of Fleurbaix, near Laventie.” This statement was supported by Private J Hamilton, who recalled that Finch was “killed by my side in a support trench at Fleurbaix on July 19th. We were halting for a few seconds on our way to the front line, when we heard a wounded man calling out. He went over and fetched the man in. He came back and sat down by my side, about a couple of feet away. A shrapnel shell came over and a piece from it blew his brains out. We had to leave the body there when we went on. I arranged for a Padre to write to his people.” Sergeant 3308 Armstrong informed the Red Cross that he had helped bury the remains.
Interestingly, none of the eye-witnesses stated that Frederick was killed on 20th July – the official date of death. The letter below, however, written by Fred Finley on 21st July 1916, informs Susan Finch that her son Frederick died on the 20th.
My dear Mrs Finch,
I cannot express the grief I bear, when it has become my duty, my most painfully sad duty, to acquaint you of the noble death of your Son Fred. Killed in action, serving his King, his Country and his God, his has been the grandest and noblest of deaths. God knows it’s hard for you to bear even as it is to me, his dearest friend, to have to tell you. Yesterday the 20th of July he was killed and was buried in the little quiet cemetery at the back of our lines, where already his grave is marked by the little wooden cross of the army. Ah, it has been a hard blow to us, his chums, we who have lived with him, worked with him, and toiled along beside him when, facing the greatest hardships, he never once complained. Thus we are able to realise just a little of what it must be to you, his Mother, who has reared him and cared for him for all of these years. You may justly be proud of him, the truest man God ever made and the whitest. I cannot express my sympathy for you and Mr Finch, Gracie and Pearlie and the boys. I would have liked also to have written to Linda, but it is too hard, I cannot face the task. When you tell her, tell her that she was always his first thought after you. Well, my dear friend, I trust that my words have not been too blunt, but at such times as these it is hardly possible for one to write half what one feels, but you will understand I know. I will remain for ever,
Yours very sincerely, Fred Finley
Like so many Australian families Mrs Susan Finch received an urgent telegram delivered with the message that her son had been killed in action and ‘….deep regret and sympathy of their Majesties the King and Queen and Commonwealth Government in loss that she and Army have sustained by death of soldier.’ One thousand nine hundred and seventeen similar telegrams carrying the sad news to families across Australia would have been delivered as a result of the Battle Of Fromelles.
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FROMELLES IS NOT HONOURED ON THE NATIONAL OR ANY STATE MEMORIAL IN AUSTRALIA.
FFFAIF SUPPORTS ALL EFFORTS TO RECOGNISE FROMELLES ON OR AT THE NATIONAL AND ALL STATE MEMORIALS THAT PRESENTLY LIST BATTLES BY NAME.
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