Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Charles Alfred Lamphee was born in the year of 1889. He was a carpenter and had a registration number of 8484 and was married to Mrs Eva Lamphee. He enlisted to go to war on 20th of August 1915 and he embarked on the 22 November 1915. He was from Woodside, SA. He is a British citizen. Carpenter would have to work 48 hours a week and would earn around 3 dollars a hour which adds up to 144 dollars a week which means he is placed in the working class meaning he had not earned a lot. Many people in the working class would go to live theatre productions or would drink alcohol for entertainment. An interesting fact on Lamphee is that after the war he moved to Mt Barker and then after that the family lost complete record of him I know this because it is mentioned that the family never received Lamphee’s war medals and wrote a letter to the Australian Imperial Force asking for them. In the end the family received Lamphee’s medal it was the victory medal.

Charles Alfred Lamphee enlisted at Adelaide SA on the 20th of August 1915 and he embarked on the 22/11/1915 and arrived in France. He was a driver and was in the 6th Field Artillery Brigade and he served on the western front for 2 years and 60 days. His job on the western front was to use heavy artillery guns. These guns were supposed to support the infantry units as they pushed back the German forces.

He arrived on the western front at Albert, France. He fought near the border of France, Germany and Belgium. Lamphee would suffer from a lot of things on the western front as he had arrived in Albert around a quarter of a way through the war. This may have meant a lack of food for the soldiers in his brigade and he also would have most likely have suffered from sickness (it was not specified weather he got sick or not). These sicknesses would occur because of the rats that would get hungry and may even go for the food that the soldiers would eat and then they would spread sickness through the food. Some rats would even get as big as cats, it is recorded in the Western Front experience diaries. Some men would even fear the rats especially the brown ones as they could grow to be very big and would even attack the soldiers.

The 18th field brigade that they took a lot of heavy fire from German shells. In one day they lost a total of 10 lives (5th of August 1916). Germans, when pushing into Albert ambushed them. This left 10 people dead and 10 wounded as well as a wagon carrying important supplies for the field artillery destroyed. The Germans had the most powerful artillery cannons in World War 1 one of the artillery guns was called Big Bertha. Big Bertha would rain down 42 cm shells (extremely powerful shells) they would use these heavy shells to destroy French towns and old fortresses on the border of Germany and France. It was hard to transport because it would weigh 1,160 kg so they would transport by train. The French also had very powerful artillery such as the canon de 75 modèle 1897. This was the fastest firing artillery gun during WW1. It would fire out a lot of shrapnel. Near the end of the war this artillery gun would use toxic gas shells as ammunition. At the start of the war about 4,000 of these were ready for service, by the end of the war almost 12,000 were in use.

Lamphee during the war did not suffer any fatal injuries and he did come back to Australia. The 6th field artillery brigade were split up near the end of the war because the soldiers in this battalion were needed somewhere else.