Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Enlisted and served under alias GRIFFITHS, James

DOUST, Clarence John (AKA GRIFFITHS, James) (1896-1917)

Jack Doust was born on 5 March 1896 as Clarence John Doust, the son of George and Kate Doust of Esperance Western Australia. Clarence’s sister Esther was married to Edward Masters and a week after Edward’s enlistment in South Australia Clarence enlisted as well. While not uncommon, Jack enlisted under the name James Griffiths.

The reason for the subterfuge may have been that he had already enlisted in the Navy from March 1914. The New South Wales Police Gazette dated 14 July 1915 includes Stoker Clarence John Doust on the list of deserters from HMAS ENCOUNTER then docked in Sydney. By the time of his desertion from the Navy on 28 June 1915, ENCOUNTER had already earned its own battle honours for the war.

Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Encounter was part of the force which occupied German New Guinea. In the course of these operations, she captured the steamer Zambezi on 12 August and, on 14 September, bombarded Toma Ridge to support the Australian Military and Naval Expeditionary Force. She covered the landing at Madang on 24 December.

In October, ENCOUNTER patrolled the Fiji-Samoa area, capturing the German schooner ELFREDE. After a refit, she continued patrol duties in the Pacific, landing troops to protect the cable station on Fanning Island in July 1915. After grounding on a coral reef at Johnson Island, ENCOUNTER had to put-in at Hong Kong for repairs.

The Police Gazette lists a large number of deserters from the Navy at this time, many of whom went on to enlist in the Army as a result of the reports coming back from the landing at Gallipoli and the call for more men to join in.

Jack embarked from Sydney on the transport ship A8 SS Argyllshire on 30 September 1915 as a member of the 9th Reinforcement Group of the 1st Battalion then engaged at Gallipoli. The ship arrived in Alexandria on December and Jack was immediately admitted to the 4th Australian Auxilliary Hospital in Abbasia with mumps. Jack remained in hospital until Jan 1916 by which time his unit had been evacuated from Gallipoli and he was able to join them at Tel-el-Kabir on 6 January. On 13 February Jack was transferred to the 53rd Battalion.

The 53rd Battalion was raised in Egypt on 14 February 1916 as part of the “doubling” of the AIF. Half of its recruits were Gallipoli veterans from the 1st Battalion, and the other half, fresh reinforcements from Australia. Reflecting the composition of the 1st, the 53rd was predominantly composed of men from the suburbs of Sydney. The battalion became part of the 14th Brigade of the 5th Australian Division. The new division set sail for France on 19 June and was sent to undergoing acclimatisation in the trenches of the “nursery sector” near Armentières to gain experience and participate in trench raids in the area.

On 13 July, after receiving intelligence reports that the Germans had withdrawn approximately nine infantry battalions from the Lille area between the 9th and 12th of July, General Headquarters informed the commanders of the First and Second Armies that local attacks were to be carried out at the army boundary around 18 July, to exploit the depletion of the German units in the vicinity. [53rd Battalion | Australian War Memorial http://www.awm.gov.au/units/unit_11240.asp]

The Fromelles attack took place 16 kilometres from Lille between the Fauquissart-Trivelet road and Cordonnerie Farm, an area overlooked from Aubers Ridge to the south. The ground was low-lying and much of the defensive fortification on both sides consisted of breastworks, rather than trenches. Preparations for the attack were rushed, the troops involved lacked experience in trench warfare and the power of the German defence was significantly underestimated, the attackers being outnumbered 2:1. The advance took place in daylight, against defences overlooked by Aubers Ridge, on a narrow front which left German artillery on either side free to fire into the flanks of the attack.

General von Falkenhayn, the German Chief of the General Staff, had initially judged the attack to be a long-anticipated offensive but on the next day when the effect of the attack was known and a captured operation order from XI Corps revealed the limited intent of the operation, he ordered the Guard Reserve Corps to be withdrawn to reinforce the Somme front.

The Battle of Fromelles had inflicted some losses on the German defenders but gained no ground nor deflected many German troops bound for the Somme. The attack was the début of the AIF on the Western Front and the Australian War Memorial described the battle as "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history". Of 7,080 British Expeditionary Force casualties, 5,533 losses were incurred by the 5th Australian Division; German losses were 1,600–2,000, with 150 taken prisoner. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fromelles]

The attack was a disastrous introduction to battle for the 53rd Battalion having only entered the front-line trenches for the first time 3 days previously. It suffered 625 casualties, including its commanding officer, over 75 per cent of the battalion’s total strength. Although it still spent periods in the front line near Armentieres, the battalion played no major offensive role for some time.

Jack received a gunshot wound to his leg and was one of the lucky ones able to be recovered quickly and admitted to the 14th Australian Field Ambulance for treatment. Many others lay wounded, trapped in No Man’s Land where stretcher-bearers were unable to get to them. Most died where they fell.

Jack was moved to the Casualty Clearing Station, then to the 3rd Canadian General Hospital. He was sent by ambulance train to Boulogne and loaded onto the hospital ship, St Dennis. A week after being wounded he was in England at the Kitchener’s Hospital, Brighton.

On the southern coast of England, Brighton appeared to be a natural choice in terms of geographical proximity to the battlefields of France for setting up proper hospital facilities for Indian soldiers in England. So close that in June 1916 the sound of guns firing at the Battle of Somme could be heard on the cricket field at Brighton College.

Lord Kitchener the Secretary of State for War appointed Sir Walter Lawrence as his Commissioner in charge of the Welfare of Indian Troops to quickly find arrangements for the ever-growing number of Indian wounded soldiers.

Sir Walter Lawrence accompanied by Major P.S. Lelean of the Royal Army Medical Corps who had experience in India visited Brighton on Saturday, November 21, 1914. [3] The Mayor of Brighton Alderman Otter and the Corporation of Brighton agreed to make three facilities available to the Army to be converted into hospitals. These would include the York Place School, the Royal Pavilion Complex and the Brighton Workhouse. Returning to London that same day, Sir Walter Lawrence telegraphed His Majesty that the Royal Pavilion complex had been secured as an Indian hospital. The King was very pleased with the news.

The York Place School in Brighton was rapidly converted into a 550-bed military hospital. Classrooms were filled with beds and the gymnasium transformed into a 60-bed ward. The Royal Pavilion Complex and the Brighton Workhouse would next be converted into large facility hospitals in a rapid time frame due to the urgency of finding space for Indian wounded soldiers. Work progressed immediately on the conversions with many challenges to overcome. In fact, the first small contingent of wounded Indian soldiers would arrive in Brighton a mere 13 days later in mid-December 1914.

The Brighton Workhouse was chosen as a candidate for conversion into what would be the largest Indian Soldiers hospital in England. The Workhouses existing 1,050 inmates were evacuated to large homes in Brighton and Hove and other facilities, much to the inconvenience of their new hosts who were less than thrilled to have the sick and infirm inmates as guests. After extensive conversion, the workhouse was converted into a 1,700-bed hospital with the capacity to accommodate 1,000 more patients in tents or huts on the adjacent racecourse if necessary. The Workhouse was now renamed the Kitchener General Indian Hospital in honour of Lord Kitchener who had previously been commander of the Army in India from 1902 to 1911 prior to his current appointment as Secretary of State for War in 1914.

Indian Army veteran Brevet-Colonel Sir Bruce Seton, Bt. who had previously been the Honorary Surgeon to the Viceroy and Deputy Director-General of the Indian Medical Service was appointed the Commanding Officer of the new Kitchener hospital. [http://www.sikhmuseum.com/brighton/index.html]

Jack was transferred to the Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Harefield where he spent the next 2 months recovering before being sent back to France where he rejoined his battalion at le Barque, south west of Bapaume.

The 53rd spent the freezing winter of 1916-17 rotating in and out of trenches in the Somme Valley. During this period the battalion earned the nickname “the Whale Oil Guards” after their new CO, Lieutenant Colonel Oswald Croshaw, ordered the troops to polish their helmets with whale oil (issued to rub into feet as a trench foot preventative) for a smart turn out on parade.

Trench conditions varied widely between different theatres of the war, different sectors within a theatre, and with the time of year and weather. Trench life was however always one of considerable squalor, with so many men living in a very constrained space.

Scraps of discarded food, empty tins and other waste, the nearby presence of the latrine, the general dirt of living half underground and being unable to wash or change for days or weeks at a time created conditions of severe health risk (and that is not counting the military risks). Vermin, including rats and lice, were very numerous; disease was spread both by them and by the maggots and flies that thrived on the nearby remains of decomposing human and animal corpses.

Troops in the trenches were also subjected to the weather. The winter of 1916-1917 in France and Flanders was the coldest in living memory. Whenever it rained the trenches flooded, sometimes to waist height. Men suffered from exposure, frostbite, trench foot, and many diseases brought on or made worse by living in such a way.  Trench foot was a wasting disease of the flesh caused by the foot being wet and cold as well as constrained into boots and puttees, for days on end. [http://www.1914-1918.net/intrenches.htm]

In March 1917, the 53rd Battalion participated in the advance that followed the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line. It was spared the assault but did, however, defend gains made during the second battle of Bullecourt. Later in the year, the AIF’s focus of operations switched to the Ypres sector in Belgium. The 53rds major battle here was at Polygon Wood on 26 September.

The Battle of Polygon Wood took place during the second phase of the Third battle of Ypres in World War I and was fought near Ypres in Belgium 26 September – 3 October 1917, in the area from the Menin Road to Polygon Wood and thence north, to the area beyond St. Julien. Much of the woodland had been destroyed by the huge quantity of shellfire from both sides since 16 July and the area had changed hands several times.

General Herbert Plumer continued the series of British general attacks with limited objectives. The British attacks were led by lines of skirmishers, followed by small infantry columns organised in-depth, (a formation which had been adopted by the Fifth Army in August) with a vastly increased amount of artillery support, the infantry advancing behind five layers of creeping bombardment on the Second Army front.

The advance was planned to cover 1,000–1,500 yards (910–1,370 m) and stop on reverse slopes which were easier to defend, enclosing ground which gave observation of German reinforcement routes and counter-attack assembly areas. Preparations were then made swiftly to defeat German counter-attacks, by mopping-up and consolidating the captured ground with defences in depth.

The attack inflicted a severe blow on the German Fourth Army, causing many losses, capturing a significant portion of Flandern I, which threatened the German hold on Broodseinde ridge. The better weather continued to benefit the British attackers by drying the ground, raising mist which obscured British infantry attacks made around dawn, then clearing to reveal German Eingreif formations to air and ground observation, well in advance of their arrival on the battlefield. [Battle of Polygon Wood – Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Polygon_Wood]

The Battle of Poelcappelle on 9 October 1917 marked the end of the string of highly successful British attacks in late September and early October 1917. The ground along the main ridges had been severely damaged by shelling and rapidly deteriorated in the rains, which began again on 3 October, which in some areas turned the ground into a swamp. Dreadful ground conditions had more effect on the British, who needed to move large amounts of artillery and ammunition to support the next attack. The battle was a defensive success for the German army, although costly to both sides. The weather and ground conditions put a severe strain on all the infantry involved and led to many wounded being stranded on the battlefield. Early misleading information and delays in communication led the British to plan the next attack on 12 October under the impression that a substantial advance had taken place at Passchendaele ridge when most of the captured ground had been lost to German counter-attacks.

The First Battle of Passchendaele took place on 12 October 1917 in the Ypres Salient area of the Western Front, west of Passchendaele village. The attack took ground in the north but early gains around Passchendaele were mostly lost to German counter-attacks. The battle was a German defensive success, although costly to both sides. British attacks were postponed until the weather improved and communications behind the front had been restored. Two German divisions intended for Italy were diverted to Flanders, to replace "extraordinarily high" losses.

On 17 October the 53rd Battalion moved into the support line at ANZAC Ridge near Zonnebeke. Over the next few days, the Anzac Ridge was subjected to a constant rain of artillery and attack by enemy aircraft as men moved forward on work parties to the front line carrying ammunition, stores and rations along the duckboards laid to allow access through the thick mud. On several occasions, parts of the support line had to be evacuated owing to heavy shelling.

On 19 October Jack Doust was on a working party and didn’t return. His body was either never recovered or else he was buried without identification.

Jack’s name is inscribed in the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres along with thousands of others who have no known grave. Tens of thousands of British and Empire troops remain ‘missing’ in France and Belgium. Some lie in nameless graves while the remains of others have never been found. The Menin Gate was so named because here the road out of Ypres passed through the old wall defences going in the direction of Menin. During the war, the two stone lions standing on each side of the Menin Gate were seen by tens of thousands of troops as they went towards the front line. The gate, beyond which these men’s fate lay, became highly symbolic.

Afterwards, it was decided that on this site a monument, designed by the architect Sir Reginald Blomfield, would commemorate those of the Empire who were killed in Belgium but have no known grave. The memorial was unveiled by Field Marshal Lord Plumer on 24 July 1927. Although it bears the names of 55,000 soldiers including 6,000 Australians, so great were the casualties that not all the names of “the missing” are here. Every evening the Last Post is sounded under the memorial’s great arch.

Acclaimed British author and poet Rudyard Kipling contributed the following words which were inscribed on both the eastern and western facades of the memorial.

TO THE ARMIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE WHO STOOD HERE

FROM 1914 TO 1918

AND TO THOSE OF THEIR DEAD

WHO HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVE

And above the staircase arches, the following:

IN MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM

HERE ARE RECORDED NAMES

OF OFFICERS AND MEN WHO FELL

IN YPRES SALIENT, BUT TO WHOM

THE FORTUNES OF WAR DENIED

THE KNOWN AND HONOURED BURIAL

GIVEN TO THEIR COMRADES IN DEATH

- Kipling