Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Frederick Miles BURLEY #5047 15th/ 47th Battalion
James Edward BURLEY #5046 15th/ 47th Battalion

The stories of Fred and Jim Burley are so closely aligned that I have combined their narratives here. Fred and Jim were the younger of three sons born to Walter and Elizabeth Burley. Both had been born in Brisbane and attended school at Kilcoy. The brothers were both rural labourers. By the time of their enlistment, both of the boy’s parents had died.

Fred and Jim journeyed to Brisbane to enlist together on 16th November 1915. Fred was 23 and Jim was 27. Both named their elder brother George of Murgon as next of kin. Between enlistment and embarkation, Jim married Nellie Rebecca, and subsequently named his wife as next of kin. The day after Fred signed his enlistment papers he visited a solicitors firm in Brisbane and made out a will which bequeathed two hundred pounds to his grandfather, perhaps as repayment of a loan.

The brothers took a train to Sydney and embarked on the “Star of Victoria” on 31st March 1916. The embarkation roll shows them with consecutive battalion numbers as part of reinforcements for the 15th Battalion. The brothers arrived in Egypt on 5th May.

After the evacuation of Gallipoli in December of 1915, the AIF underwent a doubling in size from 2 divisions to 4 ( with a further division to be raised entirely in England). This increase was achieved by splitting the battalions of the original 2 divisions to form the nucleus of two reconstituted battalions. These new battalions would then be brought up to strength with the inclusion of recruits from Australia.

The 15th battalion, to which Fred and Jim were allocated was split to form a reconstituted 15th battalion and a new 47th Battalion. Fred and Jim would eventually be taken on strength by the 47th in France.

The 1st July 1916 was the opening day of the battle of the Somme. By the end of that month two divisions of the AIF had been mauled at Pozieres and the 4th Division, of which the 47th was part would also be put into the front in early August. The battle of Pozieres soon spread to an adjacent farm; Mouquet Farm, where the new battalions such as the 47th were severely tested. When the three divisions were finally withdrawn from the battles of July and August, they had suffered 23,000 casualties. Fred and Jim were among a tranche of reinforcements which were assigned to make up these losses and they found themselves in the same company while training and fatigue work was carried out.

In the spring of 1917, the German forces on the Somme began a strategic withdrawal east to a line of heavily fortified positions which became known as the Hindenburg Line. As the Germans withdrew the British Forces; which included the Australians, cautiously followed until they met with the belts of wire on the Hindenburg Line.

General Gough, Commander of the British 5th Army, in a rash decision ordered the 12th brigade of the 4th Division to attack the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt on 10th April. Gough had been persuaded to dispense with the customary artillery cover and to instead rely on unproven tanks. The morning of the 10th, all of the tanks failed to make it to the start line either due to mechanical breakdown or getting lost. The attack was called off but rescheduled for the next day with the exact same plan.

Again, many of the tanks got lost or broke down. The Australians had been out lying on the snow covered ground for several hours and were easy targets for the enfilading machine gun fire. Fred Burley received a gunshot wound to the abdomen on that day. He was taken to an advanced dressing station of the 13th Field Ambulance where he died of his wounds later that day. Fred was buried near the dressing station at Vaulx.

Jim Burley could have been nearby when Fred was hit and he would have relayed the details to his family back in Kilcoy. Bullecourt was a disaster. The official historian; Charles Bean, wrote that Gough’s plan had as much chance of success as a plan to capture the moon.

For Jim, the war would continue. After Bullecourt, the 4th Division was posted to the Ypres salient in Belgium where the 12th Brigade was engaged in the Battle of Messines in June. The campaign in Flanders was under the command of a different general and in a series of small battles inching east from Ypres, the British were in a position to make an assault on the Passchendaele ridge.

The autumn of 1917 brought flooding rains to Flanders and the advance that had begun so promisingly became hopelessly bogged in a sea of mud. It was then that the Supreme British Commander Douglas Haig made a decision which stained his reputation for many years; the British would push on.

Conditions at the front were horrific. Men and horses drowned in mud filled shell craters as they moved up to the line. The ground was so boggy that only small tracks of duckboards provided any means of movement, and of course these tracks became perfect targets for heavy artillery.

Once Haig had made the decision to push on, the Australian 4th Division was sent into the line at Zonnebeke for an assault on Passchendaele on 12th October. During the advance, Jim Burley received multiple gun shot wounds in his back. He was initially evacuated from the front line to a casualty clearing station at Poperinghe but was then transferred by ambulance train to the 11th Australian Stationary Hospital at Rouen on the French coast. Jim Burley died of his wounds on 27th October 1917 and was buried at the St Sever Cemetery beside the hospital.

At war’s end, the surviving Burley brother, George, received Fred’s personal effects and service medals as well as a bronze plaque and scroll signed by the King. Jim’s new wife, Nellie signed for his medals. Nellie Burley remarried and was granted a pension of one pound a week.