Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

2nd Infantry Battalion 1st Brigade 1st Division AIF 

The 2nd Battalion was raised in August 1914 as part of the 1st Brigade (/explore/units/139) in the 1st Division of the AIF. Its colour patch tells its connection - the rectangle signifies the First Division. The green lower portion indicates the first brigade in the Division and the purple upper the second battalion. 

The 2nd Battalion was raised at Liverpool (SW of Sydney). Its men were drawn from northern NSW - "the Northern Rivers", including the Hunter Valley and the area north of it. 

On August 4 1914 Great Britain declared war on Germany. Australia quickly followed the Mother Land’s call to arms. A rush of volunteers flocked to Victoria Barracks in Paddington and to Liverpool in Sydney's south west to enlist.

From the city and suburbs clerks laid down their pens, shopkeepers and shop assistants walked out of their shops, solicitors paused with their briefs, workmen downed their picks and shovels and from the countryside bushmen, farmers, graziers, shearers, woodchoppers set out on by horse drawn buggy, by train, by horse and on foot starting their journey to join a new type of army - an all volunteer army - the Australian Imperial Force.

On 17th August all those that had volunteered and enlisted in the preceding days were called into Victoria Barracks where they were divided into four Battalions.

Thus 2nd Battalion came into being alongside the 1st, 3rd and 4th Battalions forming the 1st Australian Infantry Brigade. The Battalion was then marched to Randwick Racecourse where attestations were completed with the recruits signing on for the duration of the war and four months.

The Battalion arrived in Egypt in December 1914 and landed at Gallipoli on the first day, as part of the second and third waves. It served on the peninsula until the evacuation in December. In Egypt in March 1916 the AIF was ‘doubled’: the 4th and 5th Divisions were added to the 1st and 2nd Divisions, which already existed. The sixteen battalions which had fought on Gallipoli were each split, with half the personnel in each going to form a ‘pup’ or 'daughter' battalion; the gaps were filled with new recruits from Australia. The 2nd Battalion's 'pup' unit was the 54th Battalion, (/explore/units/323) which was part of the 14th Brigade (/explore/units/803) in the 5th Division.

In March 1916, the newly 'doubled' AIF began sailing for France and the Western Front.  From then until 1918 the battalion was heavily involved in operations against the German Army.

The battalion's first major action in France was at Pozieres in the Somme valley in July 1916, where the AIF Divisions engaged (1st 2nd and 4th) formed the right flank of the British front.  The 1st Division was committed to the attack on Pozieres village from 23 July, involving the reduction of the ‘Gibraltar’ blockhouse among other tasks.  The enemy shelling was relentless and casualties mounted at a horrifying rate.   Once the ‘Windmill’ was captured by the 2nd Division on 4th August and consolidated by the 4th Division, the direction of the Australian assault switched to Mouquet Farm, with the 1st Division leading once again.  The aim was to outflank Thiepval, the main impediment and key objective of the British advance.  The AIF Divisions had fought themselves to a standstill over five weeks;  23,000 casualties of whom 5,0000 were killed.

After Pozieres the battalion fought at Ypres in Flanders then returning to the Somme for winter.

1917 began with a German consolidation of their Front Line and an orderly withdrawal through what were called 'The Outpost Villages' through which they conducted a delaying defence.  The AIF was tasked to follow this up and a series of engagements ensued, culminating in April with the first of two attacks on Bullecourt.  First Bullecourt was an exclusively 4th Division attack which although successful in breaking in to the German line was not adequately supported and it subsequently failed.  Second Bullecourt followed in May and involved the 1st 2nd and 5th Divisions.   Tactically it was very similar to First Bullecourt with a break-in being achieved, the tanks failing - again - and inadequate artillery  support because of difficulties getting the guns far enough forward.   From a casualty perspective, it was Pozieres all over again. 

The 1st Division was reconstituted and reinforced during the period  May -end July, when all of the AIF (for the first time including the 3rd Division) was committed to the Third Ypres campaign.  The 1st Division was committed to fighting at Menin Road in late September 1917 and at Broodseinde Ridge on 4th October.  The Third Ypres campaign bogged down in misery of 1st and 2nd Passchendaele in late October and November.

The Battalion helped to repel the German Spring Offensive in March - April 1918 in Flanders.  The AIF had been sent south to bolster the British 5th Army which was crumbling io front of the German onslaught.

Then it was realised that an attack was to be made in Flanders as part of ‘Operation Georgette’, towards the rail head of Hazebrouk, so the 1st Division was rushed back to be told by British General Harrington CoS British 2nd Army, on arrival at Hazebrouk station, that they (the 1st Division) were the only formed body of troops between here and the Channel Ports (Calais and Bolougne).

They became a rallying point around which other troops consolidated. and the Operation Georgette attacks were blunted.  As a result,  the Battle Honours Lys Hazebrouck and Kemmel were awarded.

The troops of the 1st Division were later transferred south to the Somme once again to take its place in the Australian Corps consolidated under General Monash’s command, and to take part in the Great Allied offensive, the "Last Hundred Days" campaign beginning on the 8th August 1918.

The 1st Division started the Amiens offensive in reserve but was later committed to the left flank along the Somme, taking part in actions around Chipilly and Chuignes across the Somme towards Bapaume securing the right flank of the British Army while it advanced on Bapaume.  It also allowed the 3rd Australian Division to cross the Somme and secure the Australian Corps northern flank for the attack on Mont St Quentin.

The First Division finished its last phase of combat operations in the vicinity of Epehy on the approaches to the Hindenburg Line.   After the 2nd Division attack on the Beaurevoir Line at Montbrehain on the 5th October, the AIF was withdrawn from the line to reinforce and refit following the accumulated losses it had sustained since 8th August.

Unit History

• Taylor, F.W. and T.A. Cusack (1942). Nulli secundus: a history of the Second Battalion, A.I.F., 1914-1919. Sydney: New Century Press

Battle/ Campaign/ Involvement 

• ANZAC - Gallipoli (/explore/campaigns/1) 25 April 1915 to 19 December 1915

• Lone Pine (/explore/campaigns/3) - 6th August 1915

• Pozieres (/explore/campaigns/5) 23 July 1916 to 4 September 1916

• Mouquet Farm (/explore/campaigns/103) 8 August 1916 to 5 September 1916

• German Withdrawal to Hindenburg Line and Outpost Villages (/explore/campaigns/21) 15 February 1917 to 3 April 1917

• Lagnicourt 15 April 1917

• Second Bullecourt (/explore/campaigns/6) 3 May 1917 to 17 May 1917

• Menin Road (/explore/campaigns/26) 20 September 1917 to 25 September 1917

• Broodseinde (/explore/campaigns/18) 4 October 1917 to 5 October 1917

• Hazebrouck (/explore/campaigns/80) 12 April 1918 to 15 April 1918

• Amiens (/explore/campaigns/14) 8 August 1918 to 11 August 1918

• Albert 1918 (Chuignes) 21 August 1918 to 23 August 1918

• Epehy 2 October 1918 to 5 October 1918

Reinforcement Groups

• 1st Reinforcement: Left Melbourne on board HMAT A32 Themistocles, 22 December 1914
• 2nd Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A48 Seang Bee, 11 February 1915
• 3rd Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A49 Seang Choon, 11 February 1915
• 4th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A8 Argyllshire, 10 April 1915
• 5th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A55 Kyarra, 13 April 1915
• 5th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A20 Hororata, 10 April 1915
• 6th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT Karoola, 16 June 1915
• 7th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A67 Orsova, 14 July 1915
• 8th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A54 Runic, 9 August 1915
• 9th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A8 Argyllshire, 30 September 1915
• 10th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A69 Warilda, 8 October 1915
• 11th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A14 Euripides, 2 November 1915
• 12th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A7 Medic, 30 December 1915
• 13th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A6 Aeneas, 20 December 1915
• 14th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board RMS Osterley, 15 January 1916
• 15th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A15 Star of England, 8 March 1916
• 16th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A71 Nestor, 9 April 1916
• 17th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A4 Ceramic, 14 April 1916
• 18th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A55 Kyarra, 3 June 1916
• 19th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A18 Wiltshire, 22 August 1916
• 20th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A14 Euripides, 9 September 1916
• 21st Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A40 Ceramic, 7 October 1916
• 22nd Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT SS Port Nicholson, 8 November 1916
• 23rd Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A24 Benalla, 9 November 1916
• 24th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board RMS Osterley, 10 February 1917
• 25th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board H.M.A.T. A20 Hororata, 14 June 1917
• 26th Reinforcement: Left Sydney on board HMAT A38 Ulysses, 19 December 1917

Commanding Officers:

• George Frederick Braund (/explore/people/235813) KIA Gallipoli
• Robert Scobie (/explore/people/295709) KIA Gallipoli
• Other yet to be identified - work in progress  - can you help?

Victoria Cross winners:

• Thomas James Bede Kenny (/explore/people/204934)

Compiled by Steve Larkins updated Dec 2020

We would particularly like to encourage individual historians researchers or members of unit associations to contribute to the development of a more detailed history and photographs pertaining to this unit and its members.

Please contact  admin@vwma.org.au (mailto:%20admin@vwma.org.au) for details on how to contribute.