AUSTRALIA'S SACRIFICE
Through hard fighting at Passchendaele in 1917 the Australians’ reputation was further enhanced, but at a heavy cost in blood
After a hard day’s training near Bailleul, about nine miles (15km) southwest of Ypres in Belgian Flanders, Major Frederick Tubb VC sat down as usual to write in his diary. It was 12 September 1917.
“Tomorrow we are off on our journey to the line to carry out the real thing… We have a stiff job to perform and the 7th has the most difficult job to do. My [company] has the place of honour on the right… With the very best love all my dear folk I’ll conclude this. I have a very busy time ahead. FH Tubb.”
Tubb had joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in August 1914, a second lieutenant in the 7th Infantry Battalion. A year later at Lone Pine, Gallipoli, Tubb, with just two surviving comrades, was holding a vital trench fending off furious Turkish attacks. Badly wounded, the trio held on until support finally arrived. For their bravery all three were awarded the Victoria Cross, one posthumously. Tubb took nearly 18 months to recover and though he could have sat out the rest of the war, this born leader and fighting man was determined to rejoin his unit and see things through. Back with the 7th Battalion by the end of 1916, 35-yearold Tubb took command of a company as the Australians endured the terrible winter on the Somme, then fierce fighting at Bullecourt on the Hindenburg Line during May 1917. Their next ordeal would be the great offensive in Flanders – the Third Battle of Ypres.
Background to the campaign
Third Ypres, otherwise known as the Battle of Passchendaele, was the major offensive effort of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front during the latter half of 1917. With allied forces on other fronts incapable of sustaining any similar large-scale offensive action at the time, it fell to the BEF to keep the pressure on the Germans. The planned offensive also had important strategic objectives: to force the Germans back from the Passchendaele Ridge, which maintained a stranglehold on the town of Ypres, and to clear the Germans from the Belgian coast. The latter would also ease the U-boat threat by capturing their bases.
Troops, arms and supplies were moved to the Flanders front after stalemate had set in to the south, where allied progress was halted by the immense strength of the Hindenburg Line. In early June a major operation preliminary to the offensive at Ypres took place just to the south, centred on Messines. Here, the British Second Army, including II ANZAC (2nd Australian and New Zealand Army Corps), led by Lieutenant General Sir Alexander Godley, took their objectives after a week of bitter fighting. This secured the southern flank for the attack at Ypres.
