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- 2nd Battalion AIF (New South Wales) [1st Infantry
Brigade]
Formed New South Wales August 1914. Departed Sydney Suffolk
18 October 1914.
- 1st Reinforcements departed Melbourne Themistocles
22 December 1914,
- 2nd Reinforcements departed Sydney Seang
Bee 11 February 1915,
- 3rd Reinforcements departed Sydney Seang
Choon 11 February 1915,
- 4th Reinforcements departed Sydney Argyllshire
10 April 1915,
- 5th Reinforcements departed Sydney Hororata
10 April 1915,
- 6th Reinforcements departed Sydney Karoola
16 June 1915,
- 7th Reinforcements departed Sydney Orsova
14 July 1915,
- 8th Reinforcements departed Sydney Runic
9 August 1915,
- 9th Reinforcements departed Sydney Argyllshire
30 September 1915,
- 10th Reinforcements departed Sydney Warilda
8 October 1915,
- 11th Reinforcements departed Sydney Euripides
2 November 1915,
- 12th Reinforcements departed Sydney Medic
7 January 1916,
- 13th Reinforcements departed Sydney Aeneas
20 December 1915,
- 14th Reinforcements departed Sydney Osterley
15 January 1916,
- 15th Reinforcements departed Sydney Star
of England 8 March 1916,
- 16th Reinforcements departed Sydney Makarini
1 April 1916 and Nestor
9 April 1916,
- 17th Reinforcements departed Sydney Ceramic
14 April 1916,
- 18th Reinforcements departed Sydney Kyarra
3 June 1916,
- 19th Reinforcements departed Sydney Wiltshire
22 August 1916,
- 20th Reinforcements departed Sydney Euripides
9 September 1916,
- 21st Reinforcements departed Sydney Ceramic
7 October 1916,
- 22nd Reinforcements departed Sydney Port
Nicholson 8 November 1916,
- 23rd Reinforcements departed Sydney Bernalla
9 November 1916,
- 24th Reinforcements departed Sydney Osterley
10 February 1917,
- 25th Reinforcements departed Sydney Hororata
14 June 1917,
- 26th Reinforcements departed Sydney Ulysses
19 December 1917
Battle Honours: Landing at Anzac, Defence of
Anzac, Suvla, Sari Bair, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1915-16, Somme
1916-18, Pozieres, Bullecourt, Ypres 1917, Menin Road, Broodeseinde,
Polygon Wood, Passchendaele, Lys, Hazebrouck, Amiens, Albert
1918, Hindenburg Line, Epehy, France and Flanders 1916-18
Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front
many details on this page from Ross
Mallett's site
2nd Battalion
The 2nd Battalion was among the
first infantry units raised for the AIF during the First World War.
Like the 1st, 3rd and 4th Battalions it was recruited from New South
Wales and, together with these battalions, formed the 1st Brigade.
The battalion was raised within a
fortnight of the declaration of war in August 1914 and embarked just
two months later. After a brief stop in Albany, Western Australia,
the battalion proceeded to Egypt, arriving on 2 December. The
battalion took part in the ANZAC landing on 25 April 1915 as part of
the second and third waves, and was led by Lieutenant Colonel G. F.
Braund, who was killed in action nine days later. On 6 August, the
1st Brigade led the charge at Lone Pine. Among the dead was the
commander of the 2nd Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel R. Scobie, killed
during a Turkish counter-attack. The battalion served at ANZAC until
the evacuation in December 1915.
After the withdrawal from
Gallipoli, the battalion returned to Egypt. In March 1916, it sailed
for France and the Western Front. From then until 1918 the battalion
took part in operations against the German Army, principally in the
Somme Valley in France and around Ypres in Belgium. The
battalion’s first major action in France was at Pozières in the
Somme valley in July 1916. Later the battalion fought at Ypres, in
Flanders, before returning to the Somme for winter.
In early 1917 the German Army
withdrew to the formidable defences of the Hindenburg Line. As the
2nd Battalion advanced towards these defences in April 1917, Private
T. J. Kenny attacked several enemy machine gun positions with
grenades, earning the 2nd Battalion's only Victoria Cross. The
battalion spent much of the rest of 1917 fighting in increasingly
horrendous conditions around Ypres.
In 1918 the battalion returned to
the Somme valley and helped to stop the German spring offensive in
March and April. The battalion subsequently participated in the
Allies’ own offensive, launched to the east of Amiens on 8 August
1918. This advance by British and Empire troops was the greatest
success in a single day on the Western Front, one that German
General Erich Ludendorff described as “the black day of the German
Army in this war”.
The battalion continued operations
until late September. At 11 am on 11 November, 1918, the guns fell
silent. The November armistice was followed by the peace treaty of
Versailles signed on 28 June 1919.
Between November 1918 and
May 1919 the men of the 2nd Battalion returned to Australia for
demobilisation and discharge. Text by the AWM
- 1199 killed, 2252 wounded
(including gassed)
-
Decorations
- 1 VC
- 4 CMG
- 4 DSO
- 20 MC
- 21 DCM
- 58 MM, 2 bars
- 4 MSM
- 55 MID
- 5 foreign awards
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