• 4th Battalion AIF (New South Wales) [1st Infantry Brigade]
  Formed New South Wales August 1914. Departed Sydney Euripides 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 Shropshire 17 March 1915, 
  • 5th Reinforcements departed Sydney Kyarra 13 April 1915, 
  • 6th Reinforcements departed Sydney Karoola 16 June 1915, 
  • 7th Reinforcements departed Sydney Suffolk 28 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 Port Lincoln 14 October 1915, 
  • 12th Reinforcements departed Sydney Medic 7 January 1916, 
  • 13th Reinforcements departed Sydney Aeneas 20 December 1915, 
  • 14th Reinforcements departed Sydney Wandilla 3 February 1916, 
  • 15th Reinforcements departed Sydney Star of England 8 March 1916, 
  • 16th Reinforcements departed Sydney Makarini 1 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 Aeneas 30 September 1916, 
  • 22nd Reinforcements departed Sydney Port Nicholson 8 November 1916, 
  • 23rd Reinforcements departed Sydney Suevic 11 November 1916, 
  • 24th Reinforcements departed Sydney Suffolk 24 April 1917, 
  • 25th Reinforcements departed Sydney Euripides 31 October 1917, 
  • 26th Reinforcements departed Melbourne Nestor 28 February 1918.

• 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

4th Battalion

The 4th Battalion was among the first infantry units raised for the AIF during the First World War. Like the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions it was recruited from New South Wales and, together with these other 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. The commander of the 4th Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel A. J. O. Thompson, was killed the next day. At ANZAC, the battalion took part in the defence of the beachhead and in August, along with the rest of the 1st Brigade, led the charge at Lone Pine. The battalion served at ANZAC until the evacuation in December.

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.

The battalion participated in a short period of mobile operations following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in early 1917, but spent much of that year fighting in increasingly difficult 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’ great offensive of that year, launched east of Amiens on 8 August 1918. The advance on this day 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 1918. 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 4th Battalion returned to Australia for demobilisation and discharge. Text from AWM

• 1203 killed, 2282 wounded (including gassed)

• Decorations

  • 2 CMG
  • 5 DSO, 1 bar
  • 28 MC, 1 bar
  • 20 DCM, 1 bar
  • 125 MM, 4 bars
  • 7 MSM
  • 68 MID
  • 7 foreign awards