|
Category:1st AIF/1st
Div/3rd Bde |
|
|
|
|
- 9th Battalion AIF
(Queensland) [3rd Infantry Brigade]
Formed Queensland August 1914. Departed Brisbane Omrah
29 September 1914.
- 1st Reinforcements departed Melbourne Themistocles
22 December 1914,
- 2nd Reinforcements departed Brisbane Seang
Bee 13 February 1915,
- 3rd Reinforcements departed Brisbane Seang
Choon 13 February 1915,
- 4th Reinforcements departed Brisbane
Star
of England 8 April 1915,
- 5th Reinforcements departed Brisbane
Kyarra
16 April 1915,
- 6th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Karoola
12 June 1915,
- 7th Reinforcements departed Sydney Shropshire
20 May 1915,
- 8th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Kyarra
15 August 1915,
- 9th Reinforcements departed Sydney Ayrshire
1 September 1915,
- 10th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Warilda
3 October 1915,
- 11th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Seang
Bee 21 October 1915,
- 12th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Itonus
30 December 1915,
- 13th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Kyarra
3 January 1916,
- 14th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Warilda
31 January 1916,
- 15th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Commonwealth
28 March 1916,
- 16th Reinforcements departed Sydney Star
of Victoria 31 March 1916,
- 17th Reinforcements departed Sydney Hawkes
Bay 20 April 1916,
- 18th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Seang
Choon 4 May 1916,
- 19th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Itonus
8 August 1916,
- 20th Reinforcements departed Brisbane Clan
Macgillivray 7 September 1916,
- 21st Reinforcements departed
Brisbane Boonah
21 October 1916,
- 22nd Reinforcements departed Brisbane Marathon
27 October 1916,
- 23rd Reinforcements departed Brisbane Kyarra
17 November 1916,
- 24th Reinforcements departed Sydney Ayrshire
24 January 1917,
- 25th Reinforcements departed Sydney Hororata
14 June 1917,
- 26th Reinforcements departed Sydney Euripides
31 October 1917.
-
Battle Honours:
Landing at Anzac, Anzac,
Defence of Anzac, Suvla, Sari Bair, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1915-16,
Somme 1916-18, Pozieres, Bullecourt, Ypres 1917, Menin Road, Broodeseinde,
Polygon Wood, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Lys, Hazebrouck,
Amiens, Albert 1918, Hindenburg Line, Epehy, France and Flanders 1916-18
-
Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front
|
"In September,
for example, there came to the medical officer of the 9th a youngster
named Gray (of Murgon, Q'land), whom he remembered having seen before.
This was one of two brothers, Queenslanders of the 9th Bn., who during
the voyage from Australia nearly a year before had both become ill with
influenza. They had been so reduced by illness that they were suspected
of being tubercular, and were consequently brought before a medical
board at Mena Camp and ordered to be returned to Australia. Both were so
heartbroken that they wept, and Col. B.J. Newmarch (of Sydney), who
presided over the board, relented, and allowed each of them to be put
temporarily off duty, in order to build themselves up by food and
exercise. They were eventually declared fit, and afterwards sedulously
avoided the doctor, and both landed with their battalion. At the Landing
one brother (Pte. G.R. Gray) had been a member of one of the parties
which penetrated farthest. It was the other who now came to the
regimental doctor saying that he had received a wound at the Landing
and, though he had been to hospital, it was again giving a little
trouble. He had endeavoured to "carry on," but had at last
been forced to see if the doctor could advise a little treatment. The
medical officer found that he had had a compound fracture of the arm,
two bullets through his thigh, another through diaphragm, liver and
side; and that there were adhesions to the liver and pleura. He was
returned at once to Australia, where he was eventually discharged from
hospital and , re-enlisting, returned to the front in the artillery. His
brother eventually became quartermaster of the 9th, in which capacity he
continued to serve until the last year of the war."
(source
: C.E.W. Bean) |
9th Battalion
The 9th Battalion was among the first
infantry units raised for the AIF during the First World War. It was the
first battalion recruited in Queensland, and with the 10th, 11th and
12th Battalions it formed the 3rd Brigade.
The battalion was raised within weeks
of the declaration of war in August 1914 and embarked just two months
later. After preliminary training, the battalion sailed to Egypt,
arriving in early December. The 3rd Brigade was the covering force for
the ANZAC landing on 25 April 1915, and so was the first ashore at
around 4.30 am. The battalion was heavily involved in establishing and
defending the front line of the ANZAC beachhead. It served at ANZAC
until the evacuation in December 1915.
After the withdrawal from Gallipoli,
the battalion returned to Egypt. It was split to help form the 49th
Battalion and bought up to strength with reinforcements. In March 1916
the battalion sailed for France and the Western Front. From then until
1918 the battalion took part in operations against the German Army. The
battalion’s first major action in France was at Pozières in the Somme
valley. The 9th Battalion attacked on the extreme right of the line and
it was during this action that Private John Leak won, with the bayonet,
the battalion’s only Victoria Cross. Later the battalion fought at
Ypres, in Flanders, before returning to the Somme for winter.
In 1917 the battalion moved back to
Belgium for the advance to the Hindenburg Line, and in March and April
1918 helped stop the German spring offensive. The battalion participated
in the great allied offensive of 1918 and fought near Amiens on 8
August. The 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 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.
In November 1918 members of the AIF
began to return to Australia for demobilisation and discharge. On 5
February 1919, the 9th and 10th Battalions were amalgamated. Text from
AWM
- 1094 killed, 2422 wounded
(including gassed)
-
Decorations
- 1 VC
- 1 CB
- 1 CMG
- 5 DSO
- 1 MVO
- 35 MC, 2 bars, 1 2nd bars
- 35 DCM
- 152 MM ,11 bars, 1 2nd bar
- 4 MSM
- 1 Albert Medal
- 52 MID
- 5 foreign awards
|
|