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First Australian Division Memorial—Pozières, France

Obelisk shaped monument to 1st Australian Division at Pozières

After the war, the Australian First Division built its official divisional memorial—the obelisk at the western end of Pozières—the First Division's first operation since its withdrawal from Gallipoli in December 1915.

The German bombardment to which the men of the First Division were subjected after their capture of Pozières was perhaps the worst ever experienced by Australians on the Western Front.


At home, or as you tour the twelve locations of the Australian Remembrance Trail in France and Belgium, listen to a four-minute audio-cast featuring the extraordinary stories of Australian soldiers 'on this spot'. Listen to the audio-cast from your device.

Also available are all 12 audio-casts.

Audio transcript

This is the First Australian Division Memorial at Pozières in France. Close by is the ruin of the Gibraltar blockhouse, taken from the Germans when the Australian 1st Division attacked, took and held Pozières village between 23 and 26 July 1916. This action was one of the many battles between 1 July and 19 November of that year known collectively as The Battle of the Somme.

Gibraltar, like the Rock of Gibraltar, stuck out above the landscape, a landscape which by the end of July 1916 was a wilderness of craters. Lance Corporal Roger Morgan, 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion, described the scene: 'a land of desolation … villages are mere heaps of brick dust … every yard of earth has been torn about by shells … the whole place looks like a badly ploughed field'. This ploughing was done by thousands of British, Australian and German shells as the village and its surroundings were fought over, again and again, during July and August 1916.

Gibraltar itself was seized by men of the 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion just after daybreak on 23 July. A large white structure, some three metres tall and some 137 metres beyond the western end of Pozières, it was made of reinforced concrete and was used by the Germans as an observation post. The concrete covered the entrance to a large cellar and a stairway led down to an even deeper room. Realising this was a significant strongpoint, Captain Ernest Herrod rushed it with a small party from the front while others, led by Lieutenant Walter Waterhouse, attacked from the rear. Inside were twenty-six Germans, one of whom had his thumb on the button of a machine gun as the Australians burst in upon him. By the evening of the 23rd, the 2nd Battalion was in full possession of Gibraltar and throughout the coming days the Australians extended their hold over Pozières.

German counter-attacks failed to retake the village, so the enemy decided on a different approach. For three days their artillery poured shells on the Australian positions at Pozières. The area around Gibraltar was hard hit, as it lay close to one of the main supply routes into the village along 'Dead Man's Road'. That road is still there: it runs out into the far side of the main road across the small park beside the blockhouse ruins. The 2nd Battalion's 'War Diary' recorded: 'subject to very heavy shelling by the enemy', 'a continuous bombardment was maintained all day', 'bombardment continued throughout the night … many men were buried', 'bombardment so intense it was impossible for A and D Companies to remain in their trenches', 'men were thoroughly worn out'. All told the battalion lost 510 men killed, wounded and missing during three days at Pozières, nearly 55 per cent of those who had attacked the village on 23 July.

One of the 'missing' was a Second Battalion messenger observed lying dead in the main road just beyond Gibraltar. Sent with an important message from headquarters to the front line, he knew he might be killed by the intense shelling. Mortally wounded, he took the message from his pocket and held it in the air as he died. Twenty minutes later an ammunition party saw him lying in the road, removed his message, and delivered it. Brigadier General Neville Smyth, who sent the message and who wrote an account of this man's fate after the war, records simply: 'The man's name and number is not known'.

During the last week of July 1916 shells fell in their thousands on Australian soldiers in a village they had captured from the Germans—Pozières. I had not the slightest idea where our lines or the enemy's were, and the shells were coming at us from, it seemed, three directions, wrote Australian Lieutenant John Raws. Pozières was reduced to rubble and shattered earth, but here the men of the First Australian Division later built their memorial in France. They remembered the tenacity with which they had held their ground and the comrades who had perished in the horror of those bombardments.

Photo 1916: Soldiers carry sandbags past remains of Gibraltar blockhouse amid the devastation
Photo Pozières 1916: Huge crater in a wasteland of rubble, shattered trees
Photo 1919: Gibraltar ruins by the road. Soldiers, First Division Memorial visible in background

The Dead Runner, Pozières

23 July 1916

This extract, from a letter written by Sir Nevill Smyth, commander of the First Australian Infantry Brigade at Pozières in 1916, describes the fate of a runner (messenger) of the Second Australian Infantry Battalion during the battle on 23 July 1916.

At daylight on 23rd July 1916 Pozières was in the hands of the First Australian Infantry Brigade. The other Brigades of the 1st Australian Division were echeloned to its right and rear and units detailed to attack on its right under Brigadier General Sinclair MacLagan (I think) had been held up by heavy fire into their flank from the German Main Trench Line.

During the morning the First Brigade. Commander, who was 400 yards from the Village of Poziéres, sent an order in duplicate by runners attached to Brigade. Headquarters to the Front line which was occupying houses and the church ruins north of the Bapaume Road ordering a further advance at a given moment in co-operation with a bombardment.

There was a continuous enemy barrage of shellfire on the Bapaume Road … [and] it was necessary (pending the digging of a trench) for our reinforcements to run the gauntlet across the road. Near this point, about thirty men (Australians and Germans) had been killed. One of the two runners fell on his way to the road. The second one, who belonged to the 2nd Battalion, seeing the great peril which he must face, and realising that if he fell the fact of his being a runner bearing a message might be overlooked by those who passed him among so many fallen soldiers, he must have deliberately taken the message from his breast pocket and as he was struck dead he held it up in the air so that a small party of men making their way forward with ammunition within about 20 minutes saw that he held a paper in his hand and taking it from his fingers carried it on to the officer it was addressed to, thus enabling the further advance to be successfully carried out.

Note: The man was fair and muscular, wore the Second Battalion badges on sleeve and a red band to denote that he was a runner. The bands were made very raggedly by the men themselves of red calico bought in the villages. Sleeves were rolled up above the elbow (as a recognition mark in the night and afterwards). The man's name and number is not known.

[Sir Nevill Smyth, letter, 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion, War Diary, July 1916, 23/19/15, AWM4.]

Drawing 1916: Nevill Smyth, dead runner in the road
Handwritten letter with sketch of upper arm with shoulder flash, band and rolled sleeve
Bapaume Road today

The Gibraltar blockhouse was taken from the Germans when the Australian First Division attacked, took and held Pozières village between 23 and 26 July 1916. This was one of the many battles between 1 July and 19 November of that year known collectively as The Battle of the Somme.

Panorama: View of First Australian Division Memorial, Pozières and surrounds

This is the magnificent view of the Somme countryside from the ruins of the Gibraltar strong point at the southern edge of Pozières village, which was captured by Australian soldiers when they seized the village on 23 July 1916.

The ruins are hidden behind the flowering tree to the left. The road at [A], seen here travelling south-west out of Pozières, is the main Albert-Bapaume road which was the proposed axis of the British advance at the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916. Beside the road at [B] we can see the high walls of the Pozières British Cemetery. Here are the graves of 456 identified Australians, many killed between 23 and 25 July 1916 during the struggle for Pozières. That action is commemorated by the First Australian Division Memorial in the centre of the panorama. The dedicatory plaque lists the battle honours of the division and the first name on the plaque is 'Pozières'. The whole landscape to the right of the memorial was the scene of further Australian advances beyond the village. Australia's official war correspondent, Charles Bean, described what this view would have looked like between July and September 1916:

Over the whole face of the country shells have ploughed up the land literally as with a gigantic plough, so that there is more red and brown earth than green. From the distance all the colour is given by these upturned crater edges, and the country is wholly red.

The scene is indescribable … the roar of the guns … the bursting shells … the smell of powder … the atmosphere is choked with dust and fumes, and one can hardly breathe the air.

[Lance Corporal Roger Morgan, 1st Field Ambulance, attached 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion, diary, quoted in RW Taylor and TA Cusack (compilers), Nulli Secundus: A History of the Second Battalion AIF, 1914–1919, New Century Press, 1942, p.178.]

1st Australian Division Memorial

A new memorial park adjacent to the First Australian Division Memorial features interpretive displays telling the story of Australia's role in the Battles of Pozières. Two new walking trails with markers were completed in March 2015 linking sites of significance in and around the village, supported by audio guides and historical images in the Australians in the Somme 16&18 app for mobile devices. The Australian Government has contributed A$235 000 to the project.

The 'app' is available for free download for Android and Apple devices:

  • Download: Australians in the Somme 16&18 app for Android
  • Download: Australians in the Somme 16&18 app for Apple

Further information can be found by Visiting the First Australian Division Memorial.

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