Trenches hero recalled in tale of brutal battle

THE story of a Leeds soldier who emigrated to Australia and later fought alongside fellow Yorkshiremen in France has been told in a new book.

Private Thomas Oldfield survived the horrors of Gallipoli and the Somme but was killed in 1917 during a battle at Bullecourt, which German forces had transformed into a fortress of hidden machine gun nests linked by a maze of underground tunnels.

Oldfield's story, and that of other Yorkshire soldiers and regiments, is told in a new book, Bullecourt 1917: Breaching the Hindenburg Line, by Paul Kendall.

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Mr Kendall discovered that Oldfield was educated at Knaresborough Grammar School and emigrated to Australia with his family when he was 18.

They settled in Koyuga, Victoria where Oldfield worked as a grocer.

After enlisting with the Australian Imperial Force, he was sent to Gallipoli in August 1915 where he joined his brother Farrar.

Both brothers served on the Gallipoli peninsular in horrendous conditions while being fired upon by Turkish guns until the evacuation during December 1915.

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Pte Oldfield was sent to France during June 1916 and was shot in both legs during the battle of the Somme. After a stay in the Northumberland War Hospital, he returned to France in December 1916.

Oldfield was with the 23rd Battalion when they charged across No Man's Land at Bullecourt on May 3, 1917. He was killed during this battle.

Pte Oldfield has no known grave but his name is listed on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux in France.

Mr Kendall says fighting for Bullecourt cost the lives of 17,000 men.

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He said: "Bullecourt exemplified the futility of trench warfare and the ineffectiveness of British commanders to seek a successful method of overwhelming German held trenches.

"They were unable to come to terms with the weapons of a modern industrial war. All they could do was replicate their errors and send further waves of men to their deaths.

"The loss of 10,000 Australian and 7,000 British soldiers including Pte Thomas Oldfield was a disastrous tragedy and Bullecourt would be a lesson for all military commanders in how not to conduct a battle."

The book also tells the story of Leeds-born William Ernest Rathke, the son of a German immigrant, who found it difficult to enlist because of his German surname.

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Company Sgt Major Rathke, who survived the war, went on to win a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his "great determination and coolness" in leading an attack during the second battle of Bullecourt.

The West Riding Regiment soldier's citation in the London Gazette of July 17, 1917, said: "Although himself wounded, he collected and successfully led a small party against a strong enemy bombing attack upon our trenches."

After the war, he resumed his career as a carpenter and went on to become a building inspector at Stoke on Trent City Corporation. He died in 1951.

Mr Kendall says that fighting was often savage and at close quarters.

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One West Yorkshire soldier, 2nd Lt Robert Frost, was involved in one particularly brutal encounter at Bullecourt which won him a Military Cross.

The citation read: "He bayoneted one, the bayonet breaking in him, and the man drawing his pistol, Lt Frost brought him down with the butt end of his rifle, then he shot two others with his revolver.

"Carrying on, a Lewis Gun was brought into action though himself was wounded in two places, and saved from three other wounds by his equipment he stood firm against odds until all his men were casualties when he retired."

n The book can be bought from Amazon, priced 17.50.

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