Lewis Gordon Blackmore was the 7th Child of Edward Gordon Blackmore and Eleanora Elizabeth Blackmore (Nee Farr) Born Adelaide SA 21st May 1886 - Killed in action
From the excerpts below all young men
have hopes and dreams that in this instance were cut short but have given us
the freedom do live our own lives without much thought for the alternative
Lewis’ letters to brother John Coleridge Blackmore (my Grandfather)
June 24th “As the Russians are doing so well
and the Hun appear to have failed at Verdun
June 29th “How is land selling now? I have
great ideas of sneaking out near the Warrumbungle Mts and buying a place if we
can raise the wind….”
July 17th “Well old sport, we shall be busy
now so letters may be a bit irregular, but shall drop you a line at every
opportunity.”
Then in a letter from Eric Shelly –
“We moved
up on the village of Pozieres 12.30am on the night of the 22nd-23rd
July. Two minutes prior to that time we started a violent artillery
bombardment, then over our men went to the German first line and took it. For
30 minutes there raged another artillery bombardment our guns having lifted
their range to the German 2nd line, then a signal and over we went
again. As close as I can gather this is where poor old Lew went down. The boy
knew no pain thank God, a machine gun bullet got him in the forehead and he
died instantly. I saw him a few hours previously and he went into it laughing
and joking and full of hope and the surety he was coming out as well as he went
in”
From Informant Cadet Pte Thos. 3261
“On
Sunday, 23rd July I saw above-named killed, struck by a machine gun
bullet. We were attacking Pozieres about 1 am . I saw that Blackmore was dead. An
Australian, short, thick-set, dark, clean shaven, about twenty three”
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| Lewis Gordon Blackmore buried approx location at junction of Pozieres Trench and OG1 |
From Service Records:-
“Buried
just to the right of the right communication trench leading to Old German No 1
Trench near Pozieres.”
“(No Grave
No, No cemetery and no clergyman. He was buried in the heat of the action)”
An
Account of the Pozierers Battle of 23rd-24th
July 1916
During the night of Saturday-Sunday, July
22nd-23rd, the troops took up their positions for the attack on the village.
The attack was to be made upon the eastern and southern faces of the position
by Australian troops and English Territorials. The English were to advance from
the direction of Ovillers Hill and Mash Valley Albert-Bapaume Road
The Australian left was to touch the English
right at the road, to push up, in the main direction of the road, from Suicide
Corner and Contalmaison, by way of the spur, the Quarry Road, and Hospital
Road, so as to close in on the village from the southeast.
The Australian right, forming up from about
Contalmaison Villa, outside Little Bazentin Wood, to O.G. 1, with their faces
to the west, were to charge across the plateau, taking whatever trenches there
might be in their path, right into the village, through the wood or copse, and
across the gardens to the houses. It was known that the garrison of Pozières
had been relieved by a fresh division, and that, like other enemy reliefs, this
division had brought in plenty of food and drink.
The attack had been prepared by some days of
shelling over the whole area. Not much of the village was standing, though one
observer speaks of some parts of red-tiled roofs near the cemetery. The smash
and ruin were general, but the place was not obliterated, nor were all the
trees razed. The weather had cleared. It was hot, dry, dusty weather, with much
haze and stillness in the air.
At midnight on the 22nd-23rd of
July the attack was timed to begin. It was the first big fight in which the
Australians had been engaged since the Battle of Gallipoli, almost a year
before. Then they had fallen in in the night for an attack in the dark, which
won only glory and regret. This time the battle was to be one of the hardest of
the war, and there was to be glory for all and regret for very many, and the
prize was to be the key to the ridge of Bapaume beyond the skyline, with
possible victory and peace.
At midnight , when the men had
reached their starting-places, the attack began, and a great wave of Australian
infantry went across the plateau towards the east of the village. A part of
this wave attacked the enemy who were still holding out in O.G. 1. The rest
crossed the plateau, got into one enemy line, which was lightly held or held
only by dead men, took it, got into another (really the sunken track of the
light railway) which was held more strongly, took that, and so, by successive
rushes, and by countless acts of dash and daring, trying (as it happened) to
find objectives which our guns had utterly destroyed, they reached the
outskirts of the place, across a wreck of a part of the wood. They made a line
from about the southern end of the village to their starting-place near
Bazentin Wood.
When
the daylight came on that Sunday morning, the Australians were in the village,
on the eastern side of the road with the road as their front. Beyond the road
they had to their front the tumbled bricks of the main part of the village. To
their right, they had a markless wilderness of plateau tilting very slightly
upwards to the crest on which the O.G. lines ran.
Australians
who were there have given accounts of the fighting which won them this
position, but, as usually happens in a night attack, those who were there saw
little. It seems to be agreed that the second enemy trench was more strongly
held than the outer line, and that the right of the attack, which came under
direct enfilading fire from the O.Gs., had the hardest task. Some have said
that the eastern outskirts of the village were lightly held by the enemy, and
that not more than 200 enemy dead were found in that part of the field after
the charge, which is very likely, for it was the enemy's custom to hold an
advanced post with a few men and many machine guns.
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| Pozieres before and after artillery bombardment |
