Lieutenant Albert Heasman MM,16th Australian Imperial Force

Digital copies of Albert Heasman’s World War One service papers can be viewed at The National Archives of Australia. The photograph, right, was taken after his commission as second lieutenant in January 1918.  A summary of Albert’s service history follows.

According to his attestation papers, Albert was born on 14th October 1888 in Hailsham, Sussex.  He was the oldest son of Edric Owen Heasman and Annie Heasman (nee Message) whose marriage was registered at Uckfield, Sussex in the December quarter of 1887.

Albert, born on the 14th October 1888, appears on the 1891 census as a two year old living with his parents and seven month old brother Frederick Heasman at White House, East Chiltington, Sussex.  His place of birth is noted as Bodle Street, Sussex.  Edric, 26 years old and working as an agricultural labourer, was born at Mayfield.  His 25 year old wife Annie was born in London.  Frederick was born at East Chiltington.

Ten years later, the 1901 census notes that the family is still living at the same address (reported as Whitehouse number one) with Edric’s trade now noted as “stockman on farm”.  There are also three more children: Gilbert Arthur Heasman (aged seven), Daisy May Heasman (aged five) and Grace Hilda Heasman (aged two).  A two year old boarder, John A Irquhart (possibly), born in Liverpool, is also living at the address, as is a 59 year old widower from Wivelsfield, George Mitchell.  Two further children would also be born: Beatrice Heasman in 1907 and Percival Heasman in 1910.

Albert emigrated to Western Australia in early 1911 followed by Gilbert in 1912 and Frederick in 1913.  Prior to enlisting in the AIF, Albert and Gilbert worked as fettlers, helping to lay the railway line from Geraldton to Mt Magnet, a gold mining town.  In 1914, war having been declared on Germany, Albert joined the Australian Imperial Force.

Albert’s records show that he attested on the 21st September 1914 with the 16th Battalion AIF.  He was given the number 595.  The 16th Infantry Battalion (Western Australia and South Australia) formed part of the 4th Infantry Brigade.  Albert gave his age as 25 years and 11 months, his trade or calling as labourer and his next of kin as W Heasman, Tutts Farm, South Common, Chailey.  He was five feet, eight and a half inches tall, weighed 142lbs, had a fair complexion and brown eyes and hair.

On 12th October he was appointed to C Company and the following day swore an oath of allegiance at Helena Vale, Western Australia.  He embarked at Melbourne aboard RMAT A40 “Ceramic” on 22nd December bound for Egypt.  After four months there he landed at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915 and was promoted lance-corporal the following month (13th).  Eleven days later, he was promoted to full corporal.

On 3rd October 1915 he was admitted to the 3rd Canadian Stationary Hospital with influenza and then transferred to the 3rd General Hospital.   On the 18th he was transferred to the British Base, “Aquitania”.

On 22nd March 1916, whilst in Egypt, he was promoted sergeant and on 23rd October 1916 was awarded the Military Medal.

On 7th April 1917 he was Taken on Strength with the 70th Battalion and on the 29th April proceeded overseas to France via Folkestone as part of a draft to re-enforce the 16th Battalion.  The same day, Base Records Office AIF sent a letter to Mr Heasman at Tutts Farm stating, “I have much pleasure in forwarding hereunder copy of extract from Supplement No 29854 to The London Gazette of 8th December 1916 relating to the conspicuous services rendered by No 595 Sergeant A Heasman, 16th Bn… Promulgated in Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No 62 of 19th April 1917.”

Sergeant Heasman re-joined his battalion on 3rd May 1917, but the following month (26th June), joined the 4th Training Battalion.  On 2nd July 1917 he arrived at Codford for duty with the permanent cadre.  Between 31st August 1917 and 15th September 1917 he attended a course of instruction in the Lewis Gun and qualified 1st class (Sgt).

On 1st October 1917 he was discharged from the permanent cadre of the 4th Training Battalion on proceeding overseas (the following day).  He re-joined his battalion on the 6th October, attended a week-long infantry training course at Aveluy on the 18th November and then attended a further course at an Officer’s Training College on the 27th December.

On 4th January 1918 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant at No 6 Officers’ Cadet Battalion, Oxford.  A confidential report on 23rd May that year reported that he had “shown good sound common sense, worked well and made good sound satisfactory progress.”

On 19th August 1918, 2nd Lieutenant Heasman again proceeded overseas, joining his new unit (unclear on his surviving papers) eight days later. He remained in France until 16th June 1919 when he returned to Australia aboard “Ormonde”.

Although no longer a native of Chailey, the Parish Magazine had also mentioned him during the First World War.  Under “Distinctions’ it recorded his name for the first time in November 1916 stating simply, Sergt A Heasman, MM, Australian Imp Forces, France.  This information was repeated up to and including the final published roll in July 1919.

After the war, for a short time, Albert and Gilbert ran a greengrocer’ shop in West Perth.  When Gilbert returned to England in 1920, Albert spent some time, in the words of one of his ancestors, “roaming around the north of Western Australia on horseback”.  He married Minnie Olive Griffiths in 1923 and in 1932 was granted a conditional purchase block of 1,000 acres of land at Moorine Rock.  He then began a career as a sheep farmer, buying up neighbouring land as the years progressed.  Albert and Minnie had three children: Edric John Frederick Heasman (born January 1925), Albert Charles Heasman (born May 1926) and Ronald Keith Heasman (born April 1928).  A fourth son, Robert, died shortly after birth in 1931.

In October 1968, still living at Moorine Rock, Albert wrote to the officer in charge at the Central Army Base Records requesting a Gallipoli Medallion.  It was acknowledged that he was eligible and he was duly sent it (to complement his Military Medal, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal). 

Albert Heasman died in 1974 after a long and eventful life.  His medals are held at The Fremantle War Museum in Australia.

2767 Pte William Barbin, AIF

2767 Private William Barbin of the Australian Imperial Force was a patient at Beechlands between October 1917 and January 1918. His entry in Nurse Oliver’s album reads:

When days are dark and friends are few
Dear friend I will think of you.
Roses may wither flowers may fade.
Some may forget you, but never will I

No 2767 Pte W Barbin
Australian Imperial Force

Barbin shares this page in the album with an entry by 268791 Private Arthur George Whipp of the 2/7th Sherwood Foresters.

William Barbin’s full service record can be viewed at The Australian National Archives. Here's a summary:

He was born in May 1895 and attested at Charleville, Queensland on 12th October 1916 aged 21 years and six months. His given profession was labourer and his next of kin as his father, William Barbin of Finch Hatton, via Mackay, Queensland.

He was posted to the 42nd Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force and left Sydney on the troopship A64 Demosthenes with the 5th Reinforcements to that battalion on 22nd December 1916. During the voyage he fell sick and spent four days in the hospital aboard ship. He arrived in Plymouth, England on 3rd March 1917 and after three months’ training was sent to France, arriving at Rouelles on 26th June 1917. He was taken on strength with the 42nd Battalion (3rd Australian Division) on 13th July.

The Third Division had trained in England for six months and been nurtured in the quiet Armentieres section since February 1917. By the time Barbin arrived in France, the Australians have suffered heavy casualties (3,000 at the First battle of Bullecourt in April 1917 and a further 7,500 at the second battle of Bullecourt in May. The heavy toll of casualties had led to all four Australian divisions involved drawing heavily on their reserves which led directly to the disbandment of the 6th Australian Division forming in England.

In June 1917 the 3rd Division was involved in the battle of Messines. It was the division’s first action and it sustained 4,122 casualties.

William Barbin was wounded on 12th October 1917, the opening day of the Second Battle of Passchendaele. On the night before the attack, the division suffered between 500 and 1000 casualties due to a German gas attack which meant that some battalions went into the assault ten per cent under strength. The official history describes the build-up to the battle and the conditions which it describes as “lamentable”.

“The sodden battleground was littered with wounded who had lain out in the mud among the dead for two days and nights; and the pillbox shelters were overflowing with unattended wounded whilst the dead lay piled outside. A stretcher case required up to sixteen men for the carry back across the mile of mud to the duckboard tracks and the advanced dressing stations. The survivors, in a state of utter exhaustion, with neither food nor ammunition, had been sniped at by Germans on the higher ground throughout the 10th, with increasing casualties.”

“Passchendaele in Perspective” continues in similar vein, describing the assault as even more futile than that at Poelcappelle. Artillery support was inadequate and the weather and muddy terrain had made it almost impossible to move the guns up and get them into their allotted positions. One Australian artilleryman described how the battery’s guns were bogged in the mud for three days and only finally removed with the assistance of 26 horses on each gun which pulled them to the position with the mud up to the horses’ stomachs. On the day of the attack, many guns lay temporarily abandoned or out of action. Those guns that were in position found the supply of shells difficult. When guns did fire, the recoil drove them further into the mud making it impossible to accurately register on the targets. Casualties amongst the artillerymen were also high because they were exposed to counter battery fire and were unable to dig protective pits because of the waterlogged landscape. Guns sank in the mud until they disappeared. Battery positions were dotted with red flags where the guns had sunk from view.

The limited shellfire that the Australian guns did deliver failed to make a mark on either the German artillery, strong points or barbed wire. The creeping barrage was so feeble that it could not be distinguished from the German artillery fire and provided no cover to the advancing infantrymen. This meant that they advanced with no cover. The Australian battalions came under persistent enemy shelling on their way to their jumping-off positions and when the 3rd Australian Division troops advanced through the mud of the Ravebeek valley to take their first objective they were forced back under enfilade fire on their exposed flanks. One patrol managed to reach the village of Passchendaele which it found deserted.

Overall the 3rd Australian Division suffered over 3000 casualties. On their right, the 4th Australian Division suffered 1000 casualties and the New Zealanders on their left advanced straight into a thick belt of uncut wire. Their casualties amounted to 3000 dead and wounded. Men bunching on the firmer ground when they were advancing, made them easier targets for the Germans. The advance was also held up when men stopped to give assistance to those who were sinking in the mud.

Overall the attack on Passchendaele Ridge produced 13000 British casualties, the equivalent of a division of troops, for no significant gain. It totally failed in human terms, the cost to the 3rd Australian Division was 35 men for every yard of ground taken.

On the 13th October Barbin was admitted to the 11th General Hospital at Camiers with gunshot wounds to his fingers but by now, his feet were also in a poor condition. Fifteen days later he embarked for England on the Hospital Ship Newhaven and was admitted to the 2nd Eastern General Hospital at Brighton with Trench Feet. He probably spent a short while at the Dyke Road hospital before transferring to Beechland House in Newick where he remained until the 15th January 1918.

On the 16th he transferred to the 2nd Auxiliary Hospital at Dartford and was also given two weeks’ leave. On 12th March 1918 he rejoined his battalion in France and a little over a month later on 16th April, he was wounded in action for the second time; admitted to the 11th Australian Field Ambulance with gun shot wounds to his right thigh and left hand. The following day he was transferred to the 50th General Hospital at Abbeville and then embarked for England on the Hospital Ship St Andrew on 2nd May.

On 3rd May 1918 he was admitted to Norfolk War Hospital with “gun shot wound right thigh” given as the cause for his admission. On 17th June 1918 he reported to No 1 Command Depot and after spending more time in hospital at Sutton Veny, Wiltshire, was returned to Australia on 23rd September 1918. On 13th December 1918 he was discharged from the army as medically unfit.

The rhyme he includes in Nurse Oliver’s album is a mis-remembered combination of two couplets popular at the time. “When days are dark and friends are few / Remember me as I do you” is the first one. “Roses may wither, leaves fade and die / If others forget you, never will I” is the second.