Joseph Walter “Wal“ Livermore 1891~1917

 

Before I started to create this web-site I had never really encountered Wal Livermore before. I was not aware that he was my grand-uncle Henry James' 1st cousin. The only thing that I did know was the fact that like Henry James he too had given his life defending his country in far off Western Europe.

 

Born at the Black Range in 1891 Joseph Walter Livermore, or Wal as he was more commonly known, was the third eldest child of the twelve who were born to parents Joseph George & Ada Marie Livermore nee Collins.

 

As can be seen from his WW1 service record, Wal's occupation has been listed as a wood-carter. A photograph, that is in the possession of his grand-niece Anne Maree Collins nee Zeinert, shows him with his horse and cart loaded with wood. The location of where the photograph was taken is not known and unfortunately the photo is far to fragile to remove it from it's frame so it can be scanned and shown here.

 

I have no information about Wal's early life, and athough I have held conversations with his grand-niece, even she can shed little or no light on the subject. However those early years may well have followed along the same lines as that of Henry James' life.

 

Wal would have attended the Black Range Public School along with his siblings Annie Maria; George Henry; and cousins Thomas and Henry James. And apart from that small snippet of information nothing else is known with any real certainty.

 

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The information displayed below has been taken from the WW1 Nominal & Embarkation Rolls that can be found at the Australian War Memorial:

 

Livermore: Joseph Walter (Wal)

 

• Service No: 7025

 

• Rank: Private

 

• Unit: 3rd Battalion 13-23 Reinforcements(Dec.1915-Nov.1916)1st Brigade, 1st Divison AIF

 

• Embarkation Date: 9th November 1916

 

• Name of Ship: HMAT Benalla 11118 tons speed 14 knots owned by P & O SN Co London Ship No : A24

 

• Place of Embarkation: Sydney

 

• Date of Enlistment: 26th October 1916

 

• Age: 24 years

 

• Occupation: Wood-carter

 

• Religion: Church of England

 

• Next of Kin: Mrs A Livermore (mother) Tavington (sic) via Albury Nsw

 

• Address at Enlistment: High St. Mascot Nsw

 

• Marital Status: Single

 

Wal was entitled to the following awards:

 

• The British War Medal (D 53–52572)

 

• The Victory Medal (D 52–51850)

 

He was not entitled to receive the 1914~1915 Star.

 

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The following information has been taken from Wal's service record and tells us with more certainty, of his movements up to and including his death in September 1917. Information has also been collected from the Australian War Memorial archives as well as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Unit Diaries, and the various eye witness reports collected by the Red Cross.

 

Private # 7025 Joseph Walter “Wal” Livermore enlisted in the October of 1916 and was immediately sent overseas per the troop ship “Benalla“ landing in Devonport in England on January 9th 1917. From here Wal was sent to the training camp at Larkhill near the main city of Sailsbury in the English county of Wiltshire. Much of Larkhill sits within the famous Stonehenge World Heritage Site. Larkhill has had a long association with British Military history.

 

Like most young men of the time still thinking that this was an adventure to be lived to the full, Wal wasted no time in snubbing his nose at authority and had found himself in trouble with his superiors.

 

One month after he had disembarked and had been placed at Larkhill, 3rd February 1917, Wal had gone AWL and had eventually been picked up in London by the M. P.'s. His punishment, administered by Major J. K. G. Magee, was to include the forfeiture of four days pay, two days in custody, and FP # 2. In contrast to his cousin Henry James' FP # 1, Wal was not subjected to being tied to a fence or wheel but he was still liable to perform hard labour duties.

 

His waywardness and disregard for authority continued in the following months. In March Wal had been able to commit two offences:

 

• Neglecting to obey standing orders (outside perimeter boundaries)

 

• AWL from Larkhill until apprehended in Sailsbury

 

Punishment administered by Captain H. C. Pearce: 4 days FP # 2, forfeiture of 7 days pay, and he was held in custody awaiting trial. Wal's Battalion left for France on the 3rd May 1917 from Folkstone and just one day later entered the famed training camp at Etaples - "The Bull Ring"

 

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The following has been taken from the Australian War Memorial's web site and explains the formation of the 3rd Battalion and the battles it was involved in:

 

"The 3rd Battalion was among the first infantry units raised for the AIF during the First World War. Like the 1st, 2nd and 4th Battalions it was recruited from New South Wales and, together with these battalions, formed the 1st Brigade. The battalion was raised within a fortnight of the declaration of war in August 1914 and embarked just two months later.

 

After a brief stop in Albany, Western Australia, the battalion proceeded to Egypt, arriving on 2 December. The battalion took part in the ANZAC landing on 25 April 1915 as part of the second and third waves and served there until the evacuation in December. In August, the battalion took part in the attack on Lone Pine. For his valorous action in defending Sasse's Sap at Lone Pine on 9 August, Private John Hamilton was awarded the Victoria Cross.

 

After the withdrawal from Gallipoli, the battalion returned to Egypt. In March 1916, it sailed for France and the Western Front. From then until 1918 the battalion took part in operations against the German Army, principally in the Somme Valley in France and around Ypres in Belgium. The battalion's first major action in France was at Pozières in the Somme valley in July 1916. Later the battalion fought at Ypres, in Flanders, before returning to the Somme for winter.

 

The battalion participated in a short period of mobile operations following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in early 1917, but spent much of that year fighting in increasingly difficult conditions around Ypres. In 1918 the battalion returned to the Somme valley and helped to stop the German spring offensive in March and April.

 

The battalion subsequently participated in the Allies' great offensive of that year, launched east of Amiens on 8 August 1918. The advance on this day 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 to 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.

 

Between November 1918 and May 1919 the men of the 3rd Battalion returned to Australia for demobilisation and discharge."

 

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This is from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site:

 

" Ypres, now called Ieper, is a town in the Province of West Flanders. The Memorial is situated at the eastern side of the town on the road to Menin (Menen) and Courtrai (Kortrijk). Each night at 8:00pm the traffic is stopped at the Menin Gate while members of the local Fire Brigade sound the Last Post in the roadway under the memorial's arches.

 

The Menin gate is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking, the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war.

 

The Salient was formed during the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914, when a small British Expeditionary Force succeeded in securing the town before the onset of winter, pushing the German forces back to the Passchendaele Ridge.

 

The Second Battle of Ypres began in April 1915 when the Germans released poison gas into the Allied lines north of Ypres. This was the first time gas had been used by either side and the violence of the attack forced an Allied withdrawal and a shortening of the line of defence. There was little more significant activity on this front until 1917, when in the Third Battle of Ypres an offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south.

 

The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success, but the main assault northeastward, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly deteriorating weather.

 

The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele. The German offensive of March 1918 met with some initial success, but was eventually checked and repulsed in a combined effort by the Allies in September.

 

The battles of the Ypres Salient claimed many lives on both sides and it quickly became clear that the commemoration of members of the Commonwealth forces with no known grave would have to be divided between different sites.

 

The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the battlefields. It commemorates those of all Commonwealth nations (except New Zealand  who died in the Salient, and in the case of United Kingdom, casualties before 16th August 1917.

 

Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after that date are named on the memorial at Tyne Cot, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war. Other New Zealand casualties are commemorated on memorials at Buttes New British Cemetery and Messines Ridge British Cemetery.

 

The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial now bears the names of more than 54,000 officers and men whose graves are not known.

 

The memorial, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick, was unveiled by Lord Plumer in July 1927.

 

Joseph Walter was killed in action at the intersection of Clapham Junction and the Menin Road on September 20th 1917 on the first day of fighting during the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge (20~25 September 1917). This had been part of the Third Battle of Ypres.

 

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Reports from the unit diary indicate that Wal was killed and buried at the intersection where Clapham Junction meets the Menin Road, and although of poor quality, that place can be seen marked by the red asterisk in the lower left hand corner on the Map of Battle (see Wal's gallery).

 

The various reports collected from the Red Cross Wounded and Missing files are of a very graphic nature in their detail about Wal's death, and not wanting to offend anyone's sensibilities or add undue distress to any of Wal's relatives, I will only record the less descriptive of those reports here (see Wal's gallery for copies of all the original reports).

 

Even though the witnesses to Wal's death were men from the same Battalion and professed to know him well, there are some inconsistencies within the reports that should be noted: i.e. Wal's name has been shown as William in one report; he has been listed as coming from Lanington in another and described as “on the tall side and rather stout and fair“ by another! This chap also gave the incorrect date of death in his report.

 

Wal was only 5' 6” and weighed 148lbs (10st 6oz) and had a dark complexion with brown hair and eyes!

 

From T. S. Davies # 6989:

 

“Was in B Coy. 6th Pltn. Called William. He was killed instantly by shell. - there were 3 knocked by the same shell. I was about 15 yards away at the time. It happened about 50 yards N. of Menin Road near Clapham Junction. He was buried near where hit – I saw his grave. It did not have a cross up when I saw it, but one would be put up later. I also saw his body immediately after he was hit."

 

From Pte. P. Walton # 234:

 

“I saw him killed at Polygon Wood. He was caught by a shell which exploded some bombs, which he had in his pocket, and which blew him about badly. He only lived a few minutes. I knew him very well he cam from Lanington N.S. Wales. He was buried in the field at place of casualty. I saw his grave which was marked with a cross bearing his number, name & unit."

 

From Corporal J. Smithy # 6872:

 

“I knew Livermore he was a 23rd Reinforcement in B Company, and went over to France at the same time as I did, but in another boat, he also left Australia at the same time as I did 8.11.16. I was a 22nd Reinforcement he a 23rd Reinforcement. He was on the tall side, rather stout and fair. He was killed by a shell with 3 others on 21.9.17 in the trench near Menin Road; the others were L. L. Cullen, Warren, and another. I went up to the above four men and am sure Livermore was on of them. Warren's brother and some others went up and buried them near where they fell. Cullen's people live at Lowther, and I have been to see his mother."

 

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Also included in Wal's service record is a copy of his last Will & Testament. It is dated June 20th 1917. It bequeaths all his personal estate, as set out as a special note (N. B.) at the foot of the document, to his mother Ada Livermore. The witnesses named in the Will are Messrs Charlie Norman McLean, a miner from Narrandera Nsw, and one John Ward, a carpenter late of Hume Street Albury Nsw.

 

Wal's father Joseph George Livermore received his service medals as well the Memorial Plaque (Dead Man's Penny) & Scroll, # 336951, and the King's message.

 

Even though Wal's grave was marked at the time by a small wooden cross bearing his name, number & unit, I doubt that it still exists today. However his name will be displayed forever on the Menin Gate Memorial and also at the Australian War Memorial. Wal is also remembered at panel # 37 in the Commemorative Area of the Australian War Memorial

 

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

 

"In Flanders Field"

by

Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae, MD 1872~1918