passchendaele

30183 Clive Townsend Thompson was from Sydney in New South Wales. He was born in the parish of Stratfield and his next of kin on enlistment was recorded as his mother, Mary Thompson. He was a student aged 19 yrs and 3 mths when he enlisted on 5th September 1916, and was living at the family home at 17 Collingwood St, Drummoyne, Sydney. He had already completed 3 months compulsory military service with 31st Infantry Battalion and he signed for a voluntary 3 year engagement with 22/1st Field Artillery Brigade. He was killed aged 20 in the opening days of the Australian 9th Brigade involvement in the disastrously over-ambitious and inadequately planned Battle of Passchedaele (9th Brigade AIF attacked on 12th October). The Ypres battlefield had been churned into slurry by heavy shelling over the preceding 3 years and torrential rain during the month of August 1917. Passchendaele has rightly become synonymous with the squandering of mens lives in some of the most ill conceived attacks of the entire war. Photographs of the battle convey an idea of the horror of fighting there; it is almost unimaginable to understand what it must have been like on that battlefield at night. A fit, young, intelligent soldier, Clive Thompson could well have been a signaller, runner or rifleman with an artillery observation party, well forward in the front line, directing the preparatory shellfire on the German lines. This would also have placed him amongst the most exposed and vulnerable troops in areas where the ground offered indifferent protection from observation and enemy fire and was full of lethal traps even for the most experienced soldiers.//

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Thank you very much for this short bio.

From the Imperial War Museum site:

"THE BATTLE OF PASSCHENDAELE, JULY-NOVEMBER 1917

part of "MINISTRY OF INFORMATION FIRST WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTION" (photographs) Made by: Brooke, John Warwick (Lieutenant) (Photographer) 1917-08-11

Captain of the Machine Gun Corps in a captured German armoured observation post. St. Eloi, 11 August 1917.

www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205237936


THE BATTLE OF PASSCHENDAELE, JULY-NOVEMBER 1917© IWM (Q 5867)

www.worcestershireregiment.com/wr.php?main=inc/roh_J_A_Ac... John Arden Acworth was the younger of the two sons of Mr and Mrs H. A. Acworth, of "The Palms," Orchard Rd., Malvern. He was born at Malvern Wells on May 20th, 1898, and was educated first at Twyford School, Hants, where he was Head boy, and where he earned among his school fellows the appropriate name of "Honest John" which he carried with him to Winchester in 1911. During his time at Winchester he was in Culver House under the Rev F. P. David, and won several prizes on his way to the highest form, "Sixth Book". He had been, when he left for a year in the Senior Division of that form, during which he had distinguished himself above all the Commoners of his year by winning the King's Gold Medal for English essay, and the Moore Stevens Divinity prize. He entered as a commoner of Magdelen College, Oxford, and came up to Oxford at the beginning of Michaelmas Term, 1916. He resided as an undergraduate at Magdelen for one term. During this term he proved his mettle by passing in December the Previous Examination in History, an examination to get through which in one term would even without interruption, require good capacity and steady work, and was specially creditable in his case, since fully half his working time was taken up by duties in the Officer Training Corps, O.T.C. 2/Lieut. J. A. Acworth He had been a Corporal in his School O.T.C., and in December 1916, being now 18, he was recommended by the authorities of the Oxford O.T.C. for admission to an Officers Cadet Battalion stationed at Oxford, and to his own satisfaction and that of his Magdalen friends, was quartered for the period of his training in his own college, for which he had already a very loyal affection, thus he could still without difficulty, when his duties as a cadet left him free to do so, join the undergraduates of his year in the Junior Common Room and attend the services (in which he took great pleasure) of his College Chapel. He obtained his commission in the Worcestershire Regiment on the 26th April 1917, and after 2 months with the 3/8th Battalion (Reserve Battalion) in Yorkshire, joined the 1/7th Battalion in France at the end of June 1917. On the 9th October 1917, on the first occasion of his going into action, he was wounded by a shell splinter. The wound was very serious, but he might have pulled through had gas poisoning (gangrene) not set in. As it was, he died very suddenly on the 13th October 1917 in the Casualty Clearing station. He was conscious very nearly to the last, and showed himself, as the matron who nursed him testified, a 'good patient', during the few days of life that remained to him after he was wounded. Such is the honourable record of the outward incidents of a life laid down on the threshold of manhood in the cause of England and in defence of justice and freedom throughout the world.

Help piece together the Life Stories of more than 8 million men and women who made a contribution during the First World War at www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/