5th Division (Australia)
The 5th Division was an infantry division of the Australian Army which served during the First and Second World Wars. The division was formed in February 1916 as part of the expansion of the Australian Imperial Force infantry brigades. In addition to the existing 8th Brigade were added the new 14th and 15th Brigades, which had been raised from the battalions of the 1st and 2nd Brigades respectively. From Egypt the division was sent to France and then Belgium, where they served in the trenches along the Western Front until the end of the war in November 1918. After the war ended, the division was demobilised in 1919.
The division was re-raised as a Militia formation during the Second World War, and was mobilised for the defence of North Queensland in 1942, when it was believed that the area was a prime site for an invasion by Japanese forces. Most of the division was concentrated in the Townsville area, although the 11th Brigade was detached for the defence of Cairns and Cape York. In 1943, the division took part in the final stages of the Salamaua–Lae campaign, in New Guinea, and then later in 1944 captured Madang during the Huon Peninsula campaign. In 1944–1945, the division was committed to the New Britain campaign, before being relieved in July 1945. The division was disbanded in September 1945 following the end of the war.
First World War
Formation in Egypt, 1916
In early 1916, following the unsuccessful Gallipoli campaign, the Australian government decided to expand the size of the Australian Imperial Force. At the time there were two Australian divisions in Egypt: the 1st and 2nd. The 3rd Division was raised in Australia, while the 1st Division was split up to provide a cadre upon which to raise the 4th and 5th Divisions. The 14th and 15th Brigades were formed from the 1st and 2nd Brigades, while the division's third brigade, the 8th, comprised newly formed battalions that had recently arrived from Australia and were unattached at divisional level. On formation at Tel el Kebir in February 1916, the 5th Division joined II Anzac Corps, and its main element was its three infantry brigades: the 8th, 14th and 15th. Upon formation, each brigade consisted of around 4,000 personnel, organised into four infantry battalions.When the more experienced I Anzac Corps embarked for France at the end of the month, they took most of the available artillery pieces and trained artillery personnel, leaving the II Anzac divisions to train new artillery batteries from scratch, a process that would take three months. Major-General James McCay, formerly commander of the Australian 2nd Infantry Brigade, assumed command of the division on 21 March 1916, after returning from Australia, having been wounded during the Gallipoli campaign.
After the dispatch of the 1st and 2nd Divisions to France, responsibility for the defence of the Suez Canal against an expected Turkish attack passed to the remaining two Australian divisions. The 5th Division was allocated to the defence of the canal around Ferry Post. Moving by train to Moascar, and then by foot to Ferry Post, the 8th Brigade moved in to position by 27 March. Meanwhile, the remainder of the division's infantry – the 14th and 15th Brigades – were to complete the move on foot, a march of from the Anzac camp at Tel el Kebir. McCay voiced some concerns about the march to his superiors, but followed the order and his actions during the march, and words afterwards, later soured relations between the divisional commander and the soldiers. Taking three days over soft sand and in extreme heat the men in the two brigades suffered severely and the march was completed in disarray with many suffering heat illness; many were helped in from the desert by a neighbouring New Zealand unit who volunteered to provide assistance upon learning of the situation.
Throughout late March to the end of May, concurrently with completing the process of training and equipping, the division's brigades rotated through the positions forward of Ferry Post. Finally, at the end of the month, the British 160th Brigade arrived, relieving the Australians. Throughout June, the division returned to Moascar, where reinforcements were received to bring units up to their authorised strengths in preparation for their transfer to Europe, to join the fighting on the Western Front. In the middle of the month, they moved by train to Alexandria and embarked on a number of troopships.
Fromelles, 1916
The 5th Division began arriving in France in late June 1916, landing in Marseille, the last of the four Australian divisions from Egypt to do so. At this time the Battle of the Somme was underway and going badly for the British. The divisions of I Anzac Corps, which had been acclimatising in the quiet sector near Armentières since April 1916, had been dispatched to the Somme as reinforcements, and so the 4th and 5th Divisions, which formed part of II Anzac Corps under Lieutenant General Alexander Godley, took their place at Armentières. The 4th Division subsequently occupied the front, while the 5th Division remained in reserve, completing training around Blaringhem, until 8 July, when it was called to take over from the 4th Division around Bois-Grenier, which also began preparations to move south. The 8th and 15th Brigades arrived on the night of 10/11 July, while the 14th moved into position on 12 July.The result of this move was that the 5th Division, the most inexperienced of the Australian divisions in France, would be the first to see major action, doing so in the Battle of Fromelles, a week after going into the trenches. As the Germans had been reinforcing their Somme front with troops from the north, the British planned a demonstration, or feint, to try to pin these troops to the front.
The attack was planned by Lieutenant-General Richard Haking, commander of the British XI Corps, which adjoined II Anzac Corps to the south. The aim was to reduce the slight German salient known as the "Sugar Loaf", north-west of the German-held town of Fromelles, and was primarily intended, according to historian Chris Coulthard-Clark, "to assist the main offensive which British forces had launched along the Somme River 80 kilometres to the south on 1 July".
Planning for the attack had been hasty and, as a result, the objectives were poorly defined. By the time the attack was ready to be launched, its purpose as a preliminary diversion to the main action at the Somme had passed, yet Haking and his army commander, General Sir Charles Monro, were keen to go ahead. Due to the pre-registration of supporting artillery, the Germans were warned about the attack. Nevertheless, at 6 pm on 19 July 1916, after seven hours of preliminary bombardment, the 5th Division and British 61st Division attacked. The Australian 8th and 14th Brigades, attacking north of the salient, occupied the German trenches, capturing around, but became isolated as the 15th Brigade's effort was checked, and began taking fire to its flank from Sugar Loaf. The 15th Brigade and the British 184th Brigade had taken heavy casualties while attempting to cross no man's land, as the supporting artillery had failed to suppress the German machine guns. The 8th and 14th Brigades were forced to withdraw, through German enfilade fire, the following morning. The failure was compounded when the British 61st Division asked the Australian 15th Brigade to join in a renewed attempt at 9 pm, but cancelled without informing the Australians with enough time to allow them to cancel their own attack. Consequently, half of the Australian 58th Battalion made another futile, solo effort to capture the salient, which resulted in further casualties.
The battle resulted in the greatest loss of Australian lives in a single 24-hour period. The 5,533 Australian casualties, including 400 prisoners, were equivalent to the total Australian losses in the Boer, Korean and Vietnam Wars combined. The 5th Division was effectively incapacitated for many months afterwards. Two battalions, the 60th and the 32nd, each suffered more than 700 casualties, or more than 90 per cent of their fighting strength and had to be rebuilt: out of 887 personnel from the 60th Battalion, only one officer and 106 other ranks survived; the 32nd Battalion sustained 718 casualties. The attack had completely failed as a diversion when its limited nature became obvious to the German defenders, while McCay's orders for the troops to push forward from the captured German trenches unnecessarily exposed them to German counter-attacks. The perceived failure of the British 61st Division later impacted relations between the AIF divisions and the British. Despite the heavy casualties, in its communiqués, the British GHQ described the Battle of Fromelles as "some important raids".
File:AWM E00019 5th Div 1916.jpg|right|thumb|Members of the 5th Division, on "smoko" by the side of the Montauban road, near Mametz, on the Somme, December 1916. |alt=Australian soldiers at the front during World War I. Some are wearing slouch hats, steel helmets, sheepskin jackets and woollen gloves, demonstrating both the variety of official battledress, and how it was modified and augmented, for local conditions.
Following the battle, the division remained in the line around Armentieres for several months. As a result of its losses the 5th Division's effectiveness was greatly reduced and it was not considered "fit for offensive action for many months". Despite this, according to historian Jeffrey Grey, Haking is reputed to have felt that "the attack did the division a great deal of good".
Hindenburg Line, 1917
After reinforcements had arrived, the division began trench raids again in the summer of 1916. In October, it deployed to the front again around Flers, leading the rest of the Australian divisions to that sector. The division remained on the Somme during the winter. In December 1916, Major General Talbot Hobbs assumed command of the 5th Division, replacing McCay who took over a depot command in England. In the early part of 1917, the division took part in the operations on the Ancre, before the Germans sought to reduce the length of their line, withdrawing to prepared positions along the Hindenburg Line. Beginning on 24 February 1917, having endured a bitter winter on the Somme, the division joined the pursuit, skirmishing with the German screen covering the withdrawal. On 17 March 1917, the 30th Battalion attacked towards Bapaume, the objective of the previous year's Somme offensive, and found the town abandoned, a smoking ruin. The 15th Brigade, being employed as an advanced guard, pushed south of Bapaume until, having lost touch with the British Fourth Army units on its flank, was ordered to halt. By 24 March 1917 the headlong advance had ended and a period of cautious approach to the Hindenburg defences began as the Allies began approaching the German outposts and resistance began to grow. On 2 April 1917, the 14th Brigade, which had taken over the advance from the 15th, captured the villages of Doignies and Louverval, suffering 484 casualties and taking 12 prisoners in the process, before the 5th Division was relieved by the Australian 1st Division on 6 April.When General Edmund Allenby's British Third Army launched the Battle of Arras on 9 April 1917, the Australian divisions—part of General Hubert Gough's British Fifth Army since the Somme fighting—were called on to participate in an attempt to break the German flank on the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt. The 5th Division at this time was part of I Anzac under Lieutenant General William Birdwood. It avoided the first of the fighting but was thrown into the closing stages of the Second Battle of Bullecourt, having taken over from the 1st Division. The division arrived on 8 May 1917, and was tasked with holding the line to the east of Bullecourt and to consolidate the initial gains. On 12 May, the division helped advance the line on the flank of the British VII Corps, after which a strong German counterattack was repulsed on 15 May. After the Bullecourt fighting subsided, the 5th Division was relieved by the British 20th Division, and was withdrawn from the line around 25 May and placed in corps reserve, in order so that it could rest and carry out further training. During this time, the division moved between Bancourt, Rubempre and finally to Blaringhem.