Posted on 03/09/2007 2:20:31 PM PST by naturalman1975
AS shells exploded around him and flares pierced the night sky, Lieutenant Cliff Sadlier and his platoon found themselves pinned down by the murderous machinegun fire of tracer bullets coming from a wooded area to the left. Sadlier's path to his objective was blocked. The words of his commanding officer rang in his ears: "Nothing will stop you getting to your goal. Kill every bloody German you see. We don't want any prisoners, and God bless you." Sadlier's second-in-command, Sergeant Charlie Stokes, crept up to Sadlier on his stomach. "What are we going to do?" he asked.
"Carry out the order. Go straight to the objective," Sadlier said.
"We can't do it," Stokes replied. "You'll all be killed."
"Well, what can we do?"
"Collect your bombers and go into the wood and bomb those guns out," Stokes said.
And so they did. In what official World War I historian C.W. Bean described as "an extraordinarily bold move", Sadlier ordered his men to rush the woods, which hid crack Prussian troops manning six machinegun emplacements.
"The Germans were not expecting it," Bean wrote. "Before they recovered from their surprise the Australians were in among the trees, fighting wildly in the dark, advancing around bushes and trees, stumbling on unsuspected posts. Sadlier and Stokes, who had secured a bag of bombs grenades, were leaders. To suppress the first German machinegun they fired rifle grenades over the trees and when the gun stopped firing they rushed it."
Two machinegun posts were taken out before Sadlier was shot in the thigh. He later recalled: "Felt a burning pain in the leg, a machinegun bullet point-blank through it.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Above the boards in the classrooms of the local school is a legend for the children to see.
N'oubliez pas les Australiennes
In English
Never Forget the Australians
Heroes, of whatever nationality, should never be forgotten.
Aussies helping to keep the world a fre place ping!
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