Born: 11 November 1897
Died: 21 April 1983
Fergus Diack Robertson served as a sapper with the Australian Mining Corps.
The following description of his experiences of the start of the Battle of the Somme was contained in a letter to his father. At the time, his unit was attached to the Royal Engineers.
"Since I last wrote I have done practically nothing but sleep and work. Besides the usual shift, I was one of ten volunteers to go down the line on Thursday night to do a bit of work, and consider it a miracle that I am here to tell the tale. It was hell on earth for six hours. We did our job, and then the artillery opened out. The spectacle was magnificent, like bush fires on each side, from the flash of the guns and aflre (sic) lights; but when dawn broke it was grim and awful. The lads went over the top into that hail of lead with the bayonet.
“If they left it to the bayonet, things would go badly for Fritz; but the artillery sweeps everything before it, and makes man cower helplessly, just trusting in Providence to bring him through. On that night of June 29th, when men were dropping all around me my old steel helmet saved me many a time from shrapnel, and luck saved me at others from high explosives, the concussion from which has killed many a man. Yet I had them bursting beside me, and only got shaken. I led a charmed life. On more than one occasion 'duds' (that is shells which fail to explode) landed at my feet, had they been anything but 'duds' I would have been in little pieces now. Hearing these things whistle by, I said more than once, 'This one's got me;' but no, I picked myself up, and wondered if I were really whole. Not only shells were flying, but sand bags, timber, pieces of rifles, trench mortars, machine guns, and even barbed wire swept in over the parapet from 'No Man's Land.' One of our party of 10 got hit: the rest of us returned, suffering only from a shaking and from bruises and shell shock rather badly.
“The last we saw of the scene was a road lined with Red Cross waggons (sic), and more coming up. I'm bruised, and sore with spent shrapnel and falling sand bags, etc., that's all; and I thank God for watching over me. When I got home I had a dose of rum and a feed – the first for 30 hours – and now feel as fit as ever, and ready for the next scrap. I go into the trenches again to-morrow night. I have just heard that our artillery put 300,000 shells over during that five hours, within a half-mile front, and the enemy put over as many, so you can guess what things were like.”
(Source: The Sydney Stock and Station Journal, 20 October 1916, p14)
His 21st birthday was on Armistice Day.
Fergus Diack Robertson enlisted for World War 2. He understated his age by 8 years at the time of enlistment. He was a Warrant Officer Class 1 with the 2/1 Pioneer Battalion at the time of his discharge. [JSB]
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