This article was submitted by John Barry on behalf of the Benalla Cemetery Trust.

As November 11 approaches, it brings with it the 108th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended the Great War.

So it is appropriate to visit one of the memorials in Benalla cemetery to a soldier killed in the Great War.

These are memorials to soldiers, not their graves.

Only one soldier killed in the Great War has a grave in Australia. He is Major General William Bridges, killed by a sniper’s bullet at Gallipoli in May 1915.

His body was returned to Australia for burial in the grounds of Duntroon Military College in Canberra.

One of the many who were not buried in Australia was Alfred Anders, a butcher in Benalla and Echuca.

Alfred’s wife, Agnes Helena, died in February 1915 aged 26, most probably of tuberculosis. She was buried in Benalla Cemetery.

Then, just six days later, Alfred enlisted. Before he did, he entrusted his one-year-old daughter, Alvie Alice, to the care of his mother in Echuca.

He was sent to Broadmeadows Army Camp and posted to the 23rd Battalion.

In May 1915, his battalion embarked for Egypt where they spent the next three months in further training and hardening.

At the beginning of September, Alfred and his battalion landed at Gallipoli to provide replacements for the heavy casualties that had been suffered in the landing and in the ill-considered August Offensive.

Alfred would have spent an intense three months there. Until his battalion was evacuated towards the end of December 1915 as the last troops to be taken off Gallipoli, it spent its time just metres from the Turkish trenches, mining and counter-mining the Ottoman lines.

After this, the battalion was off to the Western Front. However, while awaiting shipping in Egypt, Alfred was transferred to 6th Machine Gun Company.

Ominously, these companies were known as ‘suicide squads’ because of their very high casualty rates.

They posed a disproportionate danger to attacking German units.

As a consequence, machine gun companies were always targeted first by German artillery, machine guns and trench mortars.

Despite this, Alfred’s unit supplied supporting fire to Australian units in the two Bullecourt battles and the Menin Rd Ridge Battle.

On September 20, 1917, in a single day, Alfred’s unit fired 100,000 bullets supporting Australian attacks, before being relieved.

That day, Alfred received a piece of shrapnel in his shoulder. He returned to his unit six months later after treatment.

He and his company stood on the defensive until after the last great German offensive in August 1918.

He defended Amiens and helped break the offensive. Next, the Australians counter-attacked and won Mont St Quentin with the support of Alfred’s unit.

However, while defending the town, Alfred was wounded in the abdomen. He died in great pain the next day and was initially buried near Albert, in France.

He was 28, and the second Anders son to be killed. In 1923, Alfred’s remains were exhumed and reburied in Heath Military Cemetery in Harbonnieres, France.

Alfred’s will stated that $60 was to be devoted to the erection of a headstone for his wife.

His executrix took the opportunity of adding a memorial to her brother to the gravestone as well.

Alfred’s daughter continued to live with her grandmother in Echuca. Alvie Anders married Ernest Claude Condick there in 1945. She was 31.

– John Barry

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Thursday, 16th December 2027

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