George Arthur Davies

  General Notes:

Originally he was a miner but commenced a printing business in 1919. This business became known as G.A. Davies Pty Ltd and operated at King Street Syndey, then Sussex St Sydney and later at Marrickville
Was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal for "conspicious gallantry and devotion to duty near Polygon Wood, France 26/28 September, 1917. George Arthur Davies was in the 14th Field Ambulance Corps.
Married by Rev RJ Williams at Arncliffe Methodist Church
Lived at "Thurella" 24 Gipps St Arncliffe for most of married life

source: & Ken Shiels [shiel_genealogy@austarnet.com.au] who notes:
Notes for GEORGE ARTHUR DAVIES:
George was also the Church organist.

Name: George Arthur DAVIES
Regimental number: 172
Religion: Methodist
Occupation: Printer
Address: 369 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital status: Single
Age at embarkation: 20
Next of kin: Joseph Davies, Mt Keira, Wollongong, New South Wales
Previous military service: 7th Australian Army Medical Corps
Enlistment date: 24 August 1914
Rank on enlistment: Corporal
Unit name: 1st Field Ambulance, C Squadron
AWM Embarkation Roll number: 26/44/1
Embarkation details: Unit embarked Sydney, on board Transport A14 Euripides on 20 October 1914
Rank from Nominal Roll: Sergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll: 14th Field Ambulance
Recommendations (Medals and Awards):

Distinguished Conduct Medal
Recommendation date: 3 October 1917

Distinguished Conduct Medal
Recommendation date: 14 October 1917
Fate: Returned to Australia 8 October 1918

Medals: Distinguished Conduct Medal
'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Hearing that a man was lying out in the open wounded, he led some men through a very heavy barrage and carried him into safety. When a truck of ammunition which was part of a light train was set on fire by an enemy shell he rushed to the spot with two men and uncoupled it, in spite of exploding ammunition, and after about fifteen minutes work succeeded in isolating the burning truck from the remainder. It was largely owing to his courage and determination that many lives and a quantity of ammunition were saved.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 110, Date: 25 July 1918

More About GEORGE ARTHUR DAVIES:
Burial: Woronora Crematorium, 121 Linden St., Sutherland, New South Wales
Cause of Death: Pulmonary oedema, Congestive cardiac failure
Cemetery Plot Number: 70
Cemetery Row: HH
Cemetery Section: RS4
Medical Information: Ischaemic heart disease, Diabetes mellitus, Emphysema of lungs, Gangrene left foot
Occupation 1: Miner
Occupation 2: Abt. 1919, Printer and Compositor (Director of G A Davies Pty Ltd)
Residence: "Thurella" 24 Gipps St., Arncliffe, New South Wales

  Research Notes:

Neol Davies notes:
I recently got hold of some detailed files on the 14th Field Ambulance that were part of the Crowther Collection in the library in Hobart. Crowther was briefly Farv's CO, including in Sept 1917 for the action at Polygon Wood for which he received the DCM.

There are 2 casualty lists for the Ambulance - one for the Polygon Wood action, and one for the October Ypres action where Farv was gassed. The remaining 15 pages are Crowther's recollection of the Polygon Wood action, possibly written some time in the 1920's. One or two pages are out of focus and not legible so I may need to get these again (the files are just mobile phone photos of the pages). Other than in the casualty list there is no specific mention of Farv, but the pages give a very good idea of what life was like and how the Ambulance worked.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Occupation: Printer - Compositor. He may have been a coal miner for a very limited period, and if so would have carried on the job except for his older sister Mary. Mary was married to Albert Grace and operated a Christian bookshop called the Grace and Truth Bookshop. She wrote to G.A. and suggested he not be a miner, as was the family, but that in the shop next to their bookshop was a printer who was looking for a boy to learn the trade. She suggested that he come up to Sydney and live with them and learn to be a printer. This he did. After the war he openned up his own printing business in Sydney Arcade (King Street), then at Sussex Street Sydney and later Marrickville. This business was later known as G.A. Davies Pty Ltd.

• fact. Commenced a printing business in 1919. This business became known as G.A. Davies Pty Ltd and operated at King Street Sydney, then Sussex St Sydney and later at Marrickville
Was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal for "conspicious gallantry and devotion to duty near Polygon Wood, France 26/28 September, 1917. George Arthur Davies was in the 14th Field Ambulance Corps.
Married by Rev R J Williams at Arncliffe Methodist Church
Lived at "Thurella" 24 Gipps St Arncliffe for most of married life

• Residence. resided Mt Keira, 369 Elizabeth St and 24 Gipps St Arncliffe

Living at Edgcliffe at time of marriage to Margaret

• Medical. Died of Pulmonary oedema, Congestive cardiac failure
Ischaemic heart disease
Diabetes mellitus
Emphysema of lungs
Gangrene left foot
death certificate number 9010/1976

• Residence. Living at 24 Gipps st in 1920

• Distinguised Conduct Medal Awarded to G A Davies. The following is an extract of the statement made in connection with G A Davies being awarded a much coveted Distinguished Conduct medal. Photos of the action in this part of the war have also been included in G A Davies file in this Family Tree.
Full copies of his Army records etc can be found on the Australian government web-site:
<http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/imagine.asp?B=1899768&1=1>

"His Majesty the King has been pleased to award The Distinguished Conduct medal to the undermentioned non-commissioned officer for distinguished service in the field of: -
No 172 Sergeant G A Davies
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Hearing that a man was lying out in the open wounded, he led some men through a very heavy barrage and carried him into safet. When a truck of ammunition which was part of a light train was set on fire by an enemy shell he rushed to the spot with two men and uncoupled it, in spite of exploding ammunition, and after about fifteen minutes' work succeeded in isolating the truck from the remainder. It was largely owing to his courage that many lives and a quantity of ammunition were saved.

The above has been promulgated in Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. 110, dated 25 July 1918

This incident occurred in Polygon Wood. For more information on this battle please see this website: \\\\ul<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Polygon_Wood>\\\\ulnone

• fact. G. A. Davies memorial is on wall 48 Row G in the New South Wales Garden of Remembrance which is situated adjacent to the Sydney War Cemetery at Rookwood however his ashes are now in positions 68 or 70 in the Rose Garden 4HH at Woronora Cemetery Sutherland, Sydney NSW Australia

• fact. Battle of Poziers (Somme) in France:

April 22, 2006 Sydney Morning Herald Article

The campaign left its scars on the land, the men who fought there and a distant young nation. James Button visits the battlefield.
It was July 23, 1916, and Australian soldiers were in hand-to-hand combat in the ruins of the French village of Pozieres. Against furious resistance they took a vital German dugout they had named Gibraltar, and perhaps it was that afternoon that Private Jack Bourke of Wedderburn, near Bendigo in Victoria, slipped inside.
Outside was an inferno of machine-gun fire, shouts and falling shells. Australians were throwing bombs into holes, bayoneting Germans, taking others prisoner. In the dugout, Bourke found a bedroom.
On shelves by the three beds "were pretty little jam pots with little German men and women painted on their labels", Bourke wrote to his mother. In the corner he found an officer's cap thrown on a heap of cake boxes. The addresses on the boxes, Bourke noticed, were written in a child's hand. Nearby was a coat stained with blood and a shrapnel hole "right between the shoulders, telling a tragic tale".
"The owner of the coat was a German and, some might say, not entitled to much sympathy," Bourke wrote. "Perhaps he was not, but I could not help thinking sadly of the little girl or boy who had sent him the cakes."
We don't know much about Jack Bourke. We know he was 30, a schoolteacher at war for the first time. We know that he survived and returned to Wedderburn, but that his brother Geoff did not. We can assume that after the Somme, Bourke, like the country he came from, was never the same again.
Next to Gallipoli or even Palestine, the name Pozieres has almost no resonance. Lone Pine and Anzac Cove are well known but who has heard of Pozieres Windmill or Mouquet Farm? Pozieres, writes the journalist Peter Charlton in his book of the same name, has "somehow missed its place in the Australian consciousness".
Yet on the eve of Anzac Day and the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, one can argue that Pozieres and places near it have left as great a mark on Australian history as Gallipoli. As the plaque on the high ground at Pozieres Windmill points out, "Australian troops fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefield of the war."
In just six weeks at Pozieres, Australia suffered 23,000 casualties, of which 6000 to 8000 were deaths. By contrast, more than 8700 died in the eight months of the Gallipoli campaign. An Australian Government website says 23,000 Australians died in the 1916 and 1918 campaigns on the Somme, half of all those who died in France.
But death counts only reveal so much. At Pozieres, says the journalist Les Carlyon, whose book on the Western Front will be published this year, Australia was for the first time in its history "in the main force against the main enemy on the main battlefield. The war was never going to be won at Gallipoli or Salonika or Palestine. It was always going to be won in France."
In France Australians were transformed from the fierce but sometimes undisciplined soldiers of 1916 to General John Monash's hardened fighters of 1918 who stopped the enemy advance at Villers-Bretonneux and pursued the Germans back across the Hindenburg Line. Alistair Thomson, an Australian social historian at Sussex University and author of the book Anzac Memories, says "it was on the Western Front that the Australian force eventually proved itself".
They did so in part by capturing Pozieres, after the British had tried and failed three times to do so, then enduring a German artillery barrage said to be among the most ferocious of the war. At Gallipoli the Turks relied on machine-guns and had no heavy guns until the end of the campaign. It was said that the Somme bombardments, on the other hand, could sometimes be heard in England.
Men "trembled like leaves", Bourke wrote of the bombardment. "That day for its awful terror and my escape I shall never forget." One officer, decorated for bravery at Gallipoli, was found cringing in a corner. Other men simply shot themselves, Charlton wrote.
It was in France, too, that tensions and even bitterness between Australian soldiers and the British generals who led them were greatest. The common Australian refusal to salute infuriated the British command, which saw it as evidence of indiscipline.
The Australians, for their part, blamed the war-of-attrition strategy of the British and especially the commander-in-chief, Douglas Haig, for their huge casualty rates. Even their official war correspondent, C.E.W. Bean, wrote that "the prevailing tactics - repeated shallow advances on narrow fronts - were dreaded and detested … It is not surprising if the effect on some intelligent men was a bitter conviction they were being uselessly sacrificed."
Finally, it was the huge number of casualties at Pozieres that led the then prime minister, Billy Hughes, to urge conscription for the Australian Imperial Force. At the same time, the growing awareness in Australia of the death toll, the rising numbers of telegrams and clergymen knocking on doors, fired the anti-conscription campaign.
The two conscription referendums, which were both defeated, inflamed hatred between Protestants and Catholics, destroyed the Labor Government and left lasting divisions in a nation that was just 15 years old. All that, says Carlyon, "goes back to that little village in France".
POZIERES, entirely rebuilt after the war, stands on a gentle hill. It is rolling country, not the dead flat country of World War I myth. The rich, chalky soil - similar to the white cliffs of Dover, not so far away - produces fine crops and makes the River Somme valley one of the most prosperous parts of France.
The earth renews itself, yet it also yields a different harvest. At Mouquet Farm, a few kilometres from Pozieres, farmer Jose Vandendriessche shows the pile of shells, grenades, rifles and pickets for laying barbed wire that his tractors still dig up. As late as the 1960s about 100 men in the area made a living just from combing the ground for soldiers' iron, brass and leather. Even today, the farmer says, the soil turns up human bones.
Vandendriessche, a man in his 60s, says his grandfather was running the farm in 1914 when the Germans came and forced him out. In August 1916, Australian troops tried to capture the devastated land. Advancing over a ridge and silhouetted against the sky, they were easy prey for German machine-guns. They suffered 6300 casualties without taking the place they called Moocow Farm.
Now Australians are coming back. Last week a woman, whose grandfather fought on the Somme, asked Vandendriessche if she and her husband could wander around the farm. It happens often. "It's normal, it's memory," he says. "It is important to remember the atrocities of war." Here, "Australians bayoneted Germans, Germans bayoneted Australians. It was a real butchery."
In the surrounding hills and valleys, among green and brown fields are scores of cemeteries. They are perfectly kept, the white headstones stand at attention, the names are clear. Private J.F. Nugent, "One of Australia's real men, our Jack." Sergeant H. Woodnoth, "Gone and the light of our life gone with him." Many simply say: "An Australian soldier of the Great War."
People walk among the graves. Chris Willoughby, 54, of Mount Gambier in South Australia, remembers her Uncle Ern, whom as a child she always found strange, with his skin diseases and vagueness. She now realises he was a shell shock victim.
Tony Robinson, 58, a farmer from York in Western Australia, tells of his three great-uncles: Charles, killed at Gallipoli; Gordon, killed in France; and Victor, gassed in France and never quite the same. Visiting the Somme has been an "unbelievable experience," he says. "Every politician should be forced to do national service, then they might not be so quick to shove other people into wars."
John Whitehead, a retired 75-year-old farmer from Corryong in Victoria, has just seen the sign "Never forget Australia" in the playground of the Villers-Bretonneux primary school. It brought him to tears. He lost two uncles on the Western Front.
The most curious visitors to the Somme are Drew Laird, 41, and Kevin Sinclair, 49, of Hobart. Dressed in full 1916 Australian uniforms, the militarymen are spending a month tramping the battlefields. Laird, whose Tasmanian 40th Battalion fought at Mouquet Farm, says he cannot grasp what the soldiers endured. He just knows "you could never get a modern army to go through this".
Australian visitors divide into two main groups: students on study tours and older people with relatives who fought on the Somme. Unlike Gallipoli, where nearly 20,000 people attended last year's dawn service, there is no mass tourism. Yet numbers are growing. Last year 3300 Australians visited the Franco-Australian Museum in Villers-Bretonneux, up from 45 in 1992.
Common among these searchers is an effort to understand what it was like. Yet the soldiers were too diverse to be easily characterised, says Thomson. He is wary of efforts to see them as embodying national character. "A lot of the things that were said about Australian soldiers were said about other soldiers. For all soldiers, the single most important memory of the war is mateship."
They showed extraordinary bravery at Pozieres. Two soldiers won Victoria Crosses in the July 23 morning charge, and five in the whole Pozieres battle.
But as British generals never tired of pointing out, Australian units also had an unusually high number of deserters. Some of it was just poor discipline, going AWL to get drunk. But another reason might have been that since Australians had a higher proportion of frontline troops than most forces, they saw more of the hideous side of the war.
The survivors of Pozieres "looked like they had been in hell," wrote Sergeant E.J. Rule. "Almost without exception each man looked drawn and haggard and so dazed that they appeared to be walking in a dream."
THE Australians were relieved in early September, 1916, having gained just a few kilometres at the cost of massive loss of life. For Jack Bourke the strain had grown nearly unbearable, especially after his brother's death. "Why go to war with one another?" he wrote. "With these men we have no quarrel. This struggle may teach us something about history."
Has it? Stuck to the wall of the Villers-Bretonneux museum is a speech the then prime minister, Paul Keating, made when the remains of the Unknown Soldier were returned to Australia in 1993. Keating said that because the war was marked by appalling waste of life, it might be thought the Unknown Soldier died in vain.
But "out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and inexcusable folly", he said. "It was a lesson about ordinary people - and the lesson was that they were not ordinary.
"On all sides they were the heroes of that war; not the generals and the politicians but the soldiers and sailors and nurses - those who taught us to endure hardship, show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together." Australian visitors divide into two main groups: students on study tours and older people with relatives who fought on the Somme. Unlike Gallipoli, where nearly 20,000 people attended last year's dawn service, there is no mass tourism. Yet numbers are growing. Last year 3300 Australians visited the Franco-Australian Museum in Villers-Bretonneux, up from 45 in 1992.Common among these searchers is an effort to understand what it was like. Yet the soldiers were too diverse to be easily characterised, says Thomson. He is wary of efforts to see them as embodying national character. "A lot of the things that were said about Australian soldiers were said about other soldiers. For all soldiers, the single most important memory of the war is mateship."

• Military. Sergeant in 1^st & 14^th Field Ambulance, 1^st AIF, landed Anzac Cove Gallipoli on 25-4-1915, served on Western Front in France/Belgium, gassed at Passchendaele in 1917

• connection. The link between Boompi and Farv is as follows:

* Edward Gearside (1858) married Adelaide Wheeler (1863)
Her father was Jonas Wheeler (1827) who married Rebecca Hoy (1830)
Her father was Timothy Hoy (1785) who married Berthia Edwards (1794)
They also had John Hoy (1817) who married Emma Bean (1827)
Her father was James Bean (1788)
He had Lucy Bean (who died in 1897) who married Phillip Collett (1819)
They had Arthur Collett (1848) who married Rebecca Sutherland (1858)
Her father was John Sutherland (1829) & he also had Elizabeth Sutherland (1863) who married John Nicol (1844)
They had Margaret Nicol (1889) who married G. A. Davies (1894)
He had Colin Davies (1925)
He had me - Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

* Edward Gearside (1858) 's father was Samuel Gearside (1833)
His father was Samuel Gearside (1798) & he also had Sarah Gearside (1830) who married Thomas the Sprigg of Myrtle Parkes (1824)
They had George Parkes (1852)
He had Sarah Parkes (1894) who married William Grace (1892)
His father was Edward Grace (1841) & he also had Albert Grace (1875) who married Mary Davies (1883)
Her father was Joseph Davies (1852) & he also had G. A. Davies (1894)
He had Colin Davies (1925)
He had me - Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

• Military: D.C.M. medal. Maitland Daily Mercury - 6^th March 1918
AWARDED D.C.M
PRIVATE FLACK
The many friends of Pte. A.P.AW. Flack, of East Maitland and of the 14th field Ambulance, will be pleased to know he has been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty In France on one occasion he with the assistance of Sgt. G.A. Davies , went out and uncoupled a truck of an ammunition train which had been set on fire by an enemy shell, and got the rest of the trucks away, although several shells had exploded and wounded a few men. This stopped the fire from extending which meant a lot, as the train was quite close to the dressing station Amongst Pte Flack's many letters of congratulations are the following from Major, now lieut. Col. Crowther : Just a few lines of congratulation on your most well deserved honours, I can assure you that one and all are very proud of the work you have done; and tho honour you have brought the unit. As you probably know, three D.C.M and 14 Military Medals have gone to the bearers, and they have most richly deserved them , We all regret that that one and all cannot wear the M.M. ribbon. I trust you are making a good recovery, With all good wishes and warmest congratulations . Warrant Officer Hutton wrote I am writing straight away to offer you my heartiest congratulations on the splendid honour you so richly deserve and won. May I ask you to accept the little strip , of maroon and blue enclosed to occasionally remind you of one Who pays his highest respect to a brave man You have brought great honour to the old unit, of which I, for one , am still very proud, I hope you are progressing well in the way to recovery, and of course you must remember some day we hope to welcome you back with us again. In the meantime I shall always a grateful recollection of your readiness to perform cheerfully duty that came along in days gone by, and feel personally thankful for It.'
SGT G. A. Davies Wrote congratulating Pte Flack on his winning distinguished honours and said it was only what he had expected, but was very surprised when he saw that he himself was awarded a D.C.M as well as it was far easier to follow another's example than to set the example. However, Pte Flack wrote in glowing terms of Sgt Davies and says he is a splendid chap and fully earned his decoration. He is as brave as is possible for a man to be and a thorough gentleman He did some fine work during the Ypres fighting carried up rations etc to the men on advanced posts through Ftitz's barrage and was severely gassed .
Pte. Flack sailed from Australia early In April, 1916, and has been through some ter rible experiences in France. He was wounded in May, 1917, in the battle at Bullecourt, and was gassed in October during the Ypves fighting. He has been through several hospitals in England, and is now in a convalescent camp and hopes soon to be back in France. He is an only son of Mr. W. F. Flack, of East Maitland.

• known as. Farv to his grandchildren

• Military. Noel Davies has added these comments to the website:
<http://our-anzacs.tumblr.com/post/84371993915/george-arthur-davies>

172 Sgt George Arthur Davies, DCM - 1st & 14th Field Ambulance

Sgt George Arthur Davies (1872) was born in Corrimal, NSW, in 1894. After 2 years in the militia Medical Corps, he enlisted in the AIF August 1914 as a member of the 1st Field Ambulance. He was part of the first deployment of troops, sailing in October 1914 from Hobart on the S.S. Katuna as a Corporal, having been sent there as medical support for the voyage for the Tasmanian Third Brigade. He had a camera for much of the war, and left a detailed record of over 200 photos from Egypt, Lemnos, Gallipoli, and the Western Front in France and Belgium.
He first saw action at Cape Helles in late June 1915, assisting a British medical team, and on August 11th 1915 he landed at Anzac Cove to support the Australian attacks. After the evacuation from Gallipoli and some months encamped on Lemnos, in early 1916 at Tel-el-Kebir in Egypt sections of the 1st and 2nd Field Ambulance were detached to form the experienced core of the 14th Field Ambulance, and he was promoted to Sergeant. With the 14th Field Ambulance he was involved in the Battle of Fromelles in 1916, various Battles of the Somme in 1917 and 1918, and the 3rd Battle of Ypres in 1917.
In September 1917 he was involved in the battle of Polygon Wood near Ypres, and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions. The text of the original handwritten citation reads:
"On 25-9-17 hearing that a man was lying wounded in area of Task Force this NCO with others rushed out through a heavy barrage, rendered first aid and carried the wounded man to their Relay Post. On 20-9-17 at BELLEWARDE RIDGE he worked continuously at great personal risk, being exposed to very heavy shell fire, tending wounded and keeping the squad together. At 5pm on 29th September, at BIRR CROSS ROADS, the end truck of a light train was set on fire by an incendiary shell. Several shells of the load of ammunition exploded, endangering the lives of many men, including wounded. Sgt Davies, with 2 others, rushed over and uncoupled the burning truck. Finding that it could not be moved, they with others who had come up, overturned an empty truck that was obstructing the line, laid down 2 lengths of rails and after working for about 15 minutes succeeded in isolating the rest of the ammunition from the burning truck. This gallant act undoubtedly saved many lives in addition to the valuable goods (ammunition) on the remaining trucks. This NCO's work has been an outstanding feature of the action and he is worthy of special recognition."
Almost immediately after this, on 15th October 1917, he was severely gassed with mustard gas while taking up rations to the Ambulance forward aid posts, and spent some months in hospital and then convalescing in England, not returning to his unit until April 1918. This significantly affected his health for the rest of his life. In October 1918 along with the other relatively few original 1914 men, he was granted leave to return to Australia, and the war ended during the voyage. He married soon after the war and had 3 children, 6 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren born during his lifetime, and, after his death in 1976, 9 great-grandchildren and an increasing number of great-great-grandchildren. The photos below examples of those taken with his camera.

• Birth Certificate. NSW Births 38373/1894

George married Margaret Helen (Nell) Nicol, daughter of John Nicol and Elizabeth Margaret Sutherland, on 19 Jun 1920 in Methodist Church, Arncliffe, Sydney, NSW Australia. (Margaret Helen (Nell) Nicol was born on 16 May 1889 in Appin, Campbelltown, Sydney, NSW Australia, died on 2 Aug 1970 in St George Hospital, Kogarah, Sydney, NSW Australia and was buried on 4 Aug 1970 in was cremated at Woronora Crematorium, Sutherland, NSW Australia Crematorium Area HH, Rose Garden 4, #068.)

  Noted events in their marriage were:

• Marriage. married by Rev R. J. Williams certificate 12347/1920