Walter Jamieson - Link to Camelon
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- 2 days ago
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21235 Bombardier, 110th Field Artillery (Howitzer) Battery, 10th Field Artillery Brigade, 4th Australian Divisional Artillery
Age: 29
Date of death: 22.10.17
Buried: Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery Grave XXV.J.17
Family history: Son of Alexander and Mary Jamieson, 192 Main Street, Camelon, Falkirk. Walter had three sisters Margaret, Mary, and Marion who lived in Camelon. Walter was a Pattern Maker at Sunnyside Iron Works before he emigrated to Australia. He was employed by Granite Saw & Planing Mills, North Queensland when he enlisted in Cairns, North Queensland on 25 November 1915 joining the 36th Battery, 9th Field Artillery Brigade as a gunner and was then promoted to Bombardier from 18 August 1916. He sailed from Sydney on 11 May 1916 and landed in Plymouth on 10 July 1916 and then proceeded to France on 31 December were he joined the 23rd Field Artillery Brigade on 6 January 1917. He was transferred to the 12th Field Artillery Brigade from 4 February and then joined the 10th Brigade on 10 March 1917.
Action leading to his death
The 110th FA (Howitzer) comprised 4.5 inch guns and were supporting the attack of the Australians at Abraham Heights and around Tyne Cot towards Passchendaele Ridge. Their gun positions were around Zonnebeke. Individual artillery batteries did not keep a War Diary however, the 10th Brigade War Diary for the 21 October records that the Brigade artillery was engaged in shelling the German lines in harassing fire. The German artillery was also active in shelling the Australian wagon lines and in counter battery fire recording that ‘several O/R wounded’. Walter was wounded in action on 21 October receiving a shrapnel wound to the chest, right shoulder, fractured right humerus, and fractured mandible. He died of his wounds at the 2nd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station at Lijssenthoek and buried in the nearby cemetery on 22 October. His parents, as next of kin, were notified of his death. Walter’s employer also wrote to the Australian Military at the Base Depot in Victoria on 30 November 1917 requesting information about Walter as they had learnt from a private source that he had been killed.
Artillery largely defined the landscape and shaped the physical environment of the Western Front. Gunners take delight in pointing out that the ‘weapon’ in the artillery equation is the projectile or shell; the gun itself is ‘just’ a means of delivery. The target defines the ammunition type or 'nature' requirement. A howitzer fires at both a conventional and a ‘high angle’ trajectory (i.e. above 45 degrees), which is its most important attribute. Maximum range is still at or about 45 degrees but shorter range is achieved by elevating the barrel higher. This means it effectively ‘drops’ its shell onto the target. With a heavier weight of shell and delay-action fusing, so the shell bursts under the surface of the ground, they were much more effective at reducing defences such as trenches, pillboxes and bunkers. They can also fire from behind cover which also helps to mask firing signature from enemy observation, and affords a degree of protection from enemy Forward Observers and fire. The 4.5-inch howitzer was used on most fronts during the First World War. On the Western Front, its normal scale was one battery to every three batteries of 18-pounder field guns. Initially, 4.5-inch howitzers equipped a howitzer brigade of the Royal Field Artillery (RFA) in each infantry division. In the original British Expeditionary Force in 1914, this brigade had three batteries each with six howitzers. Subsequent batteries had only four howitzers. In 1916, all batteries on the Western Front began to be increased to six howitzers and, later that year, the howitzer brigades were disbanded and a howitzer battery added to each RFA field brigade as the fourth battery.
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