SAPPER ARCHIE YOUNG
330 – 1st Tunnelling Company
Born in Derry, Ireland, Archie Joseph Young completed the ‘Attestation Paper of Persons Enlisted for Service Abroad’ on 2 November 1915. Aged 21 years and 3 months, Archie was a single Labourer working in Toowoomba, Queensland at the time and a medical examination found him to be ‘fit for active service’. He also signed the Oath to ‘well and truly serve our Sovereign Lord the King’ on 2 November 1915.
Archie was 5ft 9½ins tall and weighed 154 lbs. He had a dark complexion, grey eyes and brown hair and was of the Roman Catholic faith. He named as his Next-of-Kin his father John Young of 39 Marsh Road, Middlesborough, England.
He was appointed to No.1 Company of the newly formed Australian Mining Corps, then training at their Casula Camp, near Liverpool, New South Wales.
Archie embarked for the European theatre on board the Ulysses.
At a civic parade in the Domain, Sydney on Saturday February 19, 1916, a large crowd of relations and friends of the departing Miners lined the four sides of the parade ground. Sixty police and 100 Garrison Military Police were on hand to keep the crowds within bounds. The scene was an inspiriting one. On the extreme right flank, facing the saluting base, were companies of the Rifle Club School; next came a detachment of the 4th King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, then the bands of the Light Horse, Liverpool Depot, and the Miners’ on the left, rank upon rank, the Miners’ Battalion.
Following the farewell parade in the Domain, Sydney, the Australian Mining Corps embarked from Sydney, New South Wales on 20 February 1916 on board HMAT A38 Ulysses.
The Mining Corps comprised 1303 members at the time they embarked with a Headquarters of 40; No.1 Company – 390; No.2 Company – 380; No.3 Company – 392, and 101 members of the 1st Reinforcements.
Ulysses arrived in Melbourne, Victoria on 22 February and the Miners were camped at Broadmeadows while additional stores and equipment were loaded onto Ulysses. Another parade was held at the Broadmeadows camp on March 1, the Miners’ Corps being inspected by the Governor-General, as Commander-in-Chief of the Commonwealth military forces.
Departing Melbourne on 1 March, Ulysses sailed to Fremantle, Western Australia where a further 53 members of the Corps were embarked. The ship hit a reef when leaving Fremantle harbour, stripping the plates for 40 feet and, although there was a gap in the outside plate, the inner bilge plates were not punctured. The men on board nicknamed her ‘Useless’. The Miners were off-loaded and sent to the Blackboy Hill Camp where further training was conducted. After a delay of about a month due to Ulysses requiring repairs following a collision with an uncharted rock when leaving Fremantle on 8 March, The Mining Corps sailed for the European Theatre on 1 April 1916. The men on board nicknamed her ‘Useless’.
The ship arrived at Suez, Egypt on 22 April, departing for Port Said the next day; then on to Alexandria. The Captain of the ship was reluctant to take Ulysses out of the Suez Canal because he felt the weight of the ship made it impossible to manoeuvre in the situation of a submarine attack. The Mining Corps was transhipped to B1 Ansonia for the final legs to Marseilles, France via Valetta, Malta. Arriving at Marseilles on 5 May, most of the men entrained for Hazebrouck where they arrived to set up their first camp on 8 May 1916.
A ‘Mining Corps’ did not fit in the British Expeditionary Force, and the Corps was disbanded and three Australian Tunnelling Companies were formed. The Technical Staff of the Corps Headquarters, plus some technically qualified men from the individual companies, was formed into the entirely new Australian Electrical and Mechanical Mining and Boring Company (AEMMBC), better known as the ‘Alphabetical Company’.
Archies’ No.1 Company was redesignated 1st Australian Tunnelling Company (1ATC), which, after a period of training with two of the Canadian Tunnelling Companies, assumed responsibility for the Hill 60 & Caterpillar Mining Systems. The actual mines at Hill 60 and Caterpillar had been excavated by British and Canadian Companies and charged with explosives by the 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Company. The task of the Australians was to maintain the integrity of the two mines until they were required.
1ATC expanded the dugouts and galleries in the mine system until the mines were exploded on 7 June 1917 to begin the battle of Messines Ridge.
On 6 August 1917, Archie was found guilty of being absent without leave, whilst on active service, from 2pm 29 July until apprehended by a Military Police Patrol at 8.35am on 30 July 1917. He was awarded 14 days Field Punishment No.2 by Major James Douglas Henry, Officer Commanding the 1st Aust. Tunnelling Company.
He was wounded in action on 1 October 1917 and died of his wounds the same day at the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance.
He was buried in Plot 7, Row B, Grave 7 of The Huts Military Cemetery, Dickebusch, Belgium, 3 miles South West of Ypres, 1 of 6 Australian Tunnellers resting in that cemetery.
On 1 October 1917, 8 Sappers of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company died. 6 were killed in action and it is known that at least 5 were members of a ration party hit by shell fire and have no known grave.
To date, no record has been located that could confirm whether Archie was a member of that Ration Party.
The address for his Next-of-Kin, John Young, was changed on 7 November 1917 to 70 Farrer Street, Middlesborough, England.
His father received a package from the Australian Imperial Force Kit Store on 10 January 1918 which it is believed was the personal effects of Charles. A question of the whereabouts of a silver watch, given to Charles by his father, was not resolved.
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW) - Saturday 15 February 1919
On 20 May 1919 the certificate of report of death the late No.330 Sapper Archie Young, 1st Tunnelling Company, was forwarded to the Public Trustee in Sydney.
Archies’ British War Medal and Victory Medal were issued to his father as Next-of-Kin.
The pamphlet “Where The Australians Rest”, Memorial Plaque and the King’s Memorial Scroll were also issued to Archies’ father in 1922.
Information from John Cantwell:
“Londonderry and Derry are the same...the former is the loyalist term and the latter the nationalist (Irish) term.
I named my first son Archie in 1992 after his memory .. we only knew him to be Spr Archie Young. Imagine our surprise when his papers revealed he had a middle name..Joseph..unknown to all the name we had chosen ourselves some 8 years before we received his papers!”
© Donna Baldey 2011
www.tunnellers.net
with the assistance of John Cantwell