Local Heroes WW1

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Last Updated: Tuesday, 12 May 2015 10:42

Written by Major (retired) Paul A Rosenzweig MA JP

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(L-Corp) Colin Bayly

South Australian-born Colin Bayly from the South Esplanade, Semaphore was in Liverpool, England on the outbreak of war and joined the 10th (Scottish) Battalion of The King’s (Liverpool Regiment). On  the day of Britain's declaration of war against the Central Powers, 4 August 1914, the 1st/10th (Scottish) Battalion mobilised and deployed to Scotland to man the defences on the River Forth.

They then embarked at Southampton on 1 November 1914 aboard the SS Maidan, bound for Europe. Bayly was killed instantly by a high explosive shell at St Eloi in Flanders on 16 April 1915, aged 28. He was buried in a regimental burial ground established by the Liverpool Scottish, which is today Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3 War Cemetery at Ieper (‘Ypres’) in West-Vlaanderen (West Flanders), Belgium.

Commemorating the service and sacrifice of Colin Bayly at the South Australia National War Memorial in Adelaide on Remembrance Day 2014.

3216 Lance-Corporal Colin Bayly (1886-1915)

Colin Bayly was born on 24 August 1886, the eighth child of William Henry Fox Bayly of South  Esplanade, Semaphore in South Australia, a civil servant with the Customs Service. William had married Delia Ann Brock (1847-1893) from Queenstown on 5 August 1871: Colin was William and Annie’s eighth and last child. Three years later William Bayly was made First Assistant Landing Surveyor with the Department of Trade and Customs.

Annie died on 2 October 1893, leaving William to raise six sons and a daughter by himself (their first child had died in infancy), with no grandparents to assist. Fortunately the elder boys were in their late teens, but Brian was aged 9 and Colin was 7.

The Bayly brothers attended the School of Mines and Industries: the local newspaper recorded results in 1904 for Brian in Assaying, Machine Drawing, Mechanical Engineering and Surveying, in the same batch as Felix Giles and many other notable South Australians who were the first to enlist in the AIF a decade later. Colin Bayly was there as well, studying Electrical Engineering at the Gawler School of Mines. By this time their father was Sub-Collector of Customs for South Australia.

Colin Bayly left Adelaide in 1912 ‘to take up engineering in the old country’. It is highly likely that by 1914 he was already a volunteer in the Territorial Force. He joined the 10th (Scottish) Battalion of The King’s (Liverpool Regiment) in Liverpool. Upon the outbreak of war, on 4 August 1914 the 1st/10th (Scottish) Battalion mobilised and deployed to Scotland under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel William Nicholl, to man the defences on the River Forth.

The 1st/10th (Scottish) was the seventh Territorial battalion to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The battalion embarked at Southampton aboard the SS Maidan on 1 November 1914, and isembarked at Le Havre two days later. These original members, who qualified for the 1914 Star, proudly knew each other as ‘Maidaners’. It has been estimated that more than 10,000 men served with the battalion, of whom some 10% died during the Great War – among them, Colin Bayly from South Australia as The Adelaide Chronicle reported:

3216 Lance Corporal Colin BAYLY, a 27 year old Soldier from South Esplanade, Semaphore, South Australia. He mobilised as a Liverpool Scottish Territorial in the BEF on 4 August 1914 and was allotted to the 1st/10th Battalion The King's (Liverpool Regiment) which embarked from Southampton, England, on board SS Maidan on 1 November 1914. BAYLY was Killed in Action, 16 April 1915, at Voormezeele, Belgium.

The Adelaide Chronicle 8 May 1915, p. 38

Colin Bayly in the wartime uniform of the 10th (Scottish) Battalion, The King’s (Liverpool Regiment): he wears the khaki service dress, and glengarry with diced band and the regimental badge worn on the left.  

The glengarry/bonnet badge features the White Horse of Hanover backed by a St Andrew’s Cross, the heraldic symbol of Scotland.  Officers and senior NCOs wore this badge in sterling silver, soldiers wore it in white metal.

Ypres

On 27 November the Liverpool Scottish entered the Line at Kemmel Hill, about six miles south-west of Ypres and settled into a pattern of trench warfare that was to persist for most of the next four years. The battalion entered the front line with 26 Officers and 829 Other Ranks – by the end of January 1915, following terrible winter weather, the battalion’s total strength had fallen to 370 able-bodied men. Actual battle losses accounted for just 32 men, the remainder were mostly victims of trench-foot.

The Liverpool Scottish next occupied the Line at various parts of the Ypres Salient including Hill 60 and St Eloi, about 4 km south-west of Ypres. During the big Allied offensive against the German fortifications along the Western Front in December, Colin Bayly was wounded-in-action. His initiative and ability was rewarded with a promotion which he announced to his father in what was to be his last letter home:

" I have been given a stripe, and am now Lance-corporal Colin Bayly". 

The Advertiser (Adelaide) 25 May 1925, p. 14

A restless Bayly could not sit around in an English hospital so, as soon as he was able, he took himself back to his battalion as his newspaper obituary later recorded:

" the young South Australian was most anxious to return to the front, and early in March he had his reward. He saw much desperate service up to the day of the engagement which caused his death".

 The Register 5 May 1915, p. 7

While he was on the train rumbling its way to Southampton on 8 March 1915, Bayly wrote a letter to his father which was subsequently released to the press:

" We came down to Tunbridge Wells last week, and this morning I am off to the front again in a draft of 120 men . . . “They have arranged to send out my commission in the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry when the War Office gazettes it, but I couldn’t stand being in England waiting about; hence my departure for the front once more".

 The Register 5 May 1915, p. 7

Second Ypres

Bayly rejoined the 10th (Scottish) in Flanders on 8 March 1915. He was killed on 16 April during the Second Battle of Ypres and is buried in Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3 in Belgium.

The battalion’s war diary records its disposition in trenches near an abandoned village at St Eloi in early April: Bayly was serving with the Machine-Gun Section sharing Q2 trench with ‘C’ Company, while ‘A’ Company was in Q3. To their front, the 1st/5th Northumberland Fusiliers held Q1 and an advanced trench running. Although St Eloi was noted as being “on the whole a quiet sector”, Q2 trench suffered afternoon shelling with ‘whizzbangs’ and 5.9-inch Feldhaubitze howitzer shells.

Near midnight on 14 April, the enemy directed rifle and artillery fire at Q1 and the advanced trench, apparently as a prelude to an attack. An immediate SOS call brought in accurate battery fire on the enemy’s trenches and the enemy were unable to make good their attack. The enemy then shelled the Liverpool Scottish trenches throughout the day on 15 and 16 April, ‘sometimes with crumps, sometimes with whizz bangs’.

Just before 1700 on 16 April, the German 5.9-inch ‘crump’ gun was again shelling in front of the Liverpool Scottish trenches, when suddenly one high explosive shell fell directly into the left-hand end of Q2. Captain Bryden McKinnell of the Liverpool Scottish made a diary entry later that day: the enemy “without any warning put its next shell right behind the machine-gun dugout on the left. The dugout vanished and killed two men sitting inside it”.

Instantly killed were Lance-Corporal Colin Bayly and Private George Veitch in the machine-gun dugout. The various reports confirmed that Second Lieutenant Leitch from Mossley Hill in Liverpool was indeed wounded in the same incident, as also was 1667 Lance-Corporal A R Fraser of the Machine-Gun Section. Leitch had been commissioned from the ranks on 17 November 1914, and had only just rejoined the battalion as their new Machine-Gun Officer. This was the last of the shelling for the rest of the month.

Honours

Colin Bayly’s death was announced to the South Australian public in The Advertiser of 5 May 1915 under the title ‘The Roll of Honour, Faithful unto Death’.

MR COLIN BAYLY KILLED

An old St. Peters Boy

News has been received by cable that Mr Colin Bayly, an old St. Peter’s College Boy, and youngest son of Mr. W. H. F. Bayly, of the Semaphore, was killed in action in Flanders on April 16. He joined the 10th Scottish Battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment on the outbreak of the war, and proceeded to the front early in November as a private. After serving in the trenches he was invalided home in December . . .

The Advertiser 5 May 1915, p. 8

The press report of Colin’s death in Belgium was published in South Australia on the same page as headlines which read “Our Soldiers. The Dardanelles Attacks” and “Landing Under Fire. Australians’ Grim Work”.

It was not until 1984 that a brief profile of Colin Bayly was published, in the Australian Army newspaper.

Commemoration Overseas

Being the only three deaths in the battalion at that time, Bayly, Veitch and Leitch were buried side-by-side in a regimental burial ground established by the Liverpool Scottish immediately behind the British lines at St Eloi, 3 miles (4 kilometres) south-west of Ypres. In the modern Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3 War Cemetery, their graves are located in plots VI-C-1 (Bayly), VI-B-2 (Veitch) and VI-A-3 (Leitch). Colin’s elder brother Brian was severely wounded in France in 1916, and was awarded the Military Cross at Ypres in early 1917, but was killed-in-action on 30 October 1917, aged 32.

Lance-Corporal Colin Bayly’s headstone in  Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3 in Belgium. Image courtesy of Christopher Arseneault, Superintendent of the Flanders Field AmericanCemetery and Memorial in Belgium (American Battle Monuments Commission).

Lance-Corporal Colin Bayly, Private George Veitch and Second Lieutenant Vyvian Leitch of the Liverpool Scottish Machine-Gun Section were buried side-by-side in a regimental burial ground used by the Liverpool Scottish south-west of Ypres, which is today known as Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3.

Lance-Corporal Colin Bayly’s entry in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Record of War Dead, Index No. B-III, Voormezeele Enclosure No.3, page 11.

National Commemoration

The names of both Colin and Brian Bayly, who died while serving as members of an allied force, are included on the Commemorative Roll (in a book located in the Commemorative Area) at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

State Commemoration

Colin Bayly’s name is commemorated on the large honour rolls lining the walls of the crypt inside the South Australia National War Memorial on North Terrace, which was unveiled by the State Governor on Anzac Day 1931. Inside the crypt, bronze panels contain the names of the 5,511 South Australians who fell in the war – Colin Bayly is listed under his regiment, one of the 39 South Australians killed-in-action while serving with British forces. Unusually though, Brian Bayly has not been listed. William Bayly did not live to see Colin’s name on this memorial however: he died in Semaphore on 3 September 1925 at the age of 83. The names of his two soldier sons were included on William Bayly’s headstone in Cheltenham Cemetery as a lasting tribute, but not a permanent one  in a redevelopment in 1993 the Bayly family plot was resumed and the headstones removed and, being unclaimed, were eventually destroyed.

Colin Bayly’s name is listed on the South Australia National War Memorial in Adelaide.

Commemorating the service and sacrifice of Colin Bayly in Adelaide on Remembrance Day 2014.

Local Commemoration

The Semaphore War Memorial on the Esplanade was dedicated in 1925 to honour those who fought in the war. A temporary ‘Memorial Arch’ of wood and iron was first erected at the entrance to the Semaphore Jetty bearing the banner title, ‘For King & Empire’. On 27 April 1924, four foundation stones for the new memorial were laid at the approach to the jetty – one on behalf of the citizens of Port Adelaide district, one for the RSSILA, one on behalf of the parents of the fallen men, and one on behalf of the widows and orphans. William Bayly and his only daughter Nora were most likely among the several thousand people who attended the unveiling of the monument on 24 May 1925.  

The following year, a granite obelisk was erected on the foundation stones, with an electric ‘turret type’ clock and topped by a marble Angel of Peace with wings outspread. The local newspaper noted, “all the names of those who enlisted from the district or who made the supreme sacrifice cannot be placed on the monument” so it instead bears a simple commemorative plaque.

Bayly qualified for the 1914 Star, as a member of the BEF who served in France or Belgium between the commencement of hostilities on 5 August 1914 and midnight of 22/23 November 1914 (the end of the First Battle of Ypres). In Adelaide, William Bayly received his son’s British War Medal and Victory Medal, plus also the Memorial Plaque with the accompanying Commemorative Scroll and King’s Message. Colin Bayly may also have been entitled to receive the Territorial Force War Medal 1914-1918.

This is the Commemorative Scroll which was issued to William Bayly in about 1922 in commemoration of his son Lance-Corporal Colin Bayly of the 10th (Scottish) Battalion, The King’s (Liverpool Regiment) who was killed-in-action at St Eloi southeast of Ypres in Belgium on 16 April 1915.

This is the King’s Message which accompanied the Commemorative Scroll, bearing the facsimile signature of King George V.

St Peter’s College

As Old Scholars, both Colin and Brian Bayly have their names inscribed in gold lettering on the Honour Roll in the War Memorial Hall which commemorates the 1,800 students and masters who volunteered for service during World War 1. This hall was opened on 22 September 1929 by the State Governor Sir Alexander Hore-Ruthven VC KCMG CB DSO* (subsequently Governor General of Australia, 1936-45).

Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL

For the 2015 commemoration of the Anzac Centenary, the Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL has created a virtual Honour Board listing the names of over 2,000 local men who volunteered to serve in World War 1. Ironically, if Colin Bayly had been in Australia in 1914 he most likely would have served in another ‘tenth battalion’ – in ‘D’ Company of the 10th Battalion AIF under Major Mervyn James Herbert.

Port Adelaide volunteers almost completely made up ‘Don’ Company. Wounded at Gallipoli and evacuated, Herbert later told a reporter about the Gallipoli landing: “The Port Adelaide boys deserve great credit for the part they played” and “The Port Adelaide boys always had a reputation for daring”

Colin Bayly’s Memorial Scroll and King’s Message, the more ephemeral of the Great War commemorative pieces, have managed to survive and perpetuate the name of a South Australian who nobly did his duty:

Let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten

Paul Rosenzweig is a retired Army officer and author of military history and biography. He was born in the Le Fevre Community Hospital in Semaphore. Through his Facebook page “Thanks Digger” Paul is helping families research an ancestor who is a military veteran and to promoting remembrance in young Australians. More information and images on these veterans is available through ‘Thanks Digger’: https://www.facebook.com/Thanks.Digger