1676 Private Percy Linwood 52nd Battalion AIF

[simmo1]

Hi

Through the museum - https://www.maryboroughmuseum.org/ , we have had a request to look for medals for the above person. What is missing is his Victory Medal and Memorial Plaque and Scroll. His story is below.


When three weeks short of being 18 years old, 1676 Private Percy Linwood (b 29 Aug 1898) was one of almost 8000 Australians killed in action during the Battle of the Somme. Enlisting on 7 January 1916, he left his widowed mother Hanna, in Bundaberg and joined other young men enlisting to replace the casualties of Gallipoli. Following recruit training in 11 Depot and 13 Training Battalion, he then sailed to Egypt with the 2nd Reinforcements Draft for the 52nd Battalion, 13 Brigade, 4th Division. He was shipped on the Troop Transport Ivernia to arrive in Marseilles on 12 July 1916, only to be killed five weeks later in one of the worst battles ever faced by Australians. At the time, the Western Front comprised a gigantic struggle with the French defending Verdun to the death in the south, and in great need of relief by an Allied counterattack in the north, along the Somme River. A British Commonwealth force including all of the Australians now deployed to France launched an offensive on 1 July 1916, when over 60,000 allied casualties were suffered in a single day. Critical to this offensive was the penetration of the German line near Pozieres known as the Fabeck Graben Line, a very strongly defended trench system in depth with dense layers of wire and numerous machine guns. The Australians were eventually successful in recapturing Pozieres and land to the north and east of it, actually breaking into the German lines.
However, on the night 14/15 August 1916, PTE Linwood’s unit was readying to attack a small rise known as Mouquet Farm, a mile NE of Pozieres. Incredibly heavy bombardments by both sides intermingled, with it being impossible to see and adjust fire, such that the Australians and Germans were both frequently hit by their own guns. This phenomena also turned the entire area into a completely shell-smashed churned up mess where movement was impossible and men went mad under the strain. Records show that the planned attack that night was not able to proceed due to the intense shellfire. PTE Linwood was killed, cause unknown but probably by shrapnel/blast, or long range interdiction machine gun fire which was used along with artillery by both side on each other’s support areas as well as the “front line”. Records show that he was buried temporarily on the battlefield at Map Reference 57D, R28C, 2.3 (vicinity Pozieres). There is no evidence of wounding, simply “KIA”. He remained there until re-interred in 1928 under Commonwealth War Graves Commission arrangements to a formal and permanent grave in Plot 3, Row F, Grave 15, Serre Road Cemetery 2, Beaumont Hamel. Over 5000 unknown war dead from both sides are also interred there.
The Battle of the Somme ended in November 1916 when the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg Line, giving up 10 times the area hard won by the Allies in the preceding fight. For this futile effort The Battle of the Somme cost France 200,000 and Germany, 600,000 casualties. The British Commonwealth suffered 420,000 of which 125,000 were killed, PTE Linwood being one of them -4th Division suffered 4,649 casualties in 12 days during the time it was in the line when he died. His grief stricken mother finally received his medals and the dreaded Memorial Scroll and Kings Letter, also dubbed the Dead Man’s Penny, around the same time that her son was finally laid to rest at Beaumont Hamel. There is no known photograph of this young man, only his headstone.
In 2014, his British War Medal was retrieved from a collector. The Victory Medal, Memorial Scroll (Dead Man’s Penny) and King’s Letter remain unlocated. There were no descendants; records show the widowed mother signed for the medals.
Several brothers also served; they are identified by their NOK, all being Mrs Hannah/”Anna” Linwood of 5 Bargo Street, Bundaberg. She was my great-grandmother.


If anyone can help, please let me or the museum know.
Appreciate any help.

regards

Robert

[Lesley Robertson]

It's maybe worth mentioning if there's anyone else as geographically challenged as I am, that Bundaberg is in Australia...
Has the Museum tried appealing in newspapers in Oz? Presumably, the medals made it that far if Mrs Linwood signed for them.