| Captain Clarence Smith Jeffries
Captain Clarence Smith Jeffries
Unit: 34th Battalion, 9th Brigade, 3rd Division
Action: 12 October 1917, Passchendaele, Belgium
Jeffries, 12 days short of his 23rd birthday, was involved in the third attack by the Australians on Passchendaele.
The attack stalled at two pillboxes east of Augustus Wood.
The citation says: ``Organising a party, he rushed one emplacement, capturing four machine-guns and 35 prisoners. He then led his company forward under extremely heavy enemy artillery barrage and enfilade machine-gun fire to the objective.
``Later, he again organised a successful attack on a machine-gun emplacement, capturing two machine-guns and 30 more prisoners. This gallant officer was killed during the attack, but it was entirely due to his bravery and initiative that the centre of the attack was not held up for a lengthy period. His example had a most inspiring influence.''
The attack failed, but Passchendaele was eventually captured by Canadian troops.
Biography: Jeffries, born in Wallsend, New South Wales on 26 October 1894, worked as a surveyor at the Abermain Collieries run by his father before signing up for the AIF.
Jeffries had a background with the militia, and was appointed second lieutenant in the 34th Battalion before he was shipped out in May 1916.
He was wounded in the thigh at Messines in June 1917 and promoted to captain four months before the VC action. He is buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery, near Passchendaele.
__________________ Spidge,
------------------------------------------------------- My Avatar is the memorial to the 22 Commonwealth Coastwatchers at the Temakin Cemetery on Betio (Tarawa Atoll) who were beheaded by the Japanese on 15th October 1942. http://www.dva.gov.au/media/publicat...mem_beito.html
"You were given the choice between war and dishonor.
You chose dishonor and you will have war."
(Winston Churchill made this prophetic pronouncement in a House of Commons speech in 1938, just after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich agreement with Hitler. Chamberlain returned from Germany with the signed agreement in hand, proclaiming that "peace in our time" had been achieved. Churchill attacked Chamberlain's "politics of appeasement" in this and many other speeches.)
What did the Australians do in ww2 and other conflicts? Check out this site:
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