Anzac day

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Last updated on June 24th, 2017 at 10:06 am

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Les Carlyon:

The way Jimmy Downing, who was a solicitor from Victoria, describes it, he was in the brigade that attacked around VillersBretonneux from the north. There was another brigade, an Australian brigade, to the south. And the idea was to sort of envelope VillersBretonneux and cut off the Germans there.

Anyway, the way that Jimmy tells it, once they got going and they actually ran into the Germans, for some reason the Australians just went mad. And they literally yelled and charged. They yelled so loud on Jimmy Downing’s side that the Australians on the other side of VillersBretonneux – and it is a fair way away – they could actually hear the yells and they just literally bayoneted every German they could see …

These men in Jimmy Downing’s brigade had been at Fromelles and in part it was probably revenge for that. But it was a very bloody encounter and the Australians in fact saved VillersBretonneux that night.

Posted by Tim B. on 04/24/2008 at 10:24 AM
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