Sergeant Frank Reginald Wilson
1ST AUCKLAND REGIMENT
THE NEW ZEALAND DIVISION HAD played a significant part on 15th September, conquering the Switch Line in between Flers and High Wood. Among their ranks was a school teacher from Ponsonby, Auckland, who enlisted in February 1915. Frank Wilson was, like Rupert Inglis, a stand-out rugby player, having won caps for the All Blacks. With five years’ experience as a member of the Public School Cadets, unsurprisingly, Frank was promoted regularly after joining the army, until he was acting as a subaltern in August 1916 when an officer went sick in the battalion.
Sergeant Frank Wilson. (Authors’ collection)
The 1st Auckland Regiment had been in reserve as their countrymen captured the ground around Flers on 15th September and the men spent the day raiding the Guards’ canteen to the rear. The following day they left Mametz Wood in the direction of Flers to take up the line. The enemy was much aggrieved at the loss of the village, and laid down a potent combination of heavy barrages, machine-gun and sniper fire on the New Zealanders in residence.
That evening the weather broke. On 17th September Frank’s battalion worked against the elements to fashion trenches ready for another attack, but the rain made every move harder. ‘The clayey trenches became ditches, everywhere ankle deep, and many places knee deep, in viscous mud which clogged every step.’ The men were soaked through. ‘Cases of ‘trench feet’ caused anxiety. The task of consolidation and drainage became a hundredfold more onerous.’ The artillery could not move up either, and so assaults had to be cancelled. The weather had intervened just in time for the Germans to gather themselves after the Fourth Army attack.
On the 18th the rain continued. Wounded, Frank lay out on the battlefield unable to move. The one significant road approaching the New Zealanders’ line with rations, water and ammunition was heavily shelled and, while men from the reinforcement camps slaved to keep traffic moving, all other thoroughfares ‘became bogs of liquid mire’. There was bombing activity to the west of Flers and the battalion suffered a number of casualties that could not be evacuated until the next day. Frank Wilson was finally picked up and admitted to 45 Casualty Clearing Station on 19th September, but his wounds were too severe and he died later that day. Thirty-one years old, he was laid to rest at Dernancourt Communal Cemetery Extension, II.B.28.