CASTLETON, CLAUD CHARLES
Rank:……………………….....Sergeant
Service No:…………………1352
Date of Death:……………29/07/1916
Age:…………………………....23
Regiment/Service:……..Australian Machine Gun Corps
……………………………........5th Coy.
Awards:……………………...V C
Grave Reference:………IV. L. 43.
Cemetery:
POZIERES BRITISH CEMETERY, OVILLERS-LA BOISSELLE
Additional Information:
Son of Thomas Charles and Edith Lucy Castleton, of 18, Wilson Rd., Lowestoft, England.
CWGC: www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/588626/CASTLETON,%20C...
His Australian Army Service record can be accessed online from here:-
recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/Details...
Claud Charles Castleton was born Kirkley, Lowestoft and at the time of his enlistment on the 15th March 1915 at Liverpool, New South Wales, his age was recorded as 21 years 11 months. A single man, he gave his occupation as a Prospector. He gave his next of kin as his father, Mr T(?) Castleton, of 18 Wilson Road, South Lowestoft. (Mr Castleton subsequently moved to 20 Rochester Road, South Lowestoft, Suffolk, circa 1924).
At his medical he was described at 5 feet 7 and a half inches tall, weighed 160lbs and had a fair complexion with blue eyes and light brown hair.
He was initially assigned to “D” Company, 18th Battalion. He sailed from Sydney aboard H.M.A.T. “Ceramic” on the 25th June 1915.
He was sent to the Gallipoli Peninsula on the 16th August 1915.
He was transferred from the 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station at “Anzac” to the Hospital Ship “Nevaska” on the 15th September 1915, before being admitted to the 1st Australian Hospital at “Luna Park” (Egypt) on the 19th. He was diagnosed with Dysentery. After a couple of moves he was discharged to duty on the 22nd October 1915. Promoted to Corporal on the 7th December 1915, he was sent back to Gallipoli on the 8th. He was evacuated with his unit, returning to Alexandria via Mudros on the 9th January 1916.
He was admitted to hospital in Egypt again on the 27th January 1916, this time with Malaria, being discharged on the 15th February 1916 and rejoining his unit on the 17th. On the 20th he was promoted Temporary Sergeant. On the 8th March 1916 he was transferred from the 18th Battalion to the 5th Machine Gun Company, retaining his original service number. His promotion to Sergeant was confirmed on the 16th March 1916. On the 23rd March 1916 he landed at Marseilles.
He was recorded as Killed in Action on the 29th July 1916. He was buried between Pozieres + Bazentin-Le-Grand-Petit, 4 and three quarter miles N.E. of Albert.
There is a note that pension claims from Thomas and mother Edith Lucy Castleton were rejected in May 1917 as they had adequate means. However a pension of 5 shilling “p.f.” – (Per fortnight?) was awarded in January 1918.
There are papers from 1968 – an enquiry from his brother as the local council were planning a memorial.
12th April 1893 – Birth
(Source – newspaper clipping in his Army Service record – see “On the day” below>)
The birth of a Claud Charles Castleton was registered in the Mutford District in the April to June quarter, (Q2), of 1893.
(Mutford District covered Lowestoft and the nearby villages. As Lowestoft extended southwards in the late Victorian era, it joined up with the small town of Kirkley.)
1901 Census of England and Wales
The 7 year old “Claude” Castleton, born Kirkley, Suffolk, was recorded living at Rose Cottage, Wilson Road, Kirkley, Lowestoft. This was the household of his parents, Thomas, (aged 34, a Bricklayer, born Lowestoft) and Edith, (aged 32, born Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire). As well as Claude the couple also have an older son living with them, Francis, (13, born Kirkley).
1911 Census of England and Wales
The Castleton family were still probably living in the same building, but now the address is given as 18 Wilson Road, South Lowestoft. Parents Thomas C, (44) and Edith L. (42), have been married 23 years and have had 2 children, both then still alive and living with them. Older son Francis W, (23), was a Law Clerk for a firm of Solicitors. His younger brother Claud C, (17), was a Student Teacher. Both are shown as born Lowestoft.
1912 – bound for Australia.
A 19 year old Claude Castleton boarded the “Orama” at London in 1912, bound for Melbourne, Australia.
His Wikipedia article adds
In 1912 he set off on a long adventure, stopping first at Melbourne, Australia. He worked in various parts of Australia before heading to New Guinea, intending to earn funds for the return journey to England via New Zealand, India and Africa. Matters changed with the outbreak of the First World War; he joined the Australian force formed in New Guinea for the defence of the area in the face of German warship activities.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claud_Castleton
On the day
POZIERES BRITISH CEMETERY, OVILLERS-LA BOISSELLE
Location Information
Pozieres is a village some 6 kilometres north-east of Albert, and the Cemetery, which is enclosed by the Pozieres Memorial, is a little south-west of the village on the north side of the main road (D929) from Albert to Pozieres.
Historical Information
The village of Pozieres was attacked on 23 July 1916 by the 1st Australian and 48th (South Midland) Divisions, and was taken on the following day. It was lost on 24-25 March 1918, during the great German advance, and recaptured by the 17th Division on the following 24 August.
Plot II of POZIERES BRITISH CEMETERY contains the original burials of 1916, 1917 and 1918, carried out by fighting units and field ambulances. The remaining plots were made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields immediately surrounding the cemetery, the majority of them of soldiers who died in the Autumn of 1916, but a few represent the fighting in August 1918.
The following were among the more important burial grounds from which British graves were concentrated to Pozieres British Cemetery:-
CASUALTY CORNER CEMETERY, CONTALMAISON, on the road from Pozieres to Fricourt, used in the summer and autumn of 1916, which contained the graves of 21 Canadian soldiers, 21 Australian and 13 from the United Kingdom.
DANUBE POST CEMETERY, THIEPVAL (named from a trench and a Dressing Station), between the site of Thiepval village and Mouquet Farm. Here were buried, in the winter of 1916-17, 34 soldiers from the United Kingdom, mainly of the R.F.A.
NAB JUNCTION CEMETERY, OVILLERS-LA BOISSELLE, at the crossing of the Thiepval-Pozieres Road and "Nab Valley", in which 60 soldiers from the United Kingdom and one German prisoner were buried in the winter of 1916-17.
There are now 2,760 Commonwealth servicemen buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,382 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 23 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. There is also 1 German soldier buried here.
CWGC: www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2000092/POZIERES%20...
As part of the commemoration of the outbreak of the Great War, the CWGC have added a number of original documents to their website. One of these on their webpage for Claud is a Concentration Report – details of his move to his current resting place. However other than adding the information he was in a grave with two markers, (a battalion one and a standard issue army one), its not very clear where he was originally interred.
Citation
An extract from "The London Gazette", No. 29765, dated, 26th Sept., 1916, records the following:-"For most conspicuous bravery. During an attack on the enemy''s trenches the infantry was temporarily driven back by the intense machine gun fire opened by the enemy. Many wounded were left in "No Man''s Land" lying in shell holes. Serjt. Castleton went out twice in face of this intense fire and each time brought in a wounded man on his back. He went out a third time and was bringing in another wounded man when he was himself hit in the back and killed instantly. He set a splendid example of courage and self-sacrifice"
CWGC: www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/588626/CASTLETON,%20C...
www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/29765/supplement/9418/d...
There is an undated newspaper cutting in his service record, which gives this account. (The reverse side includes an article about the 1980 Australia Day Honours, so presumably it dates from that time.) It has a picture of Claud to accompany the text.
The same picture is also held at the Australian War Memorial archive.
www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1497?search
Events leading to the action began with an ill-fated night attack, which failed because of planning faults, the enemy’s alertness and the severity of enemy reaction.
The attack was to be delivered by the 17th, 18th, and 20th Battalions against a section of the enemy lines known as the “O.G. Trenches” on Pozieres Heights.
Makeshift “jumping-off” arrangements, without a covering barrage, led to the enemy detecting waves of troops as they moved across an open basin in front of the objective, in order to be within easy striking distance of the trenches after the conclusion of a one-minute intense barrage on O.G.1 shortly after midnight on July 28th, 1916.
The Germans, who regularly sent up flares over this part of the battlefield, quickly spotted the advance.
The enemy immediately opened fire. Flares began to rise thickly; other machine-guns came into action and soon afterwards a barrage of high explosive, phosgene gas and tear-gas shells began to fall.
All movement was completely stopped. Parties tried to advance by crawling from crater to crater, but by now the flares had turned the night into day.
Machine-gun fire was so fierce that zero-hour arrived and passed without the slightest hope of advancing.
For three hours the troops lay out in this withering fire, until their withdrawal an hour before dawn.
The 5th Brigade casualties amounted to six officers and 140 men, mostly in the 20th Battalion.
It was under these terrible conditions, while waiting for withdrawal, that Sgt Castleton, serving with 5th Machine Gun Company, AIF, sacrifice his life for wounded comrades.
Despite the intensity of enemy fire, he succeeded in bringing two comrades to safety without sustain injury to himself, but on his third foray, while carrying another soldier to allied lines, he was hit in the back and killed instantly”
It goes on to add that he was born South Lowestoft, England, on April 12,1893 and emigrated to Australia, in 1912, aged 19. At the time war broke out he was living in Port Moresby. He enlisted immediately and was placed in charge of native troops for coastal defence duties. It was after that that he enlisted for overseas service in March 1915.
(Cropped from the original newspaper article)
