Bunbury soldier remembered through letters home | Remembrance Day

The day and the month would become momentous three years later, as the guns fell silent in the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month in the war to end all wars.

Percy, who was married when he left the family home in Albert Road, was a prolific writer, sending home more than 100 letters and postcards to his young wife and family.

His communications with those he left behind in Australia serve as an amazing insight into a soldier's experience, not just on the battlefields, but the daily routines the Anzac's experienced.

The young farmer had a talent for writing, his words painting pictures for the family back home.

He left Fremantle for Egypt as part of the 28th Battalion in January 1916, arriving the following month, immediately putting pen to paper.

Writing on February 28, 1916;

"I am having a real decent time over here, so much so that I am beginning to believe that I am a tourist instead of a soldier, because when my work is finished and time will allow I go and see all the sites... "

His letters would soon describe the Western Front's horror as the battalion left for France in March that year, moving up to the frontline in April.

With the Battle of the Somme, which began July 1, 1916, raging, the AIF was called on to take the strategic village of Pozieres later that month.

The 28th battalion joined the offensive on July 26, moving cautiously as both sides launched a massive artillery barrage that reduced much of the village to brick dust.

Troops were rendered deaf; some lost their minds, others were buried alive as trenches collapsed, dirt and bodies being flung into the air as shells exploded and shrapnel cut through men, flashes lit the night sky, and the air was thick with the smell of cordite.

"The slaughter was awful, "wrote Percy.

He went on to describe the attack;

"When the barrage lifted, we flew and made straight for those Deutscher's trenches with our bayonets when all of a sudden we were brought up standing by their barbed wire entanglements, which were left almost intact.

To our eternal sorrow, we left a long line of our best and bravest boys that Australia ever produced lying on that wire."

The attack was a disaster, being called off, with hundreds of casualties and no gain.

However, one week later, again, the battalion was sent to take the objective that had alluded them the previous month.

This time they were successful; following a better bombardment, much of the wire was destroyed, allowing movement to the trenches where the enemy surrendered.

It was not long before the Germans counter-attacked but were beaten back with massive casualties.

The enemy then subjected Percy and his mates to a massive artillery barrage, which Percy described as thus-

"There were guns of every caliber, whizz bangs, high explosives, shrapnel, coal boxes and gas shells, munition factories and iron foundries galore were thrown at us, and he exerted every possible method to blow us clean off that ridge.

And such an inferno, a real hell on earth, and it seemed impossible for a mosquito to live in it.

I got a pellet in my left leg just above the ankle and hung on a bit longer. On my way back, I got one clean through the right cheek. A small one in my right arm just above the elbow and finally I received a shrapnel graze across my left shoulder blade".

Percy Blythe was evacuated to England for treatment of his wounds and was awarded the Military Medal for the courage he showed on the night of July 28- July 29, 1916, in maintaining communications between officers while under severe enemy fire and placing the wounded in positions of safety.

He proudly wrote home saying.

"I was presented with my medal before a muster parade of seven thousand troops, and I tell you I felt some soldier that day."

Percy spent a year in England and Scotland recovering and completing officer training at Pembroke College, Cambridge, becoming a Second Lieutenant.

More than a year in the bloody trenches of the Western Front found a much matured philosophical Percy writing home in September 1917, saying-

"When one leaves all that is near and dear to him to go on such an uncertain quest, it brings a lump to one's throat and makes him wish to god that all this awful business was over."

Tragically for his young wife and family back in Bunbury, Percy's "awful business" was over in June 1918.

During an action at Morlancourt in the Somme area on June 10, Lieutenant Percy Blythe leading his men against machine-gun emplacements, was mortally wounded.