Australian
Screen

Clip description

Infantry and transport now move up through Bapaume, a short time after its occupation by the Australian 30th Battalion on 17 March 1917 (see clip two). On 19 March, the band of the 5th Australian Infantry Brigade plays in the main square of Bapaume, just outside the town hall. Six days later, a mine has exploded beneath the town hall, burying 30 Australian soldiers. Their comrades dig in the ruins trying to find survivors.

Curator’s notes

Look closely at the first images of the band playing. As the camera pans to the right, we see a shop, with a soldier standing in the doorway. The sign above the shop says ‘Langer & Lefevre’. We can see the same shop directly behind the ambulance in the scene filmed after the mine exploded. That perspective tells us that the wreckage of the town hall has now completely covered the place where the band was playing in the first shot. In effect, the band was standing almost above the mine when they played. Charles Bean records in Volume IV of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 (1941, Chapter VI, p205) that the mine was triggered by a ‘chemical fuse’ set more than eight days before the explosion. The cellars of the town hall were searched when Bapaume was first occupied and a mine was found and removed. No-one suspected that there were in fact two mines under the town hall. Bean wrote that about 30 men were initially buried. They had been sleeping in the town hall – one of the buildings not burned out. ‘Large fatigue parties, digging furiously throughout that night and the next day, rescued alive six of the others.’

The still photo of the band became one of the most famous of the war for Australians. The description of the photo on the AWM website (E00426) identifies the band leader as Sergeant A Pheagan, and even the tune they were playing – the ‘Victoria March’. ‘Of the Australian Official Photographs, none gained a wider publicity than this. It was generally regarded as characteristic of the fine fighting spirit which animated the Australian troops in the dramatic event of that period.’ The photograph is unattributed, but it is likely the work of the official Australian photographer, Herbert Baldwin.