George Burrows
Burrows, George (1890-1984)
George Burrows’ place in engineering history probably pivots around one day in 1918, 8 August, when as an officer in the AIF he led a party of three sappers to destroy a huge German railway gun near Harbonnières, northern France, but instead brought it back through the lines. On repatriation to Australia, he took up the career of a professional civil engineer in the NSW Railways for the rest of his working life, except for a further two years’ military service in the Second World War.
George had been born at Penrith in 1890 as the youngest child to Edward and Rubina Burrows. In later reports at the time of the famous gun capture, he is described as the son of a railwayman and while this is true, Edward had retired in 1891 while George was still an infant. There was certainly a railway theme in his family as two of his brothers were employed there and his sister was married to Charles Barton, an electrical engineer in the railways.
Edward Burrows was a railwayman of note in his day, even if not in the experience of young George. As a very young man in the late 1860s he had worked for contractors Edwin Larkin and William Wakeford building the track from just west of the Nepean River (Victoria) bridge to Blackheath, on formation built by others, driving the construction locomotive. He later worked for the government railways but in 1891 when he retired was only 46 years of age. This date is known both from his obituary in 1931[1] and from railway employment records. Strangely, forty years later, his obituary notes that only in the week before his death at 86 years of age, he had seemed to be in excellent health during a conversation with Edward Lucy, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the NSWGR. Whatever he did in the later years of his life he maintained a recognised connection to the railway.[2]
George served five years as an apprentice at the Naval Dockyard, Cockatoo, and was employed by Meadowbank Engineering, a noted rolling stock manufacturer, at the time of outbreak of the Great War. His 1915 Attestation Papers for enlistment show his ‘calling’ as Engineer and much later, in 1941, when he re-enlisted for WWII, claimed as qualifications ‘Honours Maths & Applied Mechanics’ but no university degree. He was at this later time an Associate Member of the Institution of Engineers Australia. In 1915 he was allocated to the 1st Field Company of Engineers and reached Gallipoli in October 1915, near the end of the campaign, and his involvement was probably more to do with the evacuation than any fighting.
In France he transferred to the 14th Field Company of Engineers and rose rapidly through the ranks to 2/Corporal[3] on 1 May, Corporal on 14 May and Sergeant on 31 May 1916. Early in 1917 he was sent to the Engineer Training Centre, Deganwy, Wales and in August was commissioned as Lieutenant.
He returned to France and in November was awarded his first Military Cross:
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He constructed a strong point under heavy fire, and for four days supervised the wiring of the brigade front, in spite of heavy counter-attacks. He showed great coolness and determination.[4]
On 8 August 1918 a major offensive was launched by the allies, very much designed by Australian General John Monash, whose major innovations were stealth in preparation and surprise achieved by having no advance mass artillery bombardment. The Australian, Canadian and British divisions advanced rapidly.
For the attack George Burrows had been loaned to the 8th Field Company of Engineers which was attached to the 31st Battalion of the 5th Australian Division. The Engineers' purpose was to set up barbed-wire entanglements in front of the new front line and to dig a series of strong points 200 yards behind the new front for reserve companies.
In the event, the target line was quickly gained, but only about 200 metres beyond the limit of their planned advance near Harbonnières, troops of the 31st Battalion could see a large (11.2 inch)[5] German railway gun, complete as a train with locomotive, ammunition wagons and accommodation cars for the crew. It had been attacked by airmen, setting alight some cars, and British cavalry had overrun it and captured the crew. Lieutenant George Burrows went forward with two sappers, Leslie James Strahan and John Henry Palmer. Their task was to destroy the gun but instead they managed to raise steam on the locomotive, shunted the burning vehicles off the train, and then brought the assembly behind the front lines. This action was done under fire and at one stage the feed pipe from the injector on the locomotive was perforated by a machine gun bullet, but repairs were made with tracing tape.
Palmer’s account is recorded on the Australian War Memorial website’s description of the gun:
We had been sent with a quantity of Amanol to blow up the large gun … however Les Strahan one of our sappers in the party had been a driver in the Western Australian railways, and he found there was still a head of steam, he asked for a fair go, instead of blowing the gun up he got the engine going, we were told then to try to get it back if possible into a cutting so it could be camouflaged.
Palmer was a tradesman boilermaker with Queensland Railways before enlistment, so that between the three soldiers there was enough knowledge to repair and drive the foreign machine.
Later, in Sydney, the capture of the gun was documented in the Railway and Tramway Magazine of May 1920 and Burrows is quoted as saying:
It was a bit exciting while we were trying to get the gun away. I was all prepared to destroy her if we failed; but all's well that ends well.
He also told of other events at the time of capture:
There was one amusing incident, in connection with which I had better make the position clear. I was an officer of the 14th Field Company (5th Division), Engineers, and was on loan to the 8th Field Company only for the attack. I was on loan to them when the gun was captured. After the gun had been taken behind our lines the O.C. of the 8th Field Company sent a man up with a pot of white paint, and he painted on the side of the gun in large letters:–
Captured by the 8th Field Company
Naturally the seizure of such a big gun – with the bogies it weighed 185 tons – excited some interest. Besides, it was the gun that the Germans had brought up specially to shell Amiens. Well, when the announcement of the 8th Field Company appeared on it the C.O. of the 31st Battalion was not satisfied. As soon as he spotted it he sent along another man with another pot of paint, and the first announcement was painted out, and the new words painted on:–
Captured by the 31st Battalion
It was interesting, as well as amusing; but the fact is I was not under the orders of the C.O. of the 31st Battalion, but was under the orders of the O.C. of the 8th Field Company, although really an officer of the 14th Field Company.
This would appear to be not the end of the painting of capture claims on the gun. Photographic evidence in Sydney in 1920 shows the words:
Captured by the British 4th Army
The gun was brought about 600 yards but at that point the track had been damaged by shellfire. Messages were quickly sent for a party to repair the track – and for more water for the engine. The work was completed through the night but when the train moved again in the morning the gun derailed some wheels. The vehicle came equipped with several large jacks which were intended to lift it off its wheels for firing, and these were used to re-rail it. It was quickly moved to Bayonvillers, well safe from any German counter-offensive.
To access The Railway and Tramway Magazine report of capture of the gun use this link:
Burrows was, the next month, awarded a bar to his Military Cross for his gallantry in securing the weapon which had been damaging areas well behind the front line for months.
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during an attack. He was in charge of a section of sappers accompanying one of the assaulting battalions, and on reaching the final objective he saw a long-range gun, an engine, and some ammunition coaches which were on fire on a siding some 200 yards beyond the front line. He immediately took two sappers forward under heavy machine-gun fire, raised steam on the engine, and shunted the burning waggons[6] to another siding, and brought the gun back well within his lines. His determined courage an initiative resulted in the capture of a very valuable gun.[7]
Strahan and Palmer were awarded Military Medals in January 1919, presumably for their part in the capture of the gun. Although citations in both the London Gazette and the Commonwealth Government Gazette have been sighted they give no details. Tantalisingly, Strahan’s National Archives of Australia (NAA) file includes a letter to his mother advising of the award, including the words: The specific deed for which this decoration was awarded is attached hereto, but there is no attachment.
The gun was claimed as a trophy by the Australians, though not without dispute as there had been attacks on it by the Royal Air Force, the Australian Flying Corps, tanks, and cavalry had driven off the crew. Ultimately the Australian claim was accepted.
George Burrows went about his business as a soldier until he returned to Australia in 1919 and found employment with the NSW Railways as a 3rd class draftsman in the Railway Construction Branch in September 1921. Once work recommenced on the City Railway in 1922 Burrows was transferred to the Metropolitan Railway Construction Branch in July as Sub-Inspector. Here he may have met the Amiens Gun again.
After exhibition in Paris and shipment to England on a Channel ferry the gun was examined at Woolwich Arsenal and then loaded at Chatham onto a ship, Dongara, for dispatch to Australia. This ship was also a captured German asset, originally named Stetsenfels. Although the 31st Battalion was a Victorian unit and might in other circumstances have wanted the weapon exhibited in Melbourne, the trophy was Commonwealth property and had to go to NSW as that was the only state with the standard-gauge tracks to fit its bogies.
A siding was built towards the city from Central Station in Sydney, there being no city railway, and the gun exhibited there. This exhibition was not without its engineering dramas as the embankment on which the siding was constructed subsided under the weight of the vehicle and then it ran away and derailed off the end of the embankment.
Soon the work on the city railway and specifically the embankment and retaining walls across Belmore Park meant that the gun was in the way. Just what role George Burrows had in the display of the Amiens Gun in Sydney, if any, is unknown, but he was no doubt an interested observer.
It was always meant to go to Canberra to the not-yet-established War Museum, but in 1922 the new capital was only a construction site and the Commonwealth authorities would have preferred the trophy to have remained in a populated area where it could be seen and appreciated. Once the retaining walls of the City Railway were built the gun would have been landlocked and moving it would become a difficult and expensive task – so it was taken to Canberra. Its story there is a long and interesting one, but not part of this biography. In short it was exhibited at various locations near Canberra railway station until the Second World War when its chassis was taken to Port Wakefield in South Australia for use as a mounting to prove relined naval gun barrels. By the time that this use had concluded, well after the war, the Australian War Memorial had decided that re-assembling the gun was too great a task, so the chassis was scrapped at Port Wakefield, and the two five-axle bogies scrapped at Bandiana near Wodonga in Victoria where they had been stored after moving the chassis across the Murray River. The barrel had remained in Canberra and is now displayed at the Australian War Memorial.
Burrows remained with the City Railway project until May 1930, having risen to the position of Inspector in 1929, when he became Section Assistant Engineer at Parkes. In 1933 he was Assistant Engineer at South Grafton, in 1936 at Taree and in 1939 Assistant Engineer Civil Class 1 at Newcastle.
By 1940 Burrows could see that his career path would lead him back into the military, even though he was 50 years old. In that year he was selected to attend a School of Training in destruction of unexploded bombs and shells and on 16 June 1941 was released by the railways for 90 days camp with the Royal Australian Engineers. By August it had been decided that his service would be required in the military for the duration of the war.[8]
His service was in the Australian Military Forces, (The Militia) rather than the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) and this limited his availability outside Australia. This is presumed to be on the basis of his age as reading his acronymic military records would seem to suggest that he was willing to transfer to the AIF. He was commanding officer, as a Major, of the 60th Australian Corps Field Park Company, a construction and stores group, while it was based at Cluden near Townsville. When the unit moved overseas to New Guinea his secondment to the AIF was not approved and he was replaced as commanding officer. He served other roles including roles in Queensland, Northern Territory, and New South Wales Lines of Communication.
He was demobilised in July 1945, nominally resuming his position at Newcastle for a few days, though he was on leave, before taking up duty as Resident Engineer at Dubbo. The next year he relocated to Gosford and in 1947 to Blacktown where he remained until 1950 when he returned to Newcastle as Maintenance Engineer. In 1952 he was Supervising Engineer Construction at Head Office in Sydney, and it was in this position that he remained until he retired in 1956.
George Burrows had married Eva Jessie Watts on 9 March 1927[10]. They had three children, Ann, John and Jocelyn.[11] Eva died suddenly in August 1965 and George lived into his 95th year, passing away on 20 July 1984.[12] From at least the time of his marriage until his death George Burrows lived in Ranfurley Road, Bellevue Hill.
To access George Burrows' employment record use this link:
- ↑ Nepean Times 25 April 1931 p4)
- ↑ Nepean Times 25 April 1931 p4)
- ↑ There were more subdivisions in military ranks in 1916 than there are in later times.
- ↑ London Gazette, 19 November 1917
- ↑ The barrel diameter varies in different sources, sometimes given in metric terms.
- ↑ Often spelled thus in 1918
- ↑ London Gazette, 7 November 1918
- ↑ George Burrows employment record card. NRS 12922. Museums of History.
- ↑ https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2713897?image=2
- ↑ Sydney Morning Herald 10 March 1927. (NAA records show 1937)
- ↑ Sydney Morning Herald 25 August 1965.
- ↑ Sydney Morning Herald 21 July 1984.
